Teosto amends affiliation agreements for music authors and publishers in the spring of 2019 to enable more flexibility

Teosto’s affiliation agreements for music authors and publishers will be amended in the spring of 2019. The new agreements will offer Teosto’s customers more flexibility to administer their copyrights. The context for the amendment is the draft commitment Teosto made to the Finnish Competition and Customer Authority (KKV), which approved it on December 18.

After the amendment of Teosto’s affiliation agreements, composers, lyricists, and music publishers can agree on the terms of how their music is used more flexibly, while still continuing to be Teosto’s customers. Until now, Teosto has taken care of the terms and pricing for the usage of music on behalf of the music authors and publishers it represents in almost all circumstances where music is used.

“Our goal is to improve Teosto’s operations and services to respond to the changing demands of our customers and the market,” says Risto Salminen, CEO of Teosto. “Amending the affiliation agreements to be more flexible is part of this development. However, the new powers provided by the amended affiliation agreement are optional. If our music author and publisher customers prefer, we will continue to administer their rights on their behalf in a reliable and professional fashion, as we have done for 90 years.”.

The amendment concerns the possibility for Teosto’s rightholder customers to remove individual works from Teosto’s administration and grant licenses for individual works for specific and case-by-case uses. The amendment will take effect in the spring, and Teosto’s customers will be informed about it in early 2019.

“We will continue to provide comprehensive services to music authors and publishers and want to be a familiar and trusted partner for them in a changing market environment. Our strength is the solid expertise of copyright management, gained over our 90 years of existence. We want to be able to guarantee our customers the best possible conditions to function and create music professionally in the changing music market,” says Salminen.