Press Release
October 1, 2020
After two months of intensive negotiations, the parties have reached an agreement: a new joint Nordic agreement on the use of music on YouTube is now in place.
The new joint Nordic agreement has been entered into under the auspices of the Nordic alliance of collecting societies, Polaris, on behalf of Koda (Denmark), Teosto (Finland), Tono (Norway) and Stef (Iceland). The agreement enters into force on 1 October, after which the music that has been removed from the Danish part of YouTube for the past two month returns to the platform.
CEO of Koda, Gorm Arildsen, is looking forward to getting Danish music back on YouTube:
‘We are pleased that Danish access to music on YouTube will now be reopened. There is no doubt that the take-down seen in the last two months has been a source of great frustration – partly for Koda members, who are already hard pressed for ways to get their music out into the world because of the coronavirus, but also for the thousands of users who have had to do without Danish music on one of the main channels for music streaming in Denmark.’
New agreement: larger music catalog, wider coverage
In addition to covering a much larger music catalog, the new agreement differs from the individual countries’ previous agreements by extending beyond the national use of the individual collection societies’ repertoires. For example, the international use of Danish music on YouTube was previously licensed via Koda’s sister societies abroad. Now, the new agreement includes the total use of all Koda-licensed music on YouTube in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and parts of Asia.
The fact that the contents of the old and new agreements are fundamentally different makes it impossible to carry out a direct comparison of the terms and conditions found in the previous agreement and the new one.
Says Koda media director, Kaare Struve:
‘I strongly believe that the agreement now reached is the best possible result achievable under the given circumstances. It is no secret that these have been difficult negotiations and that we at Koda would much have preferred not to have to face the added pressure of content being taken down, for shorter or longer periods. Nor should there be any doubt that the final negotiations were carried out under massive pressure from all parties involved, eager to reach a conclusion. In that light, it is good that we have now reached an agreement that brings Danish content back on YouTube’.
Press contact:
Eva Hein / [email protected] / 61 89 32 33
Mads Scheuer / [email protected] / 31 22 48 06
