Kopiosto had a stable year in 2023. We collected nearly as much in copyright remunerations as in previous years and paid a total of €50 million to the creative industry as a whole..
The EU directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market and the Online Transmissions Directive were incorporated into the Finnish Copyright Act as we hoped for, in accordance with the directives. The partial revision of the Copyright Act was completed at the beginning of the year and the updated Act entered into force on 3 April.
The amendments made to the act are important to the creative industry. As new additions, a provision on publisher’s related rights and the responsibility of social media platforms to obtain the necessary licences to distribute works on their platforms were incorporated in the Copyright Act. The authors’ position was also improved, and the retransmission of domestic channels was clarified further.
A strong Copyright Act creates the basis for making a living in creative industries. Culture-based business also creates financial added value for society, which is also by made possible through a good, up-to-date copyright law.
The domestic revision needs were excluded from the Copyright Act update to be considered separately. The preparatory work has not yet begun, but the Government Programme of Prime Minister Petteri Orpo includes an assessment of the need for a general reform of copyright legislation. We will play an active role in ensuring that the legislation will reflect the changes happening in society and in creative industries.
Towards the end of the year, Minister of Science and Culture Sari Multala launched the work for compiling a cultural policy report under the Government Programme. The aim of the report is to produce a vision of the future and measures for the long-term development of cultural policy. In our view, the operational conditions for culture and art are created not only with an up-to-date copyright legislation, but also by promoting the business and export of these industries and by securing sufficient funding for culture in the state budget.
Pilot projects and new opportunities
The updated legislation offers new opportunities to develop our copyright licences. That is why we added two new categories of rights to the Grant of Rights, and asked the creative professionals we represent to extend the authorisation they have granted to us. The categories of rights define what kind of use of work we can grants licences for. By the end of the year, we had received more than 40,000 extended authorisations, which provides us with a great basis for copyright negotiations, also in new usage areas of works and other copyrighted subjects.
In 2023, we also launched several pilot projects. These allow, for example, publishers of scientific journals to digitise their publications and make them available to the public on their websites. Libraries, on the other hand, can use book illustrations more extensively in their videos, on websites or in social media. Pilot projects allow us to gather experiences of the functionality of new licences and, at the same time, enable different ways of using the works while honouring the rights of creative industries’ professionals.
Another new addition was the Kehittämö programme for film makers, which was launched by AVEK, which operates as part of Kopiosto, and the Finnish Cultural Foundation. Kehittämö is the first audiovisual development programme in Finland to focus on the professional development of new filmmakers.
AI regulation under creation in the EU
The rapid development of AI applications is a major driver of change that will affect creative industries and copyrights over the next years. One key question, in particular, is how copyrighted works have been used to train artificial intelligence, for example in the context of extensive language models.
Last year, the first steps were taken in AI regulation when the EU reached a political agreement on the new Artificial Intelligence Act. From the perspective of creative professionals, it is very important that the regulation contains guidelines on the transparency obligation. Another significant factor is that the current copyright legislation must be complied with also in terms of artificial intelligence.
The final details of the act are likely to be specified in the spring of 2024. We actively monitor the development of legislation and add our own perspectives to it, for example by issuing statements.
We have felt it important to initiate and maintain dialogue with our member organisations on the impacts of AI on the creative industries. We interviewed our member organisations about this topic and organised a webinar to hear the views of creatives themselves. The development of AI applications is a major change throughout the creative sector, and it is important to highlight different perspectives and to increase common understanding of the need for regulation and the role of copyright organisations, for example.
Strategy to practice through projects
A new strategy term began for Kopiosto in 2023, and during the year we have launched many projects to put the strategy into practice. In addition to our standard operations, our strategy has three priority areas based on changes occurring in our operating environment: new income streams, reinforcement of advocacy work, and renewal.
The way people consume and use different works and contents is constantly changing. Our objective, within the framework of our role, is to ensure that creative professionals continue to receive the remunerations due to them for the use of their works. At the same time, we want to make new ways of using the works possible for society and the citizens. We are working actively towards this by developing the licencing operations.
To further reinforce our advocacy work, we created a new advocacy model last year to steer our practical social influencing work. The strategic policies for communications were also updated.
Renewal is one of our strategic focus areas. We want to keep up with the technology and develop the use of data in our own operations, for instance. This is why we will also develop our own expertise further. Last year, we carried out a staff survey that will help us to identify our key development targets. The practical work for our renewal will continue this year.
I would like to thank all Kopiosto people for their hard and competent work on behalf of creative work!
Valtteri Niiranen
CEO
Photo: Riitta Supperi
