4.1 Terms and definitions

For the purposes of all parts of the MWN 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 standard in lower case, for ease of readability. This does not apply in this standard to Exploitation because this term is specialised for the purpose of the MWN standard.

Administrator

A party managing rights in musical works on behalf of one or more rights holders.

Batch

A group of one or more messages created in accordance with the MWN standard to be processed by the recipient together.

Collection Share

A right share (as defined in this clause) as calculated for the collection of money for right shares.

Collective Management Organisation

A party (that is usually owned or controlled by its members and/or organised on a not-for-profit basis) that, as its sole or main purpose, administers copyright or related rights on behalf of at least two rights holders, for the collective benefit of those rights holders where it is authorised by law or by way of assignment or contract.

A collective management organisation may also be a licensor, a rights administrator, a licensing agent or a rights holder.

A collective management organisation may or may not be the message sender or message recipient of a message created in accordance with this standard.

Exploitation

An embodiment of a musical work in a complex creation that usually also uses other musical works, e.g. an audio-visual production or a set list for a performance. This is distinct from simply using a musical work in a sound recording or music video.

Hub

In the context of the MWN standard, and the Musical Work Licensing Choreography and Letters of Direction Choreography standards, a service that acts as an intermediary for data exchange to facilitate the sharing of musical work and musical work right share data. Hubs may also play a role in facilitating licensing processes between licensors and licensees. Hubs may also act just as message routers and/or provide data caching functionality.

Licensee

A party that has been granted, or may be 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 message created in accordance with this standard.

Licensor

A party that has granted, or may grant, 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 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 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 message created in accordance with this standard.

Manuscript Share

A right share (as defined in this clause) of a musical work held by a writer. If a musical work has more than one writer, the share is as agreed between the writers. Manuscript shares may occasionally vary by territory and/or rights type.

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.

Original Publisher

A rights holder who is assigned rights directly by the writer (as opposed to by another publisher). A writer may have zero, one or many original publishers.

Original Publisher Share

The right share (as defined in this clause) of the overall musical work that a writer has assigned to an original publisher. Each writer can have zero, one or many original publishers, and hence zero, one or many original publisher shares may be assigned. An original publisher share does not define the right share for the collection of royalties, this is determined by the collection share.

Release

A release is an abstract entity representing a bundle of one or more resources compiled by the issuer of the release, usually a record company or distributor. 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 video and cover art images.

Right Share

A percentage or fraction of a right for a musical work for a particular time and/or place and/or usage (or other parameter) in which a party claims a controlling interest. For these purposes, controlling interest includes ownership and/or administration.

Rights Holder

A party that holds the rights in respect of some or all rights in one or more creations 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).

The rights holder may be a human being or other legal person or corporate entity.

The rights holder may or may not also be a licensor and/or a rights administrator and/or a licensing agent and may authorise other parties to fulfil those roles.

The rights holder may or may not be the message sender or message recipient of a message in a specific information exchange defined by a DDEX Standard.

In the messages defined in this part of the MWN standard, the term rights controller is used to refer to a rights holder.

Rights Type

A type of exploitation of a right share in a musical work. The descriptions of rights types are defined by relevant laws and/or regulations and/or contracts and may vary between territories. Examples of rights types include mechanical rights, performing rights and synchronisation rights.

Sound Recording

An audible persistent manifestation of a subject (often but not necessarily of a performance). Sound Recordings may embody one or more musical works.

Usage

A way a sound recording or Exploitation is provided to consumers, e.g. as a stream or as a download. Usages are not to be confused with usage data based on the interaction of consumers with sound recordings or Exploitations.

Web Service

A modern set of web technologies that enable small pieces of information, typically in the context of the use of DDEX standard messages, to be exchanged. Augmented with FTP (or other file exchange mechanisms) they can be used to communicate data or content along the music value chain.

Web Service Call

The sending of a document to a port/address on a web server, using HTTP or HTTPS.

Web Service Response

The sending of a document in direct response to a web service call, using HTTP or HTTPS. For the avoidance of doubt, the appropriate response is always the message indicated in the appropriate choreography.

Writer

A creator of the musical or lyrical elements of a musical work. The term writers includes adapters, arrangers, authors, composers, composer lyricists, librettists, lyricists, non-lyric authors and translators.

Writer Share

See manuscript share.