Denmark’s songwriter society Koda paid out its leftover 2023 Spotify and YouTube streaming money in December 2025, and only songs already matched to a registered work in the first round got a share. If your composition was not identified in time, the top-up went to everyone else.
Koda publishes that rule more plainly than most societies, which makes it the clearest case for fixing publishing metadata before release.
How Koda’s streaming money moves
Koda means the Danish collective management organisation, or CMO, for composers, songwriters and music publishers. It collects the publishing side of a stream. Your distributor pays the master side separately.
According to Koda’s 2025 Transparency Report, published in April 2026:
- Total revenue was EUR 188.9 million; the administration rate was 11.9 percent.
- Music streaming in Denmark brought in EUR 17.7 million, up 8 percent.
- From that line Koda deducted 10.1 percent for administration and 6.3 percent for cultural funds, leaving EUR 14.8 million for individual distribution.
The December 2025 distribution paid Spotify Denmark streams from June and July 2025, a lag of about five months. The same payout carried the “final distribution” of residual amounts: Spotify and YouTube for 2023, and Apple Music for 2020 to 2023 after a large back payment from Apple.
Who gets the leftovers
Koda’s own explanation is specific. Monthly payouts are based on estimated values. If more than 10 percent of a year’s amount in an area remains undistributed, it is paid as a supplement “to the works and rightsholders that received funds during the first round,” on the same ratios and data.
Residual money follows songs that were already matched. A song missed in the primary round misses that period’s top-up too.
What is still stuck
At 31 December 2025, the transparency report lists these provisions:
- EUR 2.6 million tied to unregistered works.
- EUR 1.3 million tied to works registered only in part, such as missing co-writer shares.
- EUR 3.7 million reserved because of disputes between rightsholders.
- EUR 4.3 million assigned to rightsholders Koda cannot identify, locate or pay because it has no account details.
- EUR 2.4 million from streaming areas either waiting for a claiming period to close or tied to tracks that cannot be matched to a work.
Money left unpaid after three full years becomes “non-distributable” and is added to the next year’s pool for the same area. At that point it goes to other people’s songs.
Why 2026 raises the stakes
Koda, Teosto and TONO closed their joint licensing hub, Polaris, at the end of 2025, as Mandy Dalugdug reported for Music Business Worldwide. Koda has moved streaming processing to BMAT, whose system matches usage using ISRC, ISWC and DDEX.
ISRC means International Standard Recording Code, the ID on your master. ISWC means International Standard Musical Work Code, the ID on the composition. DDEX means Digital Data Exchange, the message format distributors use to deliver releases to DSPs.
Koda also says its January 2025 move to the ICE Cube works database slowed processing and pushed provisions up.
What to do with your own catalogue
- Register the work before release day. A late registration cannot recover residuals already paid to matched works.
- Register 100 percent of the splits. Part-registered works sit in a pending bucket.
- Agree splits in writing before delivery. Disputed shares are held until resolved.
- Match distributor metadata to your society registration. Same title, same writer names, same ISRC.
- Keep your payment details current. EUR 4.3 million is waiting for people Koda cannot pay.
Koda says 30,004 recipients, 91 percent of the total, received DKK 10,000 or less in 2025. At that level, a missed residual is a real share of the year.
If you write outside Denmark, Danish usage reaches you through your own society about a year later, so the matching problem simply moves upstream. Compare how Norway’s TONO reworked its pools, how Finland’s Teosto pays streaming, and the three-year claim window in the Czech Republic.
A distributor cannot register your songs with Koda. It can deliver consistent DDEX metadata, with the ISRCs and writer credits you supply, so the society’s matching has something to find. InterSpace Distribution treats that as part of delivery.
