CEO’s Review: The rise of AI highlights the need for an update to the Copyright Act
Last year was stable and successful for Kopiosto. We achieved our financial and operational objectives. Our licensing revenue was as budgeted, while our revenue from investments even exceeded our expectations. We were also able to stay within our budgeted expenses.
Cuts made the growth potential of the creative industry a topic of discussion
In our operating environment, last year was darkened by the Government’s strict savings and adjustment measures. They had a severe impact on creative industry organisations and institutions, as well as individual creators, artists and creative industry professionals. Kopiosto and the audiovisual industry professionals represented by us were directly impacted by the decision to halve compensation for private copying. This drastic cut can be seen from 2026 onwards as a reduction in our copyright remunerations for audiovisual authors and performing artists, and starting from 2025, the cut will result in a radical reduction in AVEK’s funding operations.
The cuts targeted at the creative industry gave rise to discussion about funding in the industry. This has also provided an opportunity to increase understanding of the creative industry’s growth potential, which has not been given enough attention at times. In Finland, the creative industries form an economy of roughly 17 billion euros, which equals 3.1 per cent of the gross national product. This portion is roughly one percentage point lower than the average of EU countries, which means that we need to find more growth opportunities.
The 2024 Cultural Policy Report clearly highlights the economic importance of culture and the creative industry. According to the report, Finland’s peer countries see the cultural and creative industries as a growth platform and have implemented political measures that meet their needs to promote them.
The development and maintenance of copyright legislation plays a significant role in facilitating growth in the creative industry. The report identifies copyright as a key factor in cultural policy, as it encourages the creation of works and facilitates the creation of value chains in the creative economy. As such, the report provides carefully considered guidelines for the future as decisions concerning copyright and cultural policy are made in Finland.
Will there be a copyright licence for training AI?
The use of AI-trained generative language models increased considerably in 2024. This forced us to think about how we, as a collective management organisation for creators and publishers, could respond to the copyright challenge posed by language models.
The copyright holders represented by us are aiming at establishing a copyright licence that can facilitate responsible use of works in the training of language models. This calls for transparency regarding what works are used in training processes. The transparency requirement set by the Artificial Intelligence Act of the EU brings much-needed regulation, although it will not be realised until this summer as the regulations concerning the requirement enter into force.
It is clear that AI and copyright issues related to it will continue to be a significant driver of change in our operating environment in the coming years.
Copyright law must be kept up to date
The most important facilitator of operating conditions in the creative industry is a modern and functional Copyright Act. The partial reform of the Act in 2023 stemmed from EU directives. Our survey conducted in cooperation with the Finnish National Agency for Education showed that the amendments made to the Act and licences for the use of works have made it easier to use contents responsibly in education. We want to achieve similar changes in other areas of society as well.
Unfortunately, reforming the Copyright Act from a national starting point has yet to begin. This undermines our ability to provide copyright licences for works in new kinds of usage situations. However, we are persistently working towards having the legally prescribed extended collective licence system updated within this government term to make it better meet today’s usage needs. Additionally, developing the system for compensation for private copying based on a report published in early 2025 may require changes to the Copyright Act.
The greatest disappointment of 2024 was a decision by the Supreme Court. According to the decision, copyright organisations, such as Kopiosto, have no legal standing in disputes brought to court. This lack of legal standing endangers well-functioning collective management in situations involving unauthorised use of works and hinders the right of creative industry professionals to actually effective legal protection measures. Together with other copyright organisations, we are working towards a law reform that would secure our legal standing.
Towards new licence products
In addition to promoting the required amendments to the Copyright Act, one of our key objectives in 2025 is to build new licence products. In accordance with our strategy, we are working towards fair remunerations for the creative industry professionals represented by us by providing the users of works with flexible opportunities to utilise the works in a manner that respects copyright.
One concrete step would be to have Kopiosto authorised to provide licences for the training of AI. Our association will decide on the matter in the spring, after which we would collaborate with our member organisations to collect the necessary authorisations from the creative industry professionals whom we represent.
I would like to thank our staff for their hard work for the creative industry, as well as all of our stakeholders for their cooperation and support in 2024. Let us make 2025 also a success together!
Valtteri Niiranen
CEO of Kopiosto
We defended compensation for private copying
In 2024, we fought for compensations for private copying in many ways. The private copying levy is provided to professionals in the creative industries so that every citizen can copy and store works for private use. It is based on an EU directive and the relevant legislation. The Government decided to halve the compensation, which is important to the creative industries, from EUR 11 million to 5.5 million. Kopiosto and AVEK Audiovisual Centre, which is a part of Kopiosto, have previously distributed EUR 5.5 million to the creative industries as private copying levies.
The audiovisual industry rose up to show that it supports the funds distributed by AVEK. AV-arkki (the Centre for Finnish Media Art) and the Finnish Documentary Guild collected hundreds of signatures in a petition to safeguard the operations of AVEK, while European film industry organisations showed their support for AVEK in the form of open letters. International copyright organisations also called on the Finnish Government to cancel the devastating halving of the private copying levy.
In the summer, we launched in cooperation with Luovat ry and the music industry’s copyright organisations Teosto and Gramex the ‘Älä anna kulttuurin kadota’ (Don’t let culture disappear) campaign in which we demanded that decision-makers preserve fair compensation for private copying. Like AVEK, the Foundation for Music Promotion MES and the Centre for the Promotion of Visual Art VISEK distribute support to the creative industries from the private copying levy. A wide variety of authors, creators and events around Finland who had received support from the promotion centres took part in the campaign.
The fight against the cuts continued in the autumn with the AVEK ‘Kasvutarinoita av-alalta’ event, where we offered members of parliament and their assistants information about the prerequisites for growth and opportunities in the audiovisual industry. In addition to this, AVEK Director Ulla Simonen and our CEO Valtteri Niiranen, film directors Selma Vilhunen and John Webster held speeches at the event.
Despite our best efforts, the cut was unfortunately not cancelled. Because of this, the financial support distributed by AVEK will be significantly lower already in 2025. The cut will affect the personal compensation distributed to the creators of TV programmes from the private copying levy in 2026.
We increased interest representation and advocacy cooperation with our member organisations
Strengthening the interest representation of Kopiosto is one of the focal points of our strategy. We aim to raise even more awareness of the copyright system that acts as the basis of the creative industries and the related needs in order to develop it further.
One of the bases of our advocacy work is building closer interest representation and lobbying cooperation with our member organisations. We launched an interest representation academy in order to fulfil this task. The objective of the academy, which convenes three times a year, is to strengthen our joint influencing potential and support our member organisations in their own lobbying communications.
In the first meeting of the academy in June, we presented our member organisations with our current themes for interest representation and talked about them. In the second meeting in September, we focused on a situational review of current politics as well as the aspects of carrying out interest representation and lobbying in the current political climate. The third event will be held in February, when we offer training about best practices in lobbying and public relations.
We trained authors and creators of the creative industries as well as the users of works
The training sessions and open copyright webinars we arranged in 2024 were attended by a total of 4,395 professionals from the education sector. We arranged nearly hundred training events in educational institutions and higher education institutions and met with the users of our licences for educational institutions at nine different events. In the autumn, we updated our materials designed for educational institutions, including the licence table illustrating the extent of the copying licence and our copyright checklist in schoolwork poster.
In the autumn, our lawyers shared information about Kopiosto authorisations in a training event for professionals in the audiovisual industry, which was arranged in cooperation with Avate Audiovisual Authors and Performers in Finland, the Finnish Playwrights and Screenwriters Guild, the Association of Finnish Film Directors and the Finnish Actors Union. Training events concerning the copyrights and agreements in the audiovisual industry were held in Helsinki and Tampere.
Copyright remunerations support the creative industries
The copyright remunerations we collect from the copying of books, magazines, newspapers and online materials are distributed to the creative industries through our member organisations. Various grants, training events and awards continued to promote the performance of creative work and the creation of new works in 2024. Grants funded by our copying remunerations are received by more than 2,500 authors and publishers every year, and the remunerations are also used to present approximately 70 Finnish awards in the culture and communications sector. For example, the sum of the Arvid Lydecke award presented by Finnish Writers for Children and Young People, EUR 2,024, was paid from the remunerations collected by us. Last year, the award was presented to Taru Viinikainen for her book Saapastalon Aurora ja pelkojen pelko (2023, WSOY).
Surveys provide a base for developing customer experience
We want to ensure an excellent customer experience. We regularly ask our customer groups and member organisations about their opinions in order to understand their needs better.
In 2024, we conducted a survey of audiovisual professionals who receive compensation from us. Of the respondents, 91% were fairly or very satisfied with our customer service. The responses highlighted a wish that communications related to the payment schedule and distribution of remunerations be clarified, which we have started working on since.
According to the member organisation survey last year, Kopiosto’s member organisations are primarily very satisfied with our operations and services. We also asked about the organisations’ views of our advocacy work in the survey. According to the results, our member organisations are familiar with our interest representation goals and feel that they are meaningful for the sectors represented by the organisations.
Copying licences for companies and organisations easily available in the new licence store
At the end of the year, we made updates to our licence store, through which companies, joint municipal authorities, congregations and study centres can acquire our copying licence for professional use. Corporate customers were informed of the transition to the new licence store in advance in the autumn.
At the same time, we also changed the pricing of copying licences for corporate customers. In the future, it is also possible to purchase a licence valid until further notice. It is now easier to report changes that affect the pricing, such as new employees or officers, in the new licence store.
Intellectual property rights communication campaign and educational material
In the summer, we arranged in cooperation with the Copyright Information and Anti-Piracy Centre and the Finnish Patent and Registration Office a campaign aiming to raise awareness of intellectual property rights. In addition to copyrights, these rights include industrial rights, i.e. trademarks, patents and design rights, for example.
The campaign consisted of two phases. In the first phase, we produced video content for social media platforms. Later in the summer, we published the freely available intellectual property rights educational material, which is designed for secondary schools, upper secondary schools, vocational institutes and universities of applied sciences.
The campaign was based on the trend established in recent years, according to which infringements of intellectual property rights have become more common among young people and young adults. The campaign was carried out with the support of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO).
In 2024, our revenue from remunerations totalled 50.1 million euros, 2.0% less than in the previous year. The most significant factors behind the drop were the decrease in the users of online recording services and the copying activities within educational institutions.
Most of our revenue came from the use of audiovisual and the copying and use of publications. In addition to these, the revenue includes the compensation for private copying and public lending remunerations, as well as the Ministry of Education and Culture’s creative culture grants to AVEK.
The operating expenses in 2023 totalled 5.7 million euros, an increase of 6.8% compared to the previous year.
Remuneration funds will be invested in accordance with the investment policy approved by Kopiosto’s Board of Directors for the period between their collection and distribution. In 2024, investment and financing activities generated a total result of 1.9 million euros, compared to 1.7 million euros in the previous year.
In 2024, the total amount of revenue transferred to copyright holders was 46.4 million euros, 2.5% less than in the previous year.
