• Provide to record companies, DSPs and other companies information about ownership of Right Shares in one or more Musical Works in a standardised information flow;

• Exchange with DSPs offering “user-generated content” to consumers information about ownership of Rights Shares in one or more Musical Works.

As user-generated content is often based on musical works, it is essential for the owners of rights in the Musical Work as well as the DSP that the DSP has an accurate picture of the ownership of a Musical Work they want to exploit and monetise. This is particularly important for territories such as the US where licensing is typically de-centralised or on a Work-by-Work basis;

The choreography can also be used for information exchanges regarding Musical Works and/or Right Shares as part of the US Musical Work Licensing Choreography as well as the (forthcoming) US Letters of Direction Choreography.

Furthermore it allows DSPs, record companies and other companies to solicit such information from Works Licensors. Such requests may often include information about the Release(s) and Resource(s) such Works are used in.

Other applications include the provision of lyrics to a lyrics DSP, the provision of information on print rights, cases where a DSP might want to augment writer data they hold in order to improve consumer experience and supplying data to intermediaries who are doing administration on a DSP’s behalf.

Clause 5 then provides the Musical Work Right Share Notification Choreography and two Message Exchange Protocols: FTP and Web Services. Finally, Clause 6 defines the messages for the Musical Work Right Share Notification Choreography.

Version 1.1 adds support for a Hub-based architecture where a central Hub is used to channel requests for rights share claims as well as Right Share claims between (prospective) Licensees and (prospective) Licensors. This is in addition to the direct information exchange between (prospective) Licensees and (prospective) Licensors. Version 1.1 was not published and only used for internal testing.

Version 1.1 also adds support for Web Services.

• DDEX Data Dictionary Standard. Latest Version
• DDEX Party Identifier (DPID) Standard. Latest Version
• IFPI: Global Release Identifier (GRid) Standard. Latest Version
• IETF. RfC 2026. SSH File Transfer Protocol. October 2001.
• IETF. RfC 2616. Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP/1.1). 1999
• IETF. RfC 3986. Uniform Resource Identifier (URI): Generic Syntax. 2005
• IETF. RfC 5023. The Atom Publishing Protocol. October 2007
• IETF RfC 5646, Tags for Identifying Languages. Latest Version.
• IETF. RfC 6797. HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS). November 2012
• ISO 639-1988, Code for the representation of the names of languages
• ISO 3166-1:1997 Codes for the representation of names of countries and their sub-divisions – Part 1: Country codes
• ISO 3901:2001, Information and documentation – International Standard Recording Code (ISRC)
• ISO 8601:2004, Data elements and interchange formats – Information interchange – Representation of dates and times^[1]
• W3C. XML Schema Part 1: Structures. Second Edition. 2004
• W3C. XML Schema Part 2: Datatypes. Second Edition. 2004

Batch

A grouping of one or more DDEX Messages to be processed by the recipient together.

Collecting Publisher

A RightsController who is, at the time of assertion, controlling the right to collect royalties for a specific RightsType in a specific Territory for a specific Musical Work. Collecting Publishers may ask Administrators to administer some of their rights. Note that a MusicalWork may have zero, one or many Collecting publishers.

Collective Management Organisation (CMO)

A Party (that is usually owned or controlled by its members and/or organised on a not-for-profit basis) that, as its sole or main purpose, administers copyright or related rights on behalf of at least two Rights Controllers, for the collective benefit of those Rights Contorllers where it is authorised by law or by way of assignment or Licence.

A Collective Management Organisation may also be a Licensor, a Rights Administrator, a Licensing Agent or a Rights Holder.

A Collective Management Organisation may or may not be the Message Sender or Message Recipient of a message in a specific information exchange defined by a DDEX Standard.

Distribution Share

The proportion of the overall Musical Work that has been assigned to a Collecting Publisher or Administrator.  Note that a Writer can have zero, one or many Original Publishers, and hence zero, one or many Distribution Shares.

Hub

A service that acts as a broker for information exchange, typically using DDEX Messages. In the context of the Musical Works Notification, Musical Works Licensing and Letter of Direction Standards defined by DDEX, a Hub acts as an intermediary for information exchange to facilitate sharing of Right Share information. Hubs may also play a role in facilitating licensing processes between (prospective) Licensors and (prospective) Licensees. Hubs may also act as routers and/or provide data caching functionality.

Licensee

A Party that is granted a Licence in respect of rights in one or more Creations, by a Licensor. The Licensee may be a human being or other legal person or corporate entity. The Licensee may or may not be the Message Sender or Message Recipient of a message in a specific information exchange defined by a DDEX Standard.

Licensor

A Party that grants a Licence in respect of rights in one or more Creations to one or more Licensees in accordance with the authorities it has been granted to do so by one or more Rights Controller(s), Rights Administrator(s) (where applicable), Licensing Agent(s) (where applicable) or Rights Holder(s). The Licensor may be a human being or other legal person or corporate entity. The Licensor may or may not also be the Rights Controller, the Rights Administrator, the Licensing Agent or the Rights Holder in the Creation(s) that are the subject of the Licence granting the rights. The Licensor may or may not be the Message Sender or Message Recipient of a message in a specific information exchange defined by a DDEX Standard.

Manuscript Share

The  proportion of a Musical Work written by a Writer, as agreed between the Writers.  Typically represented as a percentage or a fraction.  Manuscript Shares may occasionally vary by territory and/or rights type.

Musical Work

A Work intended to be perceivable as a combination of sounds, with or without accompanying text.

Any words that are intended to be expressed with a MusicalWork (often termed Lyrics) form part of that MusicalWork; not all MusicalWorks have Lyrics.
A MusicalWork may be expressed and fixed to become part of a SoundRecording or a Video Recording, or may be used to create notated music (sheet music, scores, instrumental parts) or sound generation codes (such as MIDI files).
In some cases, the MusicalWork comes into existence simultaneously with its expression. This is common in extemporised forms such as jazz music.

OriginalPublisher

A RightsController who is assigned rights directly by the Writer (as opposed to by another Publisher). Note that a writer may have zero, one or many Original Publishers.

OriginalPublisherShare

The proportion of the overall Musical Work that a writer has assigned to an Original Publisher. Note that each Writer can have zero, one or many Original Publishers, and hence zero, one or many Original Publisher Shares. As opposed to collection shares, an OriginalPublisherShare does not define a share for the collection of money.

Release

A Release is an abstract entity representing a bundle of one or more Resources compiled by an Issuer. The Resources in Releases are normally primarily sound recordings or music audio-visual recordings, but this is not invariably the case. The Release is not itself the item of trade (or “Product”). Products have more extensive attributes than Releases; one Release may be disseminated in many different Products.

Resource

A digital fixation of an expression of an abstract Work (such as a sound recording, a video, an image, software or a passage of text). Resources are individual assets that make up a Release. Typical Resources are sound recordings, video clips and cover art images.

Right Share

A percentage or fraction of a right for a Musical Work for a particular time and place in which a party claims a controlling interest. Note: controlling interest includes ownership and/or administration.

Rights Controller

A Party that controls rights in one or more Creations in respect of some or all rights for specific territories, time periods, Rights Types, Usage Types and Commercial Model Types (which may be anything up to and including all rights for the world, in perpetuity, for all types of Usage and for all types of Commercial Models). Creations include Musical Works, Sound Recordings and other Resources as well as Releases.

A Rights Controller is in many cases also the Licensor.

A Rights Controller may be a human being or other legal person or corporate entity.

A Rights Controller may or may not also be the Rights Administrator, the Licensing Agent or the Rights Holder.

A Rights Controller may or may not be the Message Sender or Message Recipient of a message in a specific information exchange defined by a DDEX Standard.

Rights Type

The type of right covered by a RightShare as defined by relevant law. Rights Types vary between territories. Typical rights types include mechanical rights, performing rights and synchronisation rights.

Sound Recording

An audible persistent manifestation of a subject (often but not necessarily of a performance).

Web Service

A modern set of web technologies that allow small pieces of information, typically in the form of XML files, to be exchanged. Augmented with FTP (or other file exchange mechanisms) they can be used to communicate Releases along the music supply chain.

Web Service Call

The sending of an XML document to a port/address on a web server, using HTTP or HTTPS.

Web Service Response

The sending of an XML document in direct response to a Web Service Call, using HTTP or HTTPS.

For the avoidance of doubt: the appropriate response is always the message indicated in the appropriate Choreography.

Writer

A creative creator of the musical or lyrical elements of a Musical Work. Writers include Adapters, Arrangers, Authors, Composers. ComposerLyricists, Librettists, Lyricists, NonLyricAuthors and Translators.

Writer Share

See Manuscript Share.

This standard supports two approaches to exchanging Right Share information: Either a (prospective) Licensee and a (prospective) Licensor can exchange information directly with one another, or the communication can be communicated via a central Hub which may act as a information routing service and/or as a Right Share information cache.

Figure 1: Direct communication between a (prospective) Licensee and a (prospective) Licensor

Figure 2: Communication between a (prospective) Licensee and a central Hub

Figure 3: Communication between a central Hub and a (prospective) Licensor

The table below summarises the points in the Musical Work Right Share Notification Choreography that a message is sent.

6.2.1 Schema Validation

A message is conformant to this specification only when it validates against the set of XML Schema files provided.

6.2.2 Namespace

http://ddex.net/xml/mc-notif/12

6.2.3 Allowed Value Lists

All messages defined in this standard make intensive use of allowed-value sets. These allowed value sets are shared between all DDEX standards and DDEX provides an XML Schema Definition file for all of these allowed values. These values are also contained in the DDEX Data Dictionary available from kb.ddex.net.

http://ddex.net/xml/avs/avs

The full namespace for the XML Schema document for the allowed-value sets is:

DDEX may regularly extend this list of allowed-value sets. Any such extensions to this list issued on a date later than the date on which this standard is issued form part of this standard. This clause contains the list of allowed-value sets valid on the date of issuance of this standard.

6.2.4 Contractually Mandatory

The messages defined in this standard contain fields with cardinality “0-1” or “0-n”. Therefore these fields are from the standard’s point of view, optional. Such fields may, however, be mandatory when a DDEX message is sent in a specific commercial context.

In such circumstances, a message is deemed conformant only if and when it contains all the “contractually mandatory” fields as agreed by MessageSender and MessageRecipient.

6.2.5 Character Coding  

All messages shall be sent in UTF-8.