2.1 Introduction
This Standard provides a mechanism for Licensor (typically Music Rights Societies, Music Publishers) to send details of claims and/or details of invoices for such claims to relevant Licensees (typically Digital Service Providers). Such claim/invoice details are typically sent in response to sales/usage reports from the exploitation of Products based on electronic Releases containing Sound Recordings and/or Music Audio-Visual Recordings which embody Musical Works and/or other Resources. The claim details part of the standard may also be used as part of a process between a Licensor and a Licensee which does not require the initial receipt of sales/usage information.
Such sales/usage reports may be communicated using DDEX's Digital Sales Reporting Message Suite Standard or proprietary formats offering the same or similar functionality.
The format defined in this standard provides sufficient details about the individual and aggregate royalty claims being made by each Licensor so that the Licensee that sent the sales/usage report can be confident in accepting the associated invoice for payment. The communication of the invoice itself is not part of this standard.
The claim Detail Message defined herein enables the Licensor to provide for all identified releases claims and royalty amounts to be paid by the Licensee to the Licensor.
The Claim Detail Message defined herein enables the Licensee to:
Check the mapping between a reported Sound Recording or Video, and the underlying Musical Work as made by the Licensor;
Determine whether the claims on Musical Works made by the Licensor are in any way in conflict with claims made by other Licensors for the same Musical Works (whether by right, by date, by territory or by usage);
Determine whether, in their view, the claimed and calculated amounts (per right share, per Musical Work and per message as appropriate) are aligned with the royalty rates agreed between each Licensor and each Licensee in the relevant licence agreement; and
Determine whether, in their view, the total claimed by each Licensor corresponds to the aggregate of the individual royalties claimed (by right share or by Musical Work, as appropriate).
This standard also provides a mechanisms for Licensees who have received such Claim Detail Messages to respond with a Claim Detail Discrepancy Notification should they determine that the Claim Detail Messages contain "discrepancies", i.e. issues that the recipient of the Claim Detail Messages has determined may impact the calculation of the royalties. Such discrepancies include, but are not limited to, arithmetic issues, questions about applied tariffs, disputes about Right Share control but also errors in the formatting of the Claim Detail Message – as soon as these errors have an impact on calculation of the royalties. While the resolution of such discrepancies is out of scope, Licensees are expected to use the Claim Detail Discrepancy Notification to signal such discrepancies to Licensors and subsequently work with those organisations to resolve them.
The Claim Detail Message Suite Standard therefore enables speedy settlement on all claims and invoices received from all Licensors related to a set of DSR (or equivalent) Messages relating to the same period and service and avoid, as much as possible, situations where a payment has to be delayed or reversed (e.g. by reducing future payments) because of contradictory or conflicting claims.
In several places in this Standard, there are references to bilateral agreements which, in almost all cases, are between a Licensor and a Licensee. Such agreements determine elements of the way this Standard is to be used between two business partners which it is inappropriate to standardise. It should be noted in this context however that, whilst such bilateral agreements will determine such issues, it may not be the Licensor or the Licensee that are actually exchanging the messages. Rather one or both appoint a Message Sender or Message Recipient to do this on their behalf. However, because the bilaterla agreements are in place, most references to the roles undertaken in the exchanging of any of the messages in the Claim Detail Message Suite Standard are to Licensor and Licensee.