We appreciate the collaboration we have with international music rights holders – and in 2009 we focused highly on our collaboration with multinational music publishers as well as with the foreign collective rights management societies, both of which entrust KODA with their rights for licensing in Denmark.

It is part of our philosophy to ensure that commercial music users can license the rights they need for their activities in Denmark. We aim to help the music users obtain the repertoire in a hassle-free manner and we believe that this approach benefits both music users and rights holders. First of all, it makes it easier for the music users to launch new services and this also benefits the rights holders because KODA simultaneously strives to license the services at reasonable rates reflecting the value of the music on the Danish market.

The CISAC Statement of Objections

In the so-called CISAC case, the European Commission argued that the collective rights management societies in Europe had – deliberately or not – arranged the rights flow between them in a way that made it cumbersome to obtain pan-European licenses (for satellite, cable and Internet use). Most of the involved societies, including KODA, have appealed the decision and in early 2010 the written preparation of the case before the European Court of First Instance was finalised. We now await the court to set a date for the oral hearing of the case.

In the meantime, KODA and the other societies were under an obligation to implement the decision (even though it was appealed) and KODA has diligently renegotiated the reciprocal representation agreements with our sister societies in Europe as required by the decision.

Collaboration on Different Levels

We emphasise collaboration with multinational music publishers and want to be transparent about our business in order to convince rights holders that KODA is the best alternative for licensing music rights in Denmark. We make ourselves available for dialogue and discussion with rights holders and rights holder representatives for instance at events like MIDEM and other international venues. All this helps the rights holders we represent to understand our business and our strategies. In the end it supports our vision of being able to license music users in Denmark for the repertoire they need.

Another example of our international collaboration is KODA’s new agreement regarding distribution of licensing income for satellite and cable TV with the British collective rights management society, PRS for Music. Usually, collective management societies forward their cable retransmission income for a particular channel to the society in the country in which the original satellite broadcast takes place. However, with KODA’s new agreement with PRS, this procedure has been refined for TV channels which for all practical purposes are more closely linked to the country in which the retransmission takes place than to the country in which the satellite broadcast takes place.

The model gives KODA and PRS the opportunity to collaborate and evaluate which society is in the best position to make an even more efficient and correct distribution than we could under the old structure. We are thrilled about this agreement because it helps to reduce the administration cost by avoiding the duplication of our efforts at KODA and PRS. At the same time it gives KODA and PRS a flexible solution for the distribution of income related to satellite and cable and we look forward to developing this collaboration in the future.