4.1 Terms and definitions

For the purposes of all parts of the DSR standard the following terms have the definitions specified in this clause. Although all the terms below are capitalised, they appear in the text of the DSR standard in lower case, for ease of readability. This does not apply to the terms Block, Cell, Head Release, Head Resource, Multi Record Block Variant, Primary Delimiter, Record, Record Delimiter, Secondary Delimiter, Single Record Block Variant and Sub-Release because these terms are specialised for the purpose of the DSR standard.

Block

A group of Records in a Sales/Usage Report created in accordance with the DSR standard that communicate data that belongs intrinsically together.

All Records in a block carry the same block identifier and all Records with the same Record Identifier belong to the same block. The identifier of a block shall be unique within a Sales/Usage Report created in accordance with the DSR standard. All Records of a block are contiguously provided within a Slaes/Usage Report. In the DSR standard blocks comprise data regarding the level of sales and/or usage generated from the exploitation of electronic releases containing sound recordings and/or music videos which embody musical works and/or other resources.

Cell

An individual data element in a Record. Cells are separated by Primary Delimiters.

Claim Detail Message

One of a number of messages specified in DDEX’s Claim Detail Message Suite.

Contractually Mandatory

A Cell in any DDEX message that has the technical cardinality of 0-1 or 0-n but, because it has been agreed between the message sender and the message recipient (by contract or law), is mandatory when the message is sent in a specific commercial context.

Delimiter

A character that delineates, in a Sales/Usage Report created in accordance with the DSR standard, either one Record from another Record (Record Delimiter), one Cell from another Cell (Primary Delimiter) or one data element from another data element within a Cell (Secondary Delimiter).

Digital Service Provider (DSP)

A party that provides a music service which makes available to consumers releases over a public telecom network having been duly authorised to do so by the owners of copyrights in sound recordings and/or music videos and/or exclusive licensors of copyrights in sound recordings and/or music videos (usually record companies).

Head Release

A release, originally communicated by the owner (or its agent) of a sound recording or music video to a licensee who then distributes that release to consumers, whose sales and/or usage are described in a Sales/Usage Report created in accordance with the DSR standard.

Head Resource

A resource whose sales and/or usage are described in a Sales/Usage Report created in accordance with the DSR standard. Head Resources are not communicated as part of a Head Release.

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 Sales/Usage Report created in accordance with the DSR 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 authority it has been granted to do so by one or more rights controller(s), rights administrator(s), licensing agent(s) 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 Sales/Usage Report created in accordance with the DSR standard.

Message Recipient

A party that receives a Sales/Usage Report created in accordance with the DSR standard from a message sender. The message recipient may also be one or more of a licensor, a licensee, a rights controller, a rights administrator, a licensing agent or a rights holder.

Message Sender

A party that sends a Sales/Usage Report created in accordance with the DSR standard to a message recipient. The message sender may also be the licensee.

Multi Record Block Variant

A variant of a Sales/Usage Report created in accordance with one or more parts of the DSR standard where descriptive and sales and/or usage data are provided in Blocks (usually) comprising multiple Records. The Multi Record Block Variant specified in each profile is the default variant for Sales/Usage Reports created in accordance with the DSR standard.

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 musical work (often termed lyrics) form part of that musical work. Not all musical works have lyrics. A musical work may be expressed and fixed to become part of a sound recording or a music video, 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 musical work comes into existence simultaneously with its expression. This is common in extemporised forms such as jazz music.

Namespace Delimiter

Delimiter used to separate the namespace of an identifier from the identifier.

Post-claim Reporting

See Post-usage Reporting

Post-usage Reporting

A process whereby a licensee provides data to a musical work licensor describing the releases and resources available on its service in a Sales/Usage Report using one of the profiles from the DSR standard with sales and/or usage data contained in the sales and/or usage Records at the time the licensee is contractually required to provide sales and/or usage data.

With this approach the licensor is only able to start the process of providing claims in respect of the musical works embodied on the releases or resources to the licensee after receipt of sales and/or usage data, thus lengthening the timeframe to complete the claiming process, invoice the licensee, receive payment from the licensee and distribute any revenue to third parties, compared to when using the Pre-usage Reporting process.

Pre-claim Reporting

See Pre-usage Reporting

Pre-usage Reporting

A process whereby a licensee provides data to a musical work licensor describing the releases and resources available on its service in a Sales/Usage Report using one of the profiles from the DSR standard without sales and/or usage data contained in the sales and/or usage Records before the licensee is contractually required to provide sales and/or usage data.

This approach enables the licensor to carry out the process of providing claims in respect of the musical works embodied on the releases or resources to the licensee in an attempt to have completed the claiming process before receiving a Sales/Usage Report at the time the licensee is contractually required to provide sales and/or usage data, thus, enabling the licensor to invoice the licensee, receive payment and distribute any revenue to third parties in a shorter timeframe than when using the Post-usage Reporting process.

Primary Delimiter

Delimiter used to separate Cells.

Profile

A subset of a DDEX standard. Profiles define how to create a Sales/Usage Report in accordance with one or more parts of the DSR standard for use in a specific commercial context.

Record

A collection of Cells that describe a specific data entity. Records are separated by Record Delimiters and are identified by a four-character Record type identifier (e.g. HEAD, FOOT, CS01) in the first Cell of each Record. The Record type identifier may carry a version number (e.g. CD01.01)

Record Company

An organisation which is the owner of copyrights in sound recordings and/or music videos and/or the exclusive licensor of copyrights in sound recordings and/or music videos.

Record Delimiter

Delimiter used to separate Records.

Release

A release is an abstract entity representing a bundle of one or more resources usually compiled by a record company. The resources in releases are normally primarily sound recordings or music videos, 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. For example, 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 music video, an image, software or a passage of text). Resources are individual assets that make up a release. Typical resources are sound recordings, music videos and cover art images.

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 Sales/Usage Report created in accordance with the DSR standard.

Sale

Distribution of a product to end consumers. For the avoidance of doubt, the term “sale” includes all forms of distribution of products, whether revenue was generated, or not and, where revenue is generated, regardless of the business model used to do so.

Sales/Usage Report

A message created in accordance with one of the profiles defined as part of the Digital Sales Reporting Message Suite. A Sales/Usage Report may be split into several individual files.

Sales Context

The combination of one territory, one currency, one use type, one commercial model type, one subscriber type and one service description for which a Sales/Usage Report is being created. It is permissible, subject to the licensee and the licensor agreeing, to communicate multiple sales contexts in one Sales/Usage Report.

Secondary Delimiter

Delimiter used to separate data elements within a single Cell.

Single Record Block Variant

A variant of a Sales/Usage Report created in accordance with one or more parts of the DSR standard where all descriptive and sales and/or usage data for each sales “line” appear in a single Record. Each Single Record Block Variant has been derived from a Multi Record Block Variant by collapsing Blocks into a single SR Record. Some profiles exist only as Single Record Block Variants.

Sub-Release

A release that is being created from one or more of the primary resources of a Head Release. For the purpose of this standard these Sub-Releases are being created by the licensee who is making releases, and resources from such releases, available to consumers. These “unbundled resources”, that is, all the resources from a release each made available separately, are the simplest form of Sub-Release.

Usage

The identification of the releases and resources that actually get exploited by licensees exercising a range of business and delivery models for the distribution of releases to consumers, including the amount of use of each release or resource.

User-generated Content

A service where sound recordings, music videos and other resorces have been posted by a user to the service. The service is then made available to consumers.