SoundExchange Reporting Blog

A most excellent question was recently posed to us that may have occurred to some of you, amidst all the talk of public broadcasting being defunded by the new Congress. I’ve just added it – and the CPB‘s response – to our FAQ page:

Q: With the possibility of CPB being defunded by 2013, what will happen to the SoundExchange agreement that is supposed to last until 2015?

A: The CPB has already paid the bill for the full term of the agreement, so it will remain in effect until Dec. 31, 2015. After that, it’s anybody’s guess.

Of course, let us all hope it doesn’t come to that (fingers crossed)…

A simple yet excellent question was posed again to me today that may be obvious to some but really isn’t obvious to all. So, I’ve added it to our FAQs, which I probably should’ve done a long time ago.

Here it is..

Q: Do SoundExchange reports supersede or replace the reports we file with BMI, ASCAP or SESAC?

A: No. While all four are performing rights organizations, BMI, ASCAP, and SESAC collect and distribute royalties for songwriters, composers and music publishers related to the public performance of their copyrighted work. SoundExchange, on the other hand, collects and distributes royalties for featured recording artists and sound recording master rights owners (i.e. recording labels or independent musicians) related to the non-interactive digital transmissions (e.g. via the internet or satellite radio) of their copyrighted recordings.

So, in short, no, SoundExchange reporting does not supersede (or eliminate the need for) BMI/ASCAP/SESAC reporting.

I just updated our SoundExchange reporting FAQ page with a couple of interesting questions that SoundExchange has answered for us. They may be of interest to some of you as you prepare to get us your Q3 reporting data which – I’m sure you all know by now – are due on Friday, October 16, 2009.

Q: Some of the music we play comes from other countries and has titles written in other languages and alphabets (e.g. Cyrillic). How should we report these?

A: SoundExchange encourages stations to report English translations of foreign titles whenever possible. However, when English translations can not be obtained, report the titles as they are and SoundExchange will deal with the translation.

Q: What should we report as the Album for singles that we stream?

A: SoundExchange encourages stations to report the album from a which single came. In the case where a single was a pre-release or truly had no associated album, report the single title in the Album field.

Just added a question to our FAQ page, that keeps coming up in various forms. It has to do with reporting the label for recordings put out by directly by artists.

Q: If we play music from a band that does not have label representation and puts out their own CD, what do we put in the Label field?

A: What SoundExchange wants in the Label field is the name of the entity that owns the copyright to the recording, which is usually a record company. If an artist puts out their own album and owns the copyright to the recording, put the artist name in the label field.

So, keep in mind what it is that SoundExchange is looking for and that should help guide you.

Earlier this week we closed the books on accepting Q2 data for SoundExchange reports from stations and compiled the reports for delivery. Technically, we’re still dotting a few i’s and crossing some t’s before final FINAL report delivery, but you get the idea.

Thanks to all the stations we gave us data – or made an attempt to get us data – in a very short amount of time, under very foggy circumstances. Some of you really helped us to blaze some trails along the way that will help other stations on down the line. You know who you are. Thanks especially to everyone for their patience as we (and I) figure out how this process will work. It will get smoother for all involved going forward, that much I promise.

Now that Q2 reports are (almost) done and delivered, that, of course, means that we’re already planning for Q3 reports! While the reports will be due to SoundExchange in late October, we will be looking to get data from all stations covered by the CPB-SX agreement as soon as they are ready to give it to us. Recall that almost all stations can choose two 7-day-consecutive periods within the quarter to report on (stations that need to report on the whole quarter already know who they are). So if your station feels that two weeks in July are representative of the music you play all during the months of July, August and September, then you can get us your data early and be done with it!

In any case, we will soon announce a specific (and hard) deadline for getting us Q3 data for inclusion in the reports delivered to SoundExchange.

We are working now on an online tool (Comnposer Basic) and process for stations to use to give us guide/schedule data, and to push playlist and streaming log files to us. Once that tool is ready for general use I will announce it here. If, in the meantime, you are ready to give us your Q3 data, contact me and we will work out a method for data delivery.

I recently posted a couple of pages outlining the formatting guidelines for both playlist and raw streaming access log files. These will probably change somewhat over time (we may go to a single, required file format for playlist logs, but that is still TBD), but for now follow these guidelines when preparing your data files for upload to us.

Finally, as I mentioned above and before, in order to be covered by the CPB-SoundExchange agreement you must register with the CPB, accept the terms of the CPB-SX agreement and then register with us. If you do not do this, you are not covered and we cannot generate and submit reports to SoundExchange on your behalf, even if you give us data!

As a reminder (from our FAQ page), here’s how all that registration works:

Q: How do I register my station for Internet Music Rights Coverage?

A: Follow this link on the CPB website to register.

Once you’ve registered with the CPB you will receive an email from them with a login to a web site to review and accept the terms of the SPB-SX agreement. You must accept the agreement in order to be a covered entity! PI can not submit reports on your behalf to SX until your station accepts the agreement!

I’ve registered on the CPB website and accepted the agreement. Now what?

Sign up with Public Interactive using this form.

In order to get started, we’ll need to gather some information about you and verify that you’ve registered with CPB. The PI Sound Exchange Project Manager will contact you directly to ask for data samples.

There you have it! Isn’t this fun?

I’ve just whipped up a couple of pages outlining the formatting guidelines for both playlist and raw streaming access log files.

I’ve include some sample files to download and use as guides.

Please take a look and feel free to contact me with any questions.

I gave a webinar about SoundExchange reporting to NPR stations this past Tuesday, which was well attended. Many questions were asked and answered. Thanks to all who participated and my apologies to those whose questions I didn’t have time to get to.

The slides from my presentation can be viewed here.

Also, an important clarification has been made to an FAQ about how long a song recording can be played before it has to be reported. After further consultation with the legal eagles here is our official answer from the revised FAQs:

Q: Is there a threshold length for how long we can play a sound recording before we have to report it?

A: There is no simple threshold length to determine whether a song/recording needs to be reported. In short, all recordings play should be reported. However, there is an exception for performances that are brief AND incidental to the other program content. “Brief” means playing any one recording for less than 30 seconds (as long as it isn’t played in its entirety). “Incidental” is much more vague, but generally refers to musical transitions, performances during news, talk and sports programming and background performances. Again, both conditions must be met to meet the exception; simply playing less than 30 seconds of a recording is not enough; it has to also be incidental or secondary to the main program content. This leaves lots of room for grey areas. When in doubt, report it. For further clarification or questions, refer to your own legal counsel.

Public Interactive and the CPB recently met with SoundExchange to clarify a few outstanding and quite frequently asked questions about SoundExchange reporting. A number of these were related to reporting on classical music. Here are some answers:

Q: Classical recordings often don’t have album titles. What should we report in those cases?

A: Report whatever title is on the physical CD or album from which it came (i.e. what’s on the spine). Whatever it says there is what is to be reported.

Q: How are we supposed to report song titles for classical pieces? Is a Beethoven symphony 4 tracks or 1?

A: However the label divides up the album tracks, that’s what to go on. So, if they split a Beethoven symphony into four tracks, each one is to be reported as a separate song title.

Q: What does “artist” mean for a classical performance? Is this the composer?

A: For classical music the Featured Artist/Group/Orchestra should be the soloist, orchestra or conductor that is featured prominently on the album.

In addition, many stations still have questions about the specific data that Public Interactive needs to collect in order to generate SoundExchange compliant reports. Here are a couple of the most popular and my answers:

Q: What pieces of information about songs do we need to track and report to Public Interactive for SoundExchange reporting?

A: For each song played on each stream, please provide the following data:

1. Song title
2. Featured artist/group/orchestra
3. Album title
4. Marketing label
5. Start date and time of song play
6. End date and time of play or duration of song

Q: Why does Public Interactive need to know the start times and end times or duration of each song?

A: Start and end times/duration are needed to calculate (1) the number of people who heard a given song (in order to match song play time with stream access during that time from your streaming logs) and (2) your station’s music Aggregate Tuning Hours (music ATH), which is the total hours of music streamed times the number of people listening at the time music was played.

Q: What type of data should be included in raw streaming logs?

A: Usually stations don’t have control over what is logged by their streaming server. In general, most streaming server applications (e.g. Shoutcast, Icecast) log similar information. Basically, in order to create SX-compliant reports Public Interactive needs raw streaming access logs that capture the following information:

1. IP Address of requester (for filtering our requests from outside the United States)
2. URL requested
3. Status of request
4. Start date and time of request
5. End date and time or duration or request

Q: Why does Public Interactive need to know the IP address of users accessing our streams?

A: SoundExchange pays royalties based on music streamed to listeners in the United States. They have asked us to filter out requests from users outside of the country. In order to do this (as best as possible) PI needs to know the user’s IP address.

I have updated the FAQ page on this site to include all of these new questions and answers.

Please keep those questions coming!