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.
Rejected: The record company has rejected the terms of the licence issued by CMRRA. In these cases, the rejection reason appears when the user hovers over the status value. Typical reasons for a rejected licence are a disagreement with the royalty rate, e.g. calculation of a controlled rate, or the existence of a direct licence. CMRRA actively follows up on every rejected licence to find and resolve the issue. An additional atypical cause of rejected licences is specific to Universal and stems from a technical* issue related to a singular musical work appearing more than once on a release, or on multiple different configurations of the same release. CMRRA has identified the affected releases and is addressing them according to a prioritised list provided by Universal.
