Strong growth in royalties collected by Teosto from the international markets

Teosto has systematically developed its processes and capabilities in international activities over the past few years. This is reflected in clear growth in royalties accumulated from performances outside Finland.

In 2022, the royalties collected outside Finland on behalf of Finnish composers, lyricists, arrangers and music publishers exceeded EUR 5 million for the first time, representing an increase of 25% compared to 2021. In international royalties, the online category has emerged as the largest distribution category by a clear margin (totalling EUR 1.8 million in 2022) ahead of the radio and live music categories.

“One of our key improvements has been obtaining better visibility to data on international royalties. We are now even more capable of monitoring the development of international royalties and changes therein – not only on a country-specific basis, but also at the distribution category, author and work levels. This enables us to focus our actions on the areas that have the highest growth potential,” says Antti Härmänmaa, who was Chief International and Legal Officer at Teosto until the end of September.

“We have also increased our cooperation with copyright societies in other countries to identify growth opportunities and implement best practices. We have also focused particularly on the identification of foreign performances of AV works.”

Distributions paid from Finland to foreign rightholders are also increasing. In 2022, Teosto distributed EUR 32 million to foreign copyright societies, which represents a year-on-year increase of 7%.

A growing number of music authors are pursuing international careers

The responsibility for Teosto’s international operations was assigned to Chief Customer Experience Officer Miia Engberg effective from 1 October 2023. Engberg will handle international operations in addition to her previous duties related to rightholder services and customer service.

In the role of Chief International Officer, Engberg succeeds Antti Härmänmaa, who left Teosto at the beginning of October to pursue other opportunities.

“A growing number of Finnish rightholders are pursuing international careers, which makes the accurate and efficient collection of foreign royalties an increasingly important area of operations. Combining international services with our other services for music authors will enable us to serve authors and music publishers operating in the international markets even better than before,” Engberg says.

Teosto has signed reciprocal representation agreements with almost 100 foreign copyright societies. In practice, this means that when an author’s music is played outside Finland, the local copyright society collects royalties and passes them on to Finnish music authors and publishers through Teosto. Teosto also collects royalties in the online category directly from international digital platforms through its Nordic Polaris Hub collaboration.

Foreign music is listened to and performed to a significant extent in Finland. Each year, over half of Teosto’s total distributions are paid to foreign copyright societies.

“We want to ensure that our international partner organisations are satisfied with Teosto’s operations, and we want to actively develop cooperation to benefit both Finnish and international rightholders and increase distributions,” Engberg notes.

“Antti Härmänmaa deserves a lot of credit for his excellent contribution to developing our international operations. We have created a strong foundation for continuing the development of an even more international Teosto. Under Miia Engberg’s leadership, we will further improve our services for authors and music publishers who have an international orientation, and we will strengthen foreign rightholders’ trust in Teosto’s ability to look after their rights in Finland as effectively as possible,” says Teosto’s CEO Risto Salminen.