Teosto to overhaul its reporting and distribution system with Spanish Point Technologies
In 2023–2024, Teosto will be overhauling its business-critical systems, which are used to report use of music and distribute royalties to music authors and publishers. The overhaul will be carried out as a joint Nordic project, and the Irish software company Spanish Point Technologies has been chosen as the system supllier. The goal is to modernise the systems and make them more efficient in order to meet the current and future needs of music authors, publishers and users as well as international partners.
For Teosto, this will be the most significant project of the decade, and it will be used to overhaul the technological framework of a large part of core rights management processes. The project’s goal is to modernise the current music usage report information systems, automate report processing and make it more efficient as well as make the distribution of royalties to music authors and publishers smoother.
Spanish Point’s modern cloud-based solution, the Matching Engine, includes a wealth of features to drive automation, improve data accuracy and drive down costs. With over 14 years of experience, Spanish Point is well known in the field of collective rights management and its customers include the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) as well as many others in the field.
“We must overhaul our technological solutions in order to meet the current and future requirements in the globalising and digitalising music rights market and maintain our position as one of the most progressive collective management organisations,” Salminen says.
“We are looking forward to working with Teosto and to continuing helping collective rights management organisations to automate work process and improve data quality with our Matching Engine solution” says Spanish Point Technologies’ Chief Technology Officer, John Corley.
The system overhaul has been prepared in cooperation with the collective management organisations of different countries. In addition to Teosto, the project’s participants include the music collective management organisations Koda (Denmark) and Tono (Norway). The project will proceed gradually and is set to be completed in 2024.
The extensive system overhaul enables more flexible service
At this stage, the agreement applies to the back-office functions of distribution and reporting, but the new system also offers opportunities for developing new data and reporting functions for customers and rightsholders in the future.
This is a continuation of the extensive system renewals that Teosto started in 2018. These projects involved developing automation and revamping the web services bit by bit. In the near future, Teosto will also develop its work documentation systems.
“Together, these projects allow us to carry out more flexible further development and offer more extensive digital services to Teosto members and customers,” Salminen says.
Improving data quality is one of the goals
The project’s key goals also include improving data quality. Collective management organisations like Teosto receive huge quantities of music usage reports from their customers, such as media companies, platforms and event organisers. The information in the reports must be correctly linked to work databases, which contain the information about the works’ composers, lyricists, arrangers and publishers. Spanish Point’s Matching Engine solution includes a wide range of functions for automation and data quality improvement that make data processing more efficient.
“Millions of rows of data pass through our systems every month. The matching engine solution has helped many rights management organisations to solve data-related problems, such as errors in the works’ metadata. By improving data quality, we can ensure the transparency of distribution and, most importantly, make sure that royalties are paid to the correct rightsholders,” says Jouni Sirén, Teosto’s Chief Service Officer.
About Spanish Point
Spanish Point Technologies is a software company that has worked with collective rights organisations since 2007. Our high-performance engine, the Matching Engine supports organisations to address metadata errors and ensure music royalties can be traced accurately and transparently. Spanish Point was named ‘Independent Software Vendor (ISV) Partner of the Year 2022’ at the Microsoft Inspire Partner Awards, for their innovative Matching Engine application. The company is Irish and was established in 2005. For more information about Spanish Point, please visit their website at https://www.spanishpoint.ie/.
About Teosto
Teosto is a trusted Finnish copyright organisation that enables professional music-making and music use. We make sure that music makers can focus on their work by collecting the remunerations for the use of their music and by paying the remunerations to them. For music users, we provide a wide repertoire of famous and moving musical works that create additional value for their operations. We know the needs of music makers and users and build a bridge between them. www.teosto.fi