SoundExchange Reporting Blog

Last week a number of us from Public Interactive, NPR and the CPB were interviewed by Karen Everhart of Current about the CPB-SoundExchange agreement and some of the issues this has raised with stations. The resulting article that Karen wrote was published this week and is pretty good. I encourage you to read it, if you haven’t already.

Karen did a good job of getting the facts straight; I only noticed one error in the article. The following comment is not right:

Under the current contract, some 270 stations, or 60 percent of the 450 that are eligible, are required to begin reporting this year.

The agreement is actually to report on 60% of music ATH in the system by the end of 2009 (and 80% by the end of 2010), not 60% of the covered entities. Just for the record, your honor.

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.

As I have mentioned here before, we have posted guidelines for the formatting of playlist and streaming log files to be submitted to Public Interactive for SoundExchange reporting on this here blog. With the deadline for getting us your Q3 SoundExchange reporting data really not all that far off (seven weeks from Friday, but who’s counting?) – and since these guidelines have been tweaked a bit since first posted, I figured it was worth it to revisit these guidelines.

Streaming Access Log File Guidelines

Since, in general, streaming log files are produced by software applications (e.g. Windows Media, SHOUTcast, Icecast, Real, etc.) these really are just guidelines to make sure your server is logging the required data, since stations won’t generally have control over the formatting. We’re ready to work with the various formats produced by these tools, since there are only a handful of them that most stations use.

Playlist Log File Guidelines

Playlist log files, however, are another matter. These really are requirements, not just guidelines, in that we must have your data in a fairly specific format in order to make automated processing possible. Many stations track playlist data using a homegrown application or a spreadsheet, so it’s just not possible for us to try and accommodate the near infinite variety of possible data formats that could arise. For those that use commercial applications (e.g. Spinitron, MusicMaster, Liquid Compass, etc.) we have been working with the vendors where possible to communicate our formatting needs.

Please be sure to review our playlist file formatting requirements if you haven’t recently! If the data is not given to us in the required format we will not process it and won’t be able to submit reports on your behalf to SoundExchange.

Some of the finer points of the formatting to bear in mind:

• Files must be tab-delimited, text files (i.e. no spreadsheets, Word documents, PDFs, etc.)
• Please use the following exact field identifiers: Title, Artist, Album, Label, Start Time, End Time, Duration. Field ordering within the file doesn’t matter, so long as your are consistent throughout.
• Please do not include any other data in the playlist file, other than the header row and playlist entries (i.e. no schedule data)
• Start Time must include the date (i.e. one field for the start date and time, not two separate fields); same for End Time.
• Times must be in 24-hour format

If your station will be entering playlist data by hand, we have prepared an empty, sample spreadsheet that you could use as a starting point.

Download this sample playlist entry spreadsheet here.

It has all of the required fields (though remember that we only need either End Time OR Duration, not both), including the proper field headers, and formatting for start and end times. Once you enter your data you would simply choose to Save As a Tab Delimited text (.txt) file, which you can then send to Public Interactive. Voila!

These requirements are pretty well set now, but it’s possible we may tweak things if the need arises in the future. When and if that happens I will be sure to note it here in the blog. Thanks to everyone for your patience as we work the kinks out of this whole process.

I am pleased to announce that our friends at the Public Radio Program Directors Association (this means you Arthur!) have given us a slot at their upcoming conference in Cleveland to discuss – what else? – SoundExchange reporting! The SX session at the PRPD conference will be on Wednesday, September 16th at 11:00am. Here’s the skinny on the session:

Eliminate SoundExchange Stress with Dr. Phil and Friends

Are you suffering from online music reporting stress? Join this roundtable discussion on music rights and SoundExchange (SX) reporting for public broadcasters. Phil Johnson (aka:  Dr. Phil) will give a brief report card on how the system is doing, review reporting requirements, provide an exclusive first look at reporting tools coming to your station, and will reveal what you need to know about the upcoming Q3 deadline.  Panelists will provide history and details behind the agreement and a primer on internet music rights and royalties. After a brief presentation we will open the session to answer your questions on the complicated and evolving world of music rights and responsibilities in the realm of new media. Don’t miss this chance to alleviate reporting stress and ask questions about what is and is not permitted forstreaming.

In addition to myself (yes, Dr. Phil), the panelists will include my boss Debra May Hughes, who runs PI, as well as Jeff Luchsinger from the CPB, and John Crigler from the law firm of Garvey Schubert Barer. Both Jeff and John were involved in crafting of the deal between the CPB and SoundExchange. As the session blurb says, we’ll use the time to give you an update on SoundExchange reporting through Public Interactive, including the development of tools to help stations get us their data. Jeff and John will be able to help answer your larger questions on the CPB-SX agreement and music rights and licensing in the digital era.

Let me use this opportunity to refer you back to an excellent webinar about music licensing that John participated in last month for NFCB stations. If you haven’t already watched the video of the webinar, I would encourage you to do so when you have a spare hour. It’s worth your time.

I look forward to meeting many of you in person at the conference. Even if you can’t make the session, please be sure to swing by the Public Interactive booth on Wednesday afternoon and say hello! I’ll only be there on Wednesday, but our crack sales manager Joe Orlando will be there all week to answer any question you may have about PI’s products and services.

I expect that Cleveland will be rocking that week!

As many of you classical music folks will recall, there has been a semi-open question about how to report to SoundExchange when an entire classical piece has been played. When I initially asked SoundExchange this question, they reported that stations should report each track as it is broken down on the CD or album by the record label. That is to say, if a label breaks a Beethoven symphony into four separate tracks, and the whole symphony is played, then all four tracks need to be reported separately.

Understandably, many of you expressed concern over this requirement, since it can create a lot more work, particularly when pieces with lots of movements (e.g. operas) are played in whole.

Actually, “concern” is an understatement.

So, I went back to SoundExchange and explained the issue and asked if they were really sure about their initial answer. Could stations, I asked, just report the whole piece are one, rather than having to list each track separately?

It took a while but they finally got back to me with a final, definitive answer.

Which most of you won’t like.

For better or for worse, they have reaffirmed their first answer. They still want stations to list each track in a piece separately, as they are broken down by the record label.

I wish I could give you guys the answer you wanted. I tried, I really did, to plead the case. But, no go.

That is the requirement so, as I have said all along, do your best to meet it.

Last week the CPB announced that it has reached an agreement with SoundExchange to cover music streaming by public broadcasters through 2015. Recall that the agreement reached earlier this year covered the period January 1, 2005 through December 31, 2010. The new agreement runs from January 1, 2011 through December 31, 2015.

The new agreement is similar to the existing one, and contains the same basic parameters:

1. The CPB covers all royalty payments for all covered stations for the period of the agreement.

2. Stations must continue to report quarterly (through Public Interactive) on the music they stream and the number of people that heard it. The vast majority of stations will continue to do only sample reporting (i.e. reporting on two weeks out of each quarter). Currently, only the top 20% of streamers have to do full-census reporting; starting in 2010 (under the current agreement and continuing through the next agreement) the top 30% of streaming music stations will need to do full census reporting. Public Interactive will stations know if they fall into the top 30% of music streamers.

3. Stations are still responsible for abiding by the terms of the Performance Complement of the DMCA.

This is good news for everyone. Honest.

Below is an official mailing on the agreement sent out last week.

Feel free to contact me with questions.

To:       Public Radio System Leaders
From:   Bruce Theriault, Senior Vice President, Radio, CPB;  Jeff Luchsinger, Director, Radio System Investment, CPB
Date:   August 6, 2009
Subject: New CPB-SoundExchange Agreement 2011 – 2015

Dear Colleagues;

We are pleased to announce that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting(CPB) has reached an agreement with SoundExchange (SX) that defines the terms, conditions, and costs for public broadcasters to provide (music) sound recordings over the Internet for the period Jan. 1, 2011 through December 31, 2015.

As you will remember, CPB and a team including NPR and the Station Resource Group came to an agreement with SX in January of this year for the period 2004 – 2010. The new agreement was reached under the Small Webcasters Settlement Act, which was recently amended by Congress and signed by the President to permit the execution of agreements under the Act until midnight, July 30, 2009. The new agreement continues to recognize public radio’s special public service mission and non-commercial nature. It also maintains public radio’s commitment that artists and labels featured on public radio station websites receive the compensation to which they are entitled.

CPB will make annual payments to SX over the term of the new agreement to cover qualified public radio stations (CPB qualified, NPR member and NFCB member stations) and NPR, PRI, APM, and PRX. The type and format of the reports that public radio stations must provide to take advantage of the new CPB-SX blanket agreement are essentially unchanged from those described in the current agreement. To secure the benefits of these agreements most stations will have an obligation to provide quarterly data on usage of their Internet streams and accurate playlists of sound recordings played on their websites. A sub-set of stations will be required to provide census reporting. These reports supply SX with the information necessary to make payments to artists and labels.

Earlier this year CPB selected NPR/Public Interactive (NPR/PI) as the sole agent to collect and report public radio music streaming activities to SX and to assist stations in complying with the reporting requirements. PI has been moving quickly to get stations up to speed and provided the first quarterly reports to SX last month. The deadline for the next set of quarterly reports is October, 16, 2009.

As many of you have already heard me say, I’m am not a lawyer – nor do I play one on TV or in the workplace. Depending on your outlook, this may be a good thing or a bad thing. Unfortunately, for you stations that have asked me specific questions about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), specifically about what restrictions it imposes on what you can and can’t stream, that means I can’t answer your question.

The DMCA is, to put it mildly, confusing. In order to really understand it or interpret it, I would strongly recommend you consult your own legal counsel, as Public Interactive cannot provide legal counsel or advice.

However, we can direct you to something called the Performance Complement to the DMCA which outlines the basic restrictions on streaming. You can download it here. We strongly recommend that everybody take a look at it.

Honestly, though, beyond sharing this document, we can’t offer any advice. Again, please consult with your own legal counsel for proper interpretation and guidance.

Perhaps I should have gone to law school after all… oh well.