1 Introduction

This document defines the standard choreography and messages for Part 4 (RDR-RCC) of the Recording Data and Rights standard (RDR), which was developed by member organisations of the Digital Data Exchange, LLC (DDEX). Any organisation wishing to implement a DDEX standard is required to apply for an Implementation Licence. The terms of the licence can be found here and an application form can be found here.

The messages contained in this part of the RDR standard provide a simple mechanism for the communication of data about rights conflicts only for one specific use case: the communication of data from a music licensing company to a claiming party, usually a record company or performer, where the total claims received by the music licensing company in respect of the same rights exceeds 100%. The first message contained in this part of the RDR standard enables a music licensing company to notify claiming parties if one or more of their rights claims are in conflict (i.e. where the total claims exceed 100%). The second message enables conflicting parties to notify the music licensing company that they maintain, update or revoke their earlier made claim(s).

The current process for managing such conflicts is complex and inefficient and that often results in unresolved disputes, leaving claiming parties without their due remuneration. This standard offers a simple solution for making this process more efficient and accessible to even the smallest players in the market.

Record companies, performers and music licensing companies that are currently not able to send or ingest the XML messages which can be used for the management of conflicts in Part 2 of the RDR standard (RDR-N) will benefit from this part of the RDR standard. This is because it provides a simple approach to the communication of data when a rights conflict needs resolving. To that end, this part of the RDR standard has been optimised or simplicity, which will reduce implementation and running costs and enable the broadest possible adoption of this standard.

The use of this part of the RDR standard may also occur alongside other processes and standard methods of communication used by implementers. This may include certain messages from the Part 2 of the RDR standard (RDR-N) either through one-to-one XML communications or in a more synchronised way using data hubs. This part of the RDR standard has also therefore been developed in a way that enables flexibility in the context in which it is deployed.