Works and Licences

The Work List search screen provides you with the ability to look up your work and share details for those works that you have previously registered with CMRRA. Along with details of the musical work, including your ownership share(s) and representation status for CMRRA’s various lines of business, the details of any licences that have been issued will be displayed.

The following search parameters are supported:

• Title - The original title or any alternate title. The search type can be set to "Exact Match," "Begins With," or "Fuzzy", where a "Fuzzy" search is a non-exact text search and will yield results based upon similarity in descending order. Please note that non-exact searches, including the “Begins With” option, will result in longer search processing times than exact matches.
• Work Number - The following number types:
  • CMRRA Number
  • Legacy Number – This refers to CMRRA's work number generated by our legacy system. This will differ from the CMRRA Number type for works that have been registered after work data was converted to LDS, while our legacy system is still in use. Once all lines of business have been moved to LDS, legacy processing will cease and Legacy Numbers will no longer be generated.
  •  ISWC
  • Publisher's own proprietary work number if provided via the CWR registration process
• Artist - The Name of a recording artist associated with the work
• IP Name - The writer and/or publisher contributors on the work. For publishers, this can be either the publisher name previously registered with CMRRA or the Interested Party (IP) Name Patronym. If searching for a writer, please search by the Last Name followed by First Name with no commas. Including the writer's middle name will enhance the search, but if this information is not known, your best option will be using “Begins With” as the search type.
• IP Name Number - The IPI Number of the Interested Party (IP), if known. This is an 11-digit number assigned to all members of Performing Rights Organizations (PROs)
• CMRRA Account Number - The account number CMRRA has assigned to the publisher.  This search field requires an 8-digit number: if the CMRRA Account Number you are entering has less than 8 digits, add one or more leading zeros.

The Work List search will return a list of possible matches for your search in a results grid. You can click on the View option to review the details of the work and any associated licences.

Please note that the list of works returned will be limited to only those that have been previously registered with CMRRA and which have been validated and prepared for licensing and royalty payment. These works will reflect a Registration Status of "Registered."

In addition, you will be able to view any works that you have submitted using the CMRRA Direct Work Registration tool, and which have not yet been fully processed. The status of these will be "In Process" until validated by CMRRA.

If a work has an identified conflict in ownership, it will be flagged with a status of In Dispute, visible in the header section of the work details.

 

Work Numbers

The Work Numbers grid displays the following types of numbers, if present:

• CMRRA Number
• Legacy Number
• CMRRA Replaced – represents situations where multiple work records have been merged together and the number has been maintained for matching and tracking purposes
• ISWC
• SODRAC number
• WID number
• Publisher's own proprietary work number if provided via the CWR registration process

Contributor Details

The Contributor Details grid displays the following fields of data:

• IPI Number - 11-digit number assigned to all members of Performing Rights Organizations (PROs)
• CMRRA Account No. - The account number CMRRA has assigned to the publisher
• Legacy Account No. - The CMRRA account number from our legacy system, which may differ for accounts that have been registered after our systems were converted
• First Name - Writer's first name and any middle names, if present
• Surname/ Account Name - Surname refers to a writer's last name. For publishers, the Account Name will display the name of the publisher as registered with CMRRA
• Role - the Contributor type:
  • E - Publisher - The interested party which has acquired by agreement with a composer and/or author the rights in a work for a stipulated territory and for a stipulated duration.
  • C - Composer - The creator, or one of the creators, of the musical elements of a musical work
  • A - Author, Writer, Lyricist - The creator, or one of the creators, of the text of a musical work
  • CA - Composer/Author - The creator, or one of the creators, of text and musical elements of a musical work
  • AR - Arranger - Contributor credited with the arrangement of an existing Public Domain work.
  • AM - Administrator - An interested party that collects royalty payments on behalf of a publisher that it represents
• Mech % - The Mechanical Share associated with this work
• Affiliation Type -
  • Bcast Mech – Indicates if the account is affiliated for Broadcast Mechanical distributions
  • Mech – Indicates if the account is affiliated for Mechanical Licensing
  • Online – Indicates if the account is affiliated for Online Licensing, e.g. permanent downloads (e.g., via iTunes), limited downloads, on-demand streaming and webcasting
  • PC – Indicates if the account is affiliated for Private Copying

 

Licensing of Major Label Releases

Following the settlement of the pending list class action suit, CMRRA is now exchanging licence data with the major labels via the electronic licensing system administered through CSI (CMRRA-SODRAC Inc.). Background information on this can be obtained via the CSI Music Services website. Under this system, an electronic licence request is submitted to CSI for every physical release, and a Licence Response message is then provided back to the label that contains CMRRA’s licensed shares (as well as SODRAC’s) for each work that is contained on the release, along with any additional information that CMRRA is able to provide pertaining to other non-represented IP’s.

The Work page features a Licence Responses grid that indicates any releases where 1) a response has been generated and 2) a track has been matched to the work in question. The key data regarding each release is included in this grid: Record Company, Artist, Album Title, UPC, Catalogue Number, Release Date and type. Selecting the View option will trigger a new table of Licence Details to open which will display details of the individual licences that have been issued by CMRRA on your behalf for the work in question, as contained on that release. This includes:

• License Ref (this is the License Number assigned by CMRRA),
• Publisher Name under which the licence has been issued,
• Share %,
• Rate Type (Full, Budget, or Controlled are typical values),
• Royalty Rate (this represents the rate at 100% ownership of the work),
• Applicable Rate (the Royalty Rate multiplied by the Share %),
• Duration of track,
• Date the licence was issued,
• Status (see below for additional information on Licence Status Values)
• Date Confirmed (date the label confirmed acceptance of the licence – Note that prior to August 2014, CMRRA was not capturing the confirmation date in the licence response details grid, so in some cases this field may be blank. If the status value is Confirmed, though, then the label has accepted and processed the licence for payment.)

Licence Status Values

Issued: A licence has been issued by CMRRA but not yet processed by the record company.

Confirmed: The licence has been confirmed by the record company.

Work has been done to support licensing in LDS of independent labels who have signed CMRRA’s Mechanical Licensing Agreement (MLA). We will begin to issue licences via LDS to these labels by the Fall of 2015.

Licensing of Pay-as-you-press manufacturers in LDS requires additional development work that is scheduled for early 2016, following the conversion of the Online licensing and distribution processes.

There are several reasons why Licence Details may not exist. Below is a list of possible scenarios, where in all cases the work in question has been matched to a track on the release in question, but no licences have been issued:

1. InHouse and Direct Licence situations - If there is an in-house licensing relationship or directly licensed share, then no licence has been issued by CMRRA, hence no Licence Details will be available for the work as contained on that product.
2. Controlled Compositions – If CMRRA is in the process of licensing the relevant shares, pending the calculation of a controlled rate, then no licence has been issued by CMRRA, hence no Licence Details will be available for that work as contained on that product.
3. Unconfirmed Ownership – Where CMRRA has an indication that you may administer a share of the work in question but a claim has not yet been verified, your Publisher may appear with a 0% share on the work. In these cases, no licences have been issued, and confirmation of your ownership share is required in order to complete the licensing process.

Prior to August 2014 CMRRA was not capturing the confirmation date in the licence response details grid. If the status value is Confirmed, though, then the label has accepted and processed the licence for payment.