Data dictionaries
One of the most important benefits of DDEX is that it provides a common language for all the terms that are used in any music related business transaction. This common language is documented in the DDEX Data Dictionary.
However, somewhat counter-intuitively, there are multiple DDEX data dictionaries available on this knowledge base the reasons for which are explained here. However these apparently different dictionaries are not actually separate dictionaries at all. Instead they are all snapshots of the same underlying collection of terms but taken from the different times and in response to the creation of a new version of an existing standard or the creation of a new standard.
To assist with the apparent complexity of this, DDEX publishes a general index containing all the allowed value sets, the allowed values and their definitions, the latest eidtion of whihc is version 004, as well as all the terms used in the ERN 4.3 standard as well as the latest ERN choreographies, the MEAD standard version 1.1, the PIE standard version 1.0, the RDR-N standard version 1.5 and the RIN standard version 2.0. Other standards will be added to this general index over time.
In terms of navigation, clicking on an entry in the general index will take you to the relevant Structural Edition of the DDEX data dictionary for the relevant standard. This article explains, once in a data dictionary, how to read the DDEX data dictionaries.
DDEX data dictionaries for message structures
Standard | Edition for the message structure | Edition for the allowed value sets |
|---|---|---|
Electronic Release Notification (ERN, version 4.3) | Access the current data dictionary edition For older versions, see below | |
ERN Choreography for Cloud-based Storage (version 1.8) | ||
ERN Choreography for web services (version 1.7) | ||
Transfer of Catalogues of Releases and Resources by Reassignment of Rights Controller Information (version 1.0) | ||
Media Enrichment and Description (MEAD 1.1) | ||
Party Identification and Enrichment (PIE 1.0) | ||
Recording Information Notification (RIN 2.0) | ||
Recording Data and Rights Notification Standard (RDR-N, Version 1.5) | ||
Transfer of Catalogues of Releases and Resources by Reassignment of Rights Controller Information (version 1.0) | ||
Recording Data and Rights Choreography Standard (RDR-C, version 1.0) | ||
US Letters of Direction Choreography Standard (LoD, version 1.0) | ||
Electronic Release Notification Message Suite Standard (ERN, version 4.2) | ||
US Musical Work Licensing Choreography Standard (MWL, version 1.0) | ||
Musical Work Right Share Notification Choreography Standard (MWN, version 1.1) | ||
Standard for communicating links between Resources and Musical Works (version 1.1) | ||
Recording Data and Rights Standard (version 1.4) | ||
Recording Information Notification (version 1.1) | ||
Work and Share Notifications | ||
Works Licensing | ||
DDEX data dictionaries for older allowed value sets
Is there a complete data dictionary available?
DDEX not only develops communication standards, DDEX also maintains them. Maintenance of a DDEX standard involves, in many cases, changing the XML Schema Definition (XSD) of a message, and this, in turn, means that that standard's view of the overall data dictionary will be updated. This of course means that the unpublished complete data dictionary will also be updated.
While some of these changes will become part of the next version of the maintained standard, other changes get discarded when testing of a standard has shown that the changes do not work as envisaged. However, these discarded changes remain in the unpublished complete data dictionary but they do not show up in the data dictionary edition for the revised standard. Consequently, there are always elements in the unpublished complete data dictionary that are not yet, and may never become, part of a DDEX standard.
Therefore it would be misleading to publish the complete data dictionary which at any moment in time may contain a significant number of terms that are not actually being used in any published DDEX standard. This is why DDEX does not publish the complete data dictionary.