Asset Publisher

17 March 2011

CELAS and KODA, STIM, TEOSTO and TONO sign sub-agent contracts for Scandinavian countries

CELAS GmbH KODA, STIM, TEOSTO and TONO have reached an agreement for the management of the Anglo-American online rights of EMI Music Publishing, one of the World’s largest music publishers, in the Nordic area (Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway).
Under the terms of the agreement CELAS and the societies have created a framework for licensing of both domestic and international services operating in the Nordic region. For some services CELAS will be the primary licensor and for other services the four societies will be able to offer the CELAS repertoire along with their own licences in their respective countries. In addition the four societies will have the possibility to work together to offer pan-Nordic online licences in conjunction with the Nordisk Copyright Bureau (NCB).

"We are very pleased about the signing of the contract. With the four collective management societies KODA, STIM, TEOSTO and TONO we now have local partners that are very familiar with the respective national and regional markets. This allows for more efficient and faster licensing by providers of national and regional digital and mobile services," said Alexander Wolf and Nick Williamson, managing directors of CELAS GmbH, in summarizing the advantages of the contract for music users and copyright holders.

"We are very happy about signing the contracts, because it broadens the range of online and mobile rights that we administer. The contracts make it possible for us to offer the EMI repertoire represented by CELAS to online music providers in the region and is a testament to our strategy of facilitating service providers with easier access to music as well as simplifying the underlying copyright administration. We are looking forward to working together with CELAS in the future," said representatives from KODA, STIM, TEOSTO and TONO in a joint statement.

These agreements provide a pragmatic solution for the licensing of global repertoires in national markets within the framework of the legal situation for pan-European licensing. Licensees and copyright holders will profit equally from the resulting simplified licensing opportunities.

Information on partners
CELAS GmbH is a joint venture between GEMA (Germany) and PRS for Music (UK), which implements the Pan-European licensing of the mechanical reproduction rights of the Anglo-American repertoire of EMI Music Publishing in the fields of online and mobile services. CELAS was founded as a result of the online recommendation of the European Commission on October 18, 2005.

KODA, STIM, TEOSTO and TONO are the Performing Rights Societies in Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Norway. The societies are non-profit associations owned by those who create the music - the authors - and music publishers. The societies license the copyrights to music and lyrics on behalf of the authors and publishers, and they collect and distribute the royalties individually to these rights holders.

NCB (Nordisk Copyright Bureau) is owned by KODA, STIM, TEOSTO, TONO and Icelandic STEF and licenses and administers the mechanical reproduction rights for all the Nordic and Baltic collecting societies. The head office is in Copenhagen and there are branch offices in Helsinki, Oslo, Reykjavik, Riga, Stockholm, Tallinn and Vilnius.


Press / media contacts: CELAS:    
Isabel Palmtag, press officer and director of online projects
E-mail: ipalmtag@gema.de; tel.: +49 - 89 - 48 003 429

KODA:    
Birgitte T. Henriksen, Press Relations Manager
E-mail: bhe@koda.dk; tel.: +45 2928 7786
Jakob Hüttel, Head of International Legal Affairs
E-mail: jhl@koda.dk; tel.: +45 2712 3585

STIM:    
Susanne Bodin, Director of Communications
E-mail: susanne.bodin@stim.se; tel.: +46 70-224 70 53
Scott Farrant, International Director
E-mail: scott.farrant@stim.se; tel.: +46 76-133 00 77

TEOSTO:    
Tomi Korhonen, Director Communications and Public Relations
E-mail: tomi.korhonen@teosto.fi; tel.: +358 50 449 9575
Satu Satu Mättö, Director of Member Services
E-mail: satu.matto@teosto.fi; tel.: +358 40 703 3099

TONO:    
Jan Richard Kjelstrup, Director of Communication
E-mail: jrk@tono.no; tel.: +47 99 24 86 87
Inger Elise Mey,  Director Online Media & International Licensing
E-mail: mey@tono.no; tel.: +47 92 23 79 82

NCB:    
Håkan Hildingsson, Director Markets
E-mail: hh@ncb.dk; tel.: +45 33 36 87 60