Copyright

When you join Koda, you give Koda exclusive rights to managing all rights to public performance and recording of your music to Koda. This means that we collect payment from those who use your music and distribute that money to you. We collect money on the basis of agreements stipulating that users must pay when using/playing Koda members’ works publicly (for example on the radio, at concerts, restaurants, etc.). Our customers pay to use the music in accordance with these agreements. We then distribute the money collected to composers, songwriters and music publishers.

We also manage the so-called mechanical rights, which concern the rights to record music works on CD, vinyl, movies, video and other electronic media. This is done through NCB. 

You might be interested in viewing our VIDEO on How we work

The agreements that Koda enters into with our customers are negotiated on the basis of the Copyright Act. The Copyright Act protects authors, producers and performers against other people copying and using their works without their consent. According to the Copyright Act, the author’s musical works are automatically protected from the moment they are created until 70 years after the author’s death – regardless of whether he/she is a member of Koda. According to the Copyright Act, you, the author, has the sole right to decide when a new piece of your music should be published or recorded for the first time.

At Koda, we must remain neutral in all rights disputes, partly because we represent both parties in terms of collection and distribution of royalties and manage the rights of both parties. This principle of neutrality also applies even if one party is not a member of Koda. However, in order to meet the wishes of our members, we offer so-called ‘fact meetings’ as an aid towards resolving disputes.

Such a meeting must be held within four months after a dispute has been arisen, and it is available to all, regardless of the nature or financial scope of the dispute. The meeting is voluntary: Koda cannot force any the parties to participate. Thus, not attending the meeting will not trigger any sanctions.

The meeting can be a joint meeting where all parties participate. Alternatively, separate meetings can be held with each of the parties if you prefer. The agenda for the meeting will be to ascertain and clarify the facts; including Koda’s rules within the relevant area.

Based on the outcome of the ‘fact meeting’ and the circumstances of the case in general, Koda will assess whether there is a basis for offering the parties further assistance in the form of either advice from our music consultant/committee or mediation services.

You have a rights dispute when there are legitimate doubts about who owns the rights to a work.

Typical examples of legitimate doubts include:

• Disagreement between an author and a publisher regarding a publishing contract.
• Disagreement between the authors of a work as regards the allocation of shares in the works. 
• Cases where a work is accused of plagiarism.

Legitimate doubts do not apply if the dispute can be cleared up administratively, for example by means of Koda’s rules on the allocation of shares.

Typical examples that do not involve legitimate doubts include:

• Failure to adhere to the terms and conditions regarding the allocated shares, including shares allocated to arrangers/adapters.
• Cases where the limit imposed on publishers’ shares is exceeded.

According to copyright law, your music works/lyrics are protected from the moment you created them. Having your works registered with Koda does not entail any special protection or additional copyright. This means that you do not need to become a member of Koda/NCB before your work is played publicly or is about to be recorded. We manage your rights, we do not protect them.

If you wish to arrange/adapt a copyrighted work, you need to obtain proper permission before performing that work in public. An adaptation may involve adding a new arrangement, new, reworked or translated lyrics, changing the title of the work – or incorporating samples from existing recordings in a new work. Copyright law states that any work is protected for 70 years after the death of its composer and/or lyricist.

How do I apply for permission?

Please fill in a form requesting permission to use the relevant copyrighted work. We will forward this form to the relevant rightsholder(s). It is important that you describe what you need the permission for. If your application concerns more than one work with different rightsholders, please fill in a form for each work.

You can find the form HERE

Please note: If the rightsholder does not respond, Koda is unable to press for a reply. Similarly, we do not take part in any negotiations regarding fees, arranger shares and similar. Our role consists only in passing on your contact information. 

The license must state whether the original author wishes to grant you adaptor/arranger shares and, if so, the scope of such share. When you receive proof that you have been granted permission, you must forward it to [email protected] and register your work My Koda. If we do not receive proof of permission, your version or adaptation will not be registered.

You cannot prevent others from taking over your creative idea, just as you can’t prevent others from plagiarising your works. However, you can secure a certain level of documentation of your work’s true origins by sending an audio file, sheet music, lyrics or other form of recording/documentation of your work to yourself by registered mail. This will give you a postal stamp from the postal services, proving when you created the material. Remember that you must NOT open the letter when it comes back to you as this would break the seal, making it useless as proof. You can obtain a corresponding seal by contacting Koda’s Publishing and Member Services at [email protected]

While the seal does not constitute definitive evidence, the courts are likely to attach some importance to such a seal when dealing with a dispute.

No. Once you have joined Koda, thereby handing over management of the performance rights and mechanical rights to your music, you cannot pass those rights to any other party – the one exception being that as an author, you can give a music publisher a share in in your Koda and NCB revenues. This means that you cannot transfer these rights to, for example, a producer. Nor can you enter into agreements stating that a given user does not have to pay for the use of a particular piece of music, not even if this music user commissioned the piece for a fee. In other words, the transfer of the rights to Koda is exclusive.

Yes. We distribute money on the basis of the work registrations submitted by rightsholders to Koda. If the band member was listed as, for example, a co-composer at that point, they continue to hold that share. Generally speaking, one cannot retroactively change the allocation of shares between rightsholders. The work will still have been created by the parties involved at the outset.