Distribution values, i.e. prices per minute

The price per minute, i.e. the distribution value, is the monetary value in EUR put on a performed minute of a work in the distribution. Prices per minute depend on the distribution category.

The term “distribution category” refers to the various situations where music is used. Distribution categories include commercial radio stations, national Yle TV channels and NPVR services. Distribution categories are used in allocating royalties to the right works and their authors.

The price per minute used in the distribution cannot be directly calculated from the music royalties paid by music users. Instead, it is based on the total distributable amount.

The total distributable amount is calculated as follows – the royalties (licence fees) paid by music users to Teosto over the financial year are used as a basis, and then:

• other income of the financial year is added;
• operating costs are deducted from the remaining total;
• cultural contributions are deducted from the remaining total;
• funds transfers to other distribution categories are made;
• transferable appropriations are added to the remaining total.

You can find more information on what is added and deducted from the total distributable amount in section 5.2 of the Distribution Rules.

The prices of licences are affected by, for example, the music’s method of use, the amount of music, the turnover of the music user and the annual number, attendance or proceeds from ticket sales of events including music, etc.

Our price lists for music use are public and they can be found on the Get a Licence page (in Finnish). The pricing principles of the licences comply with competition law, and compliance is monitored by the Finnish Competition and Consumer Authority.

The basis of the distributions and the royalties paid to rightsholders, i.e. music authors and publishers, each year is always the amount of royalties allocated to each distribution category from that year’s total distributable amount, which is divided by the number of minutes of music performed in the distribution category in question.

In the distribution, multipliers may be applied to prices per minute within some distribution categories in order to carry out grouping or weighting on the basis of the quality, value, significance, extent or other similar characteristic of the use of works within the distribution category. Teosto’s Board of Directors decides on the multipliers.

Teosto’s expenses have already been deducted from the prices per minute, i.e. the distribution values. Withholding tax and other possible personal deductions of rightsholders are deducted when the royalties are paid to them.

Royalties that are based on prices per minute are always distributed in a work-specific way, not in an author-specific way. If the work has multiple authors and a publisher or publishers, the royalties allocated to the work are divided among the parties in accordance with the royalty shares they have specified in the work notification.

The basis of the distributions and the royalties paid to rightsholders, i.e. music authors and publishers, each year is always the amount of royalties allocated to each distribution category from that year’s total distributable amount, which is divided by the number of minutes of music performed in the distribution category in question.

Teosto’s Board of Directors decides on the allocation of the total distributable amount to the distribution categories and the multipliers possibly applied to the distribution category’s prices per minute.

In this table, the prices per minute are estimates of the works’ distribution values that are based on the values of previous years. In actual distributions, the prices per minute are accurate values calculated on the basis of royalties and the number of music performance minutes for that specific distribution period. Multipliers have been applied to the values in some distribution categories.

In order to avoid making the table too detailed and to keep it readable and understandable, we have only listed the main categories of performance situations. For this reason, the estimates of the prices per minute for future distributions are also presented as price ranges rather than exact amounts. The price ranges also give an idea of the usual annual variation of prices per minute for different performance situations.

The basis of the royalties paid to music authors and publishers is always the amount of royalties allocated to each distribution category from that year’s total distributable amount, which is divided by the number of minutes of music performed in the distribution category in question. The distribution categories’ prices per minute are also affected by the costs of collecting royalties as well as collecting and processing reports (music use information) in the distribution category in question.