This second part of the series focuses on the importance of music metadata and its content, such as various identifiers, in the activities and processes of collective management organisations.
Today, collective management organisations (CMOs) receive, process and refine metadata without actual audio or video content. This is because the organisations usually do not need actual audio or video content in their own basic key operations, i.e. the collection and distribution of remuneration and royalties.
Instead, a stream of pure and accurate metadata about the recording or music video itself is important to CMOs. See how we approach and examine this issue through a country song.
When the American singer-songwriter Chris Stapleton’s country song “What Are You Listening To” (© Chris Stapleton and Lee Thomas Miller) is played in Simulcasting-radio “broadcasting” in Finland at the same time as a traditional FM radio broadcast, a multi-phased and international technical process starts, the result of which being that Chris Stapleton is entitled to receive the artist’s and musician’s Gramex remunerations from Finland. The record company that produced his recordings is also entitled to receive producer royalties.
The first “abnormality and current situation” in Finland is that Chris Stapleton is not entitled to receive any Gramex remunerations from Finland for playing on traditional FM radio.
Since the so-called first fixation of the recording was made in United States and the original producer of the recording was the US record company Mercury Records, the recording in question is not protected in Finland in the case of FM radio broadcasting.
The situation is entirely different when it comes to ‘simulcasting radio,’ i.e. simultaneous communication to the public also via the Internet.
It should also be noted that based on Finnish Copyright legislation simulcasting is not broadcasting. So because the US legislation gives “Gramex protection” (neighboring rights protection) to audio recordings in digital distribution such as simulcasting, so to speak, a purely US recording such as Chris Stapleton’s “What Are You Listening To” gets protection also in digital distribution in Finland. In practice, digital distribution means using the recording in Finland either in Simulcasting or Webcasting (so-called pure Internet radio).
From a legal point of view, this protection is based on international copyright agreements and the various rules for implementing international copyright agreements made in Finnish legislation, as well as the recording’s protection criteria included within itself.
The inclusion of the song and recording in question, as well as every other individual recording that has received radio airplay in each individual type of use, in protected recordings is clarified in Gramex Finland’s technical identification process. In this process, of course, the recording used in the Simulcasting is first accurately ascertained, as well as, with the help of various data sources, the country of first fixation of the recording and the domicile of the original producer.
The country where the original recording was made and the domicile of the original producer are the protection criteria used in Finland, which in turn are linked to the legal bases for the international protection of phonograms agreed in international copyright treaties.
In this way music metadata and its content can be of great help in finding out these individual factors affecting the protection of the recording.
After the airplay of recording has been reported to Finnish collective management organization Gramex Finland and the individual recording has been identified and found to be protected in each identified type of use, the recording moves to the actual distribution calculation process in Gramex.
In this stage of the process, based on the distribution rules of the collective management organization, the financial value of each individual airplay is calculated and the current owner of the producer rights of the individual recording and the musicians connected to the recording, such as Chris Stapleton, and especially Chris Stapleton’s so-called role(s) in the musicians’ Lineup, are clarified.
In the context of fully technical automatic identification and matching processes, the ISRC code of a recording serves as a valuable aid; additionally, the recording can be identified and matched based on its extensive metadata and various associated identifiers across the numerous databases or data hubs used by Gramex, as well as its unique identifiers within different systems and data sources.
In this case the correct ISRC is very important, Because there is a another featured artist Megan Moroney who has also recorded a cover version of Chris’ song and work “What Are You Listening To”.
Chris Stapleton’s track’s ISRC is USUM71304443 and the record company is as previously stated Mercury Records. Megan Moroney’s cover’s ISRC is on the other hand USQX92307073 and her track’s original Label is Columbia Nashville/Columbia Record.
Therefore, if so called distribution matching were done solely on the basis of the author’s name and the title of the song, the matching would not necessarily go correctly with the neighboring rights.
In this context, it is also clarified who has the right to receive producer’s Gramex royalties for the Simulcasting use in question.
Today, it is increasingly common that royalties and remunerations accumulated from different types of use can belong to different producers based on so-called use type mandates. For this reason, it is necessary for the organization to also have the different types of use as metadata information.
In practice, these shares of mandates (splits) may be based on different right deals or licensing agreements, or sometimes on various other financial and legal arrangements that may be subject to producers’ economical rights. After all, rights and their proceeds can also be used as collateral in various ways.
It is also increasingly common that neighboring rights’ mandates are licensed in different ways in different geographical areas.
Rights owners must keep Gramex aware of all these – at least about what the situation is in Finland. It is particularly important, for example, in connection with catalog acquisitions: when the mandate of a new owner begins and when someone else’s mandate ends.
Therefore mandate information received by the organization must have a start date and an end date, or no end date, meaning the CMO may collect for that producer in that territory perpetually. The importance of such individual details as the start and end of the mandate has been especially emphasized when metadata is processed in automated processes.
In Gramex Finland’s system and operations, terminations and initiations of mandates can also be taken into account based on new information received afterwards. In this case, the necessary recalculations of royalties and remunerations are automatically carried out for royalties and compensations that have already been calculated and paid. In these kind of cases, updating the original metadata is absolutely important and vital. And of course the updates should happen completely automatically.
After finding out the correct producer of the recording, it is also important to know the actual recipient of the Gramex royalties and remunerations in practical activities. The actual holder of the producer rights of the recording may have authorized or transferred the right to receive the royalty payment to some other party as well. This right can also be divided to different parties based on types of use. These details are clarified and reviewed technically in the so-called payment process.
It is important to note that legally the actual transfer of neighboring rights is therefore different from the right of receipt of royalties or the transfer of the right to collect.
Featured artist Chris Stapleton’s own story is made up of paying forward the remunerations that is formed in the distribution calculation. The musicians appearing on an individual recording can either be ready in Gramex’ own data, or the musicians belonging to the Lineup (musician composition) of the recording can be found out in different ways through the international systems and databases used by Gramex.
In practice, the Gramex remuneration of a foreign musician is rarely paid directly to the musician himself.
Often, the musician can be represented by a foreign collective management organization, or the musician can be represented by an external service provider of his choice, i.e. a so-called copyright or neighboring right agency, which takes care of collecting the Gramex remuneration that accrue to the musician.
Also for musicians, the mandate to collect Gramex remuneration can be shared to different parties, both in terms of types of use and geographical areas.
In the more precise identification of Chris Stapleton himself, two different international identifiers are mainly used, i.e. the international performer’s identifier IPN (International Performer Number) or/and the international ISNI identifier (International Standard Name identifier).
The IPN is a unique, internationally used identification of the performing artist, which is used especially in the international remuneration transfer of Gramex remunerations to identify individual musicians for the purpose of remuneration payment.
In practice, every musician client of Gramex Finland has their own IPN identifier, which Gramex automatically acquires for its own musician client. Gramex’s musician client can be recognized as a Gramex Finland’s client even abroad, specifically with the help of IPN. And foreign musician is recognized in Finland in a similar way.
The ISNI code, on the other hand, internationally identifies the public identities of persons and entities and distinguishes persons and entities with the same name from each other.
Gramex Finland also automatically and free of charge obtains an international ISNI code for each of its direct musician client.
By the way, Chris Stapleton’s public ISNI is: 0000 0004 5854 510X. On the contrary Chris’s IPN is not public information.
Among other things, through these identifiers and the various register data linked to them, it is possible to find out not only each musician individually, but also the entity representing the individual musician, as well as other more detailed information necessary for the payment of remuneration, whether they were directly or indirectly related to, for example, the taxation of remuneration or the information needed in the actual payment processes themselves.
So all these identifiers are more or less requirements to communicate and agree on origin, ownership of copyright, and other information.
And by using standardized identifiers, all music ecosystem participants can engage more efficiently in content and money transactions. IPN and ISNI uptakes are rapidly increasing in the recorded music industry and its various areas. And e.g. ISNI can be used to identify not only performers but also other public personas such as stage names, pseudonyms and record companies (legal entities) too.
In the context of fully technical and automatic identification and matching processes, the ISRC code of a recording serves as a valuable aid. Additionally, the recording can be identified and matched based on extensive metadata and various identifiers associated with it. This information is stored in numerous databases or data hubs utilized by Gramex. Furthermore, it includes unique identifiers found within different systems and data sources.
And of course, often the most important information is where the money comes from the recordings, and which user has used recordings.
In many cases, these detailed statements are needed, among other things, for further payment of royalties.
The ever-developing and changing operating environment also puts rights owners in challenging situations. It is not at all unusual that even a small indie label can receive dozens statements (around the world) and they are all in different formats and based on different standards. And on the basis of these, further inhouse statements and breakdowns are prepared. Maybe not the nicest job in the world. Therefore, globally implemented standards are also needed for reporting and statement sectors.
In particular, these statements and breakdowns can contain a large number different of music industry identifiers. For these reasons, among others, statements are processed and received using fully automatic and technical processes.
It is no longer enough that the collective management organization pays money, but the rights owner wants to know very precisely where the remuneration comes from.
Today, an even faster distribution rhythm is also required. And these requirements are supported very strongly by music metadata and its contents for its part. This also happens when Chris Stapleton’s Country song plays and gets airplays very far from Nashville, USA, on the other side of the world in Finland. But in the age of metadata, this distance (around 7600 km) in itself means nothing.
And yes indeed, in Finland you can also hear US country music on radio waves. By the way, did you know that in 2010 the most played song and record on Finnish commercial radio was Lady Antebellum’s “Need You Now”.
And finally, we definitely have to mention the “New Kid in Town” i.e. the newest identifier also in the music metadata and ID family: ISCC.
ISCC (The International Standard Content Code) is generated algorithmically from the content (audio or video) itself. The ISCC-code is a unique, hierarchically structured, composite identifier. It is built from a generic and balanced mix of content-derived, locality-sensitive and similarity-preserving hashes generated from metadata and content itself.
The journey of ISCC is just at the beginning, so we will certainly hear a lot more about it in the future, who knows maybe even with Chris Stapleton’s coming recordings and their metadata. And Chris’ song will probably have to be viewed in Finland through on of the ”latest things” in the music industry – XR!
