Register your works as soon as they are ready

Submit a work notification

Composer 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)

The authors and publishers of the work are paid royalties in accordance with the royalty shares specified for each party in the work notification. The authors agree on the royalty shares of the work themselves. It’s advisable to agree on royalty shares already during the creation of the work, and the limits defined in Teosto’s distribution rules must be considered when agreeing on royalty shares.

The publisher’s share is agreed on in the publishing agreement between the author and the publisher. The publisher is only paid a share of the royalties of the author with whom the publisher has a publishing agreement.

No less than 20% and no more than 80% must be registered as the share of both the composition and the possible lyrics in such a way that the shares total 100%. If no lyrics have been written for the composition, the royalty share of the composition alone can be 100%.

According to international practice, a new work does not need an arranger. If the arrangement has been done by the composer and/or lyricist of the work, no separate arranger or arranger’s royalty share needs to be recorded in the work notification: it’s enough if the shares of the composition and the lyrics total 100%.

PLEASE NOTE! It’s not necessary to make the royalty shares of the composition and lyrics of a work equal. Either share can be greater than the other: for example, the composition’s royalty share can be 80% while the lyrics’ royalty share is 20% or the composition’s share can be 60% and the lyrics’ share 40%. Also, personal royalty shares do not have to be divided equally between all the authors. Instead, the authors are free to decide how the shares are divided.

Example 1: The work has both a composition and lyrics

The authors have decided to give equal royalty shares to the composition and the lyrics, i.e. a share of 50% to the composition and a share of 50% to the lyrics, which amount to 100%.
The authors have also decided to divide their personal royalty shares equally among all the authors.
- There are five composers, who each get a personal royalty share of 10% for the composition (50/5 = 10)
- There are three lyricists, who each get a personal royalty share of 16.67% for the lyrics (50/3 = 16.67)

Example 2: The work is a composition without lyrics

The authors have decided to divide their personal royalty shares equally among all the authors.
- In this case, the royalty share of the composition is 100%.
- There are five composers, who each get a personal royalty share of 20% for the composition (100/5 = 20)

Example 3: The work has both a composition and lyrics

The authors have decided to make the composition’s royalty share 60% and the lyrics’ royalty share 40%, which amount to 100%.
The authors can divide the royalty shares of both the composition and the lyrics as they wish into personal royalty shares for the authors (five composers and three lyricists).
- 60% royalty share for the composition, e.g. 30 + 15 + 5 + 5+ 5 = 60 or 20 + 20 + 10 + 5 + 5 = 60, etc., as long as the total of personal royalty shares for the composition is 60%.
- 40% royalty share of the lyrics, e.g. 30 + 5 + 5 = 40 or 15 + 15 +10 = 40, etc., as long as the total of personal royalty shares is 40%.

If an arranger is named for a completely new work and a separate arrangement share is defined, this share may not exceed 33.33% of the composition’s royalty share or 16.67% of the whole work’s share.

The royalty share of an arrangement of an existing work can be a maximum of 16.67% of the whole work’s royalty share.

You can apply for a larger arrangement share for a new arrangement of an existing work by submitting a separate application to Teosto’s Repertoire Committee. The arrangement share granted on the basis of the application may be 25% or a maximum of 33.33%.

Example: The work has a composition and lyrics. A part of the arrangement was done by the composer, and a part of the arrangement was done by a separate arranger.

The composer and lyricist have decided that the royalty share of the composition is 60% and the royalty share of the lyrics is 40%, which amount to 100%.
The work has one composer, one lyricist and one arranger.
The composer has decided to create a 10% arrangement share out of the composition’s royalty share, leaving the composition’s share at 50%. As far as the composer is concerned, the composition’s share also covers their arrangement work.
Since there is only one composer and one arranger, the personal royalty shares of both are equal to the entire royalty shares of the composition and the arrangement: the composer’s personal royalty share is 50% and the arranger’s personal royalty share is 10%.
Unless separately agreed on with the lyricist, arrangement shares are generally not deducted from the royalty share of the lyrics, which means that the lyricist’s personal royalty share is the same as the entire royalty share of the lyrics.

The arranger of an existing Work is entitled to an arrangement share if the original work has been creatively adapted in the arrangement.

How to get arrangement and translation permissions?

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(s)

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

Search