Communicating conflicting parties’ contact details in MLC 1.4

The RightsClaimStatusUpdateMessage (RCSUM) is sent from a music licensing company to a rights holder, typically a record company, either directly or via a hub such as IFPI/WIN’s RDx. It is sent, typically, in response to a DeclarationOfSoundRecordingRightsClaimMessage.

RCSUM can be used to communicates a range of information, from claim validation errors to registration statuses. However, DDEX has identified that the MLC 1.4 version of RCSUM does not fully support all existing business processes. To address this, DDEX has agreed to extend MLC 1.4’s functionality, while maintaining compatibility. These improvements, within limitations, aim to promote wider and more effective use of RCSUM within the business processes it was originally intended to support until a new version can be published.

All findings, analyses, and new requirements are expected to be incorporated into the design of the next major release, RDR-N 2.0, ensuring that lessons learned from the RDR Standard — particularly RDR-N 1.5 and RDR-RCC (specifically the RightsClaimConflictNotification, RCCN) — are fully integrated into the updated framework.