Territories in deals and release descriptions

Release information can vary between territories. To support this, ERN-3 provides a ReleaseDetailsByTerritory composite whereas ERN-4 allows communicating territorially different information directly in the Release composite. The same applies to Sound Recordings and other Resources.

A second place where territory information is crucial is the Deal section which defines in which territories a Release may be made available to consumers. This can lead to the situation where a DSP might receive Release information for, for example, France, Germany, The Netherlands and Belgium, but where the Deal only covers, say, France. In that case the DSP would be setting up a product in its systems with territorial variations for four countries, three of which are useless as the commercial conditions do not allow the Release to be used in Germany, The Netherlands and Belgium.

It is therefore recommended that senders of NewReleaseMessages only include territorial information in the ReleaseList and ResourceListsections for which the message also provides a Deal.

There is, however, one common exception to this rule: The use of a territory code of Worldwide is suitable even where a Deal is provided only for a number of countries (see also the article on how to “Communicate Territory Information in Different Kinds of Releases”).