Ownership claims for Single-Resource Releases in ERN

DDEX recommends the use of the RDR-N standard to communicate rights claims to Music Licensing Companies.

The NewReleaseMessage has two places where rights and ownership information about a sound recording or other Resource can be communicated. Such ownership claims are an essential aspect of administering user-generated content (UGC).

The first is in the ResourceRightsController composite inside the SoundRecording composite (RightsController in ERN-3). This allows the signalling of information that a specific company controls a specific percentage of a specific set of rights for a specific set of types of use in a specific set of territories for a specific period of time.

The example below shows that the company “LeftRight” owns 10% of the rights in a Sound Recording for downloads in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Germany.

 <ResourceRightsController>
  <PartyName>
   <FullName>LeftRight</FullName>
  </PartyName>
 <RightSharePercentage>10</RightSharePercentage>
  <DelegatedUsageRights>
   <UseType>Download</UseType>
   <TerritoryOfRightsDelegation>FR</TerritoryOfRightsDelegation>
    <TerritoryOfRightsDelegation>BE</TerritoryOfRightsDelegation>
   <TerritoryOfRightsDelegation>NE</TerritoryOfRightsDelegation>
   <TerritoryOfRightsDelegation>LU</TerritoryOfRightsDelegation>
   <TerritoryOfRightsDelegation>DE</TerritoryOfRightsDelegation>
  </DelegatedUsageRights>
</ResourceRightsController>

The second is in the ReleaseDeal section in which the sender grants the recipient certain rights for a given Release. These granted rights may, or may not be a superset of the ownership information communicated in the ResourceRightsController composite mentioned above.

The differentiation between the semantics of the information contained in these two parts of the NewReleaseMessage is especially critical when ownership claims are communicated in conjunction with a ReleaseDeal, for instance in a UGC context or when communicating Releases to a fingerprinting or “anti-piracy” service provider.

If a label communicates ownership claims in both the ResourceRightsController composite and in the ReleaseDeal section, the recipient of the message must only act in accordance with the information contained in the ReleaseDeal section.

For instance, a label communicates, in the ResourceRightsController composite that it owns rights in France, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands but the Dealonly contains instructions for the Netherlands, the recipient is only authorised to act in the Netherlands – and not in Germany, France and Belgium.

Sending a ResourceRightsController composite without a TerritoryOfRightsDelegation is, however, not sensible and may be rejected by the recipient.

Please remember that DDEX recommends the use of the RDR-N standard – and not ERN – to communicate rights claims to Music Licensing Companies.

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