Nordic Collecting Societies Close Polaris Licensing Hub

Polaris Hub, the joint venture between Nordic collective management organizations Koda (Denmark), Teosto (Finland), and Tono (Norway), will shutter in early 2026. The CMOs claim the JV no longer meets the demands of the market.

Backstory:

• Founded in 2019, Polaris Hub was established to negotiate licensing agreements with major global platforms.

• It has since entered into deals with platforms such as Spotify, YouTube, Meta, Apple Music, Tidal, SoundCloud, TikTok and more.

• The JV also handled data administration, reporting and invoicing for digital music services.

The end:

• In their joint statement, the CMOs referred to evolving market conditions, and a need for bigger scale and international reach amid today’s “increasingly competitive, complex and scale-driven music ecosystem.”

• Following Polaris Hub’s closure, Koda, Teosto, and Tono will independently pursue licensing agreements for their repertoires.

• As per Music Business Worldwide, the partnership with Network of Music Partners, which looks after the technical aspects of royalty collection and reporting, will also cease.

• The organizations stress that rightsholders will not experience any interruption in royalty distributions during the changeover and up until their contracts expire.

What they said:

• Karl Vestli, CEO of TONO: “We are deeply grateful to Erik Brataas and his team at Polaris Hub for securing the best possible terms for rightsholders in agreements with the major streaming services and platform companies. Looking ahead, we will seek even stronger alliances, reaching well beyond the Nordics. Both we and our members will also depend on more and better data to track music usage across services, with greater precision. We are confident that we will achieve this through new and larger-scale collaborations.”

• Gorm Arildsen, CEO of Koda: “We value the contributions made by the employees of Polaris Hub in ensuring key agreements for online platforms on behalf of our rightsholders. In light of ongoing market developments, Polaris is no longer the most suitable solution moving forward. As market conditions continue to evolve, we are now focused on establishing new solutions that will enable strong agreements for our members – solutions designed to effectively address emerging demands and market developments in the years ahead.”

• Risto Salminen, Teosto CEO: "Polaris Hub has achieved remarkable results for our rightsholders in licensing multi-territorial music services. However, the rapidly evolving market requires us to proactively enhance our capabilities to meet future challenges and ensure the best outcomes for our rightsholders.”