Register your works as soon as they are ready
Submit a work notificationComposer Sauli Zinovjev
Member of Teosto since 2009
When you create a new composition, lyrics or arrangement, you create a work protected by copyright. As our member, you can receive royalties whenever your work is performed or reproduced (audio or AV recording). Payment of royalties requires that a work notification has been submitted for the work.
At Teosto, we protect the copyright of our members’ works, collect royalties for the use of the works and distribute them to the authors. However, we can only protect the copyright of works that have been registered to us.
Always remember to submit a work notification for a new work in our web service. When you submit a work notification, the work will be registered in an international work database and assigned an ISWC identifier.
The work registration process takes about five business days, so please submit a work notification immediately after the work is ready. Don’t wait for your work to be performed or published – you can (and should) submit a work notification in advance.
What is reported in the work notification?
- Title of work
- Authors, i.e. composer, lyricist, arranger and possible translator
- Royalty shares, i.e. the percentage of the work’s royalties to be paid to each author (and publisher if the author has a publishing agreement)
If necessary, you can correct the work information in the web service even after you have submitted the work notification.
Register your works as soon as possible
Submit a work notification in the web service as soon as the work is ready. This is especially important if the work will be published on streaming services.
Streaming services will try to identify the work you are uploading by using international work databases. If the work is not found in the databases, it will not be possible to distribute royalties for the work from these services. The services will attempt to identify the work a few times, but if the work is not found within the specified time (e.g. 300 days after publication for Spotify), the services will not pay any royalties for the work.
When do I need to submit a new work notification, and when should I edit an existing one?
Submit a new work notification for a new version of an existing work if it has different authors or if the shares of the authors differ from those in the original work notification.
Add an identifier to the name of the new version that distinguishes it from the original work (e.g. Extended or RadioMix). This makes it easier to identify the new work and to allocate royalties.
Edit an existing work notification if you notice that incorrect information has been recorded for the work (e.g. incorrect royalty shares or wrong author). The composer and lyricist of the work can independently edit the work notification via the web service.
This does not apply to published works: published works must be edited by the publisher.
Work notifications for published and self-administered works
- If you have a publisher, please agree with the publisher on who will submit the work notifications. If you do not have a publisher, but you are creating a work together with an author who has a publisher, ask them to agree with their publisher on registering the work.
- Only the publisher may record the publisher’s share for the work. For this reason, it’s best if the publisher submits the work notification in situations where one or more of the authors are published.
- Also submit a work notification for all your self-administered works. When you signed Teosto’s membership agreement, you agreed to submit a work notification for all your works – including those that you self-administer. Submitting a work notification does not restrict or negatively affect the rights that you administer yourself, but it makes it possible to identify the work if it is used outside of the area you self-administer.
- Example 1: Only a short excerpt of a grand right work (e.g. opera, ballet) is performed during a television or radio programme. In this case, the performing rights are not covered by self-administration. Instead, Teosto will collect and distribute the performing right royalties to you.
- Example 2: Music composed for a game is performed in a context other than the game – for example, during a live performance. Teosto will collect and distribute the performing right royalties to you.
C = composer
A = lyricist (author)
AR = arranger
E = publisher (editor)
CA = composer-author
SA = text adapter/translator (sub-author)
A work notification must also be submitted for improvised works. The work notification must be submitted after the performance is “completed”, i.e. after the performance has taken place. The work notification must specify who are the authors of the composition and any lyrics and what are the royalty shares of each author for composition and lyrics of the work.
A pseudonym is a stage name or pen name that a music composer, lyricist or arranger may choose to use as their author name when submitting a work notification and registering a work. The pseudonym should be as personal and distinctive as possible to avoid confusion between different people.
If you wish to use a pseudonym in your work notifications, you must notify Teosto of this so that we can register it in your information. If the pseudonym is not registered, we will not be able to allocate and distribute the royalties collected for the use of the work to the right people.
A pseudonym can be public, “Teosto public” or secret. If a pseudonym is public, the real name of the author behind the pseudonym is also public information. In the case of a Teosto public pseudonym, other Teosto music author members can see the real name of the author behind the pseudonym. In the case of a secret pseudonym, no information about the author behind the pseudonym will be disclosed to anyone by Teosto.
Notify Teosto of a pseudonym (in Finnish)
If you need service in English, please contact our customer service.
Copyright protects works that are original and independently created by a human author. Teosto has signed the Core Principles for Artificial Intelligence Applications (in Finnish), which emphasise that copyright protects and rewards human artistry, not content created and produced by machines.
Copyright law protects the results of human creativity. This means that compositions or lyrics that are 100% AI-generated cannot be protected as new works, and registering an AI-generated work as a protected work in Teosto’s works register is not allowed.
However, the disclaimers above do not mean that you cannot use AI in your work; AI can support human creativity, make the creative process more efficient, and give an increasing number of people the opportunity to realise their artistic visions.
At Teosto, we understand the opportunities that technological development brings, and we encourage authors to try different methods and tools. At the same time, we emphasise the importance of using AI tools responsibly.
Works created with the assistance of AI can be registered in the work register if, and only if:
- artificial intelligence has been used as a technical tool in the creative process; or
- the author has created protected music and only one part of the work (composition or lyrics) is fully AI-generated.
Instructions for registering a work created with the assistance of artificial intelligence