The Works, Composers & Publishers areas are only visible the in Publisher platform. The Record Label & Distributor version of the application does not contain these areas in the toolbar.
The Work captures specific metadata such as the title, the territories in which a work is owned, which composers and publishers own the work & which sound recordings are associated to the work.
Overview
Headline Metadata
Title – The title of the work
Alternate Title – An alternative title is another name or spelling for one of your works; for example, Mad For You could also be Mad 4 U. Alternate titles are optional to add, but will be part of a CWR delivery & may help collection societies ensure they track as many uses of the work as possible.
Composer – The composers of the work. If this is left blank, it will be automatically populated by the Composers entered in the IP Chain.
Main Identifier – This is a unique code used to identify this specific work. You can enter your own unique identifier, use one provided by a 3rd party, or leave blank & use the ISWC or Tunecode field as the unique identifier.
ISWC – The ISWC (International Stand Work Code) is the publishing’s counterpart of the ISRC code & is a globally unique identifier that specifies a musical work. This code is provided by collection societies.
Tunecode – Tunecodes are unique identifiers used by the PRS & MCPS. If you are a member of these collection societies, they will provide Tunecodes for your Works.
Configurations
These are optional fields that if completed will be included in your CWR deliveries. A PRO will typically populate these fields by default if left blank.
Priority – This flags the Work as a priority in your CWR output.
Production Library – Mark if the Work is part of a production library & should be classified as such at your PRO.
Category – Specify if the work is pop, jazz, classical or undefined. These are four categories often used by PROs to categorise catalogue.
Language – The language of the lyrics in this Work.
Work Version – Specifies if this is an Original Work or a Modification.
Catalogue Groups
If needed, use this to include a Work in one or more Catalogue Groups. We provide default groups “Frontline” & “Catalogue, but you can create new Groups to choose from in the Settings area. Check the ‘Contracts – Catalogue Groups‘ topic to see how this function can be applied.
Track Associations
Using this tool you can link your Works to the sound recordings in your Track catalogue. When a track is associated with a Work, the performer, track title & ISRC data will be included in CWR deliveries. Before you can associate a Track to a Work, you need to create the Track on your Track page. As a Publisher, most of these fields aren’t as relevant as they would be if you are a Record Label using Curve. The fields most relevant to you and your CWR deliveries are the Track Title, Track Artist, ISRC and Duration field.
Territories
Select all the territories in which you have an ownership share in the copyright of the Work, regardless of your share. You will specify the detail of your ownership (50% in France, 75% in Germany etc) in the IP Chain. More on that shortly.
IP Chain
The IP Chain describes how the ownership of the work is shared between the composers, songwriters, publishers & any sub-publishers. As such the IP Chain has multiple layers;
Territory – The territory (or territories, remember, you can create your own groups in the settings area) for which the following rights definitions will apply. NB Using “World” will select all territories that were checked on the Territories tab.
Publisher – Add the Publishers. Search from the list of Publishers entered in the Publishers area of your Catalogue. Multiple layers of Publishers can be added to describe sub-publishing agreements.
Composer – Similarly to Publishers these are selected from a list configured in the Composers area of the Catalogue.
For each Publisher & Composer selected the following will need to be defined:
Category – Is the publisher the Original, Sub-Publisher or Administrator; or did the Composer write the Lyrics, Music or both?
Controlled – Check this if you publish this share & collect the royalties due for this share.
Owned Mechanicals – The share of Mechanical copyright this party owns.
Owned Performance – The share of Performance copyright this party owns.
Collected Mechanicals – The share of Mechanical royalties this party will collect. This may differ to the Owned Mechanicals share.
Collected Performance – The share of Performance royalties this party will collect. This may differ to the Owned Performance share.
Here are some example scenarios:
Original Publishing Agreement
Curve Publishing Group (CPG) is the original publisher of the full share of this work worldwide. You can see how the Owned & Collected shares are specified, with the publisher owning & collecting the full mechanical share (100). But the owned & collected performance share is split equally between the publisher (CPG) & composer (Madonna Publishing). The four green boxes at the top right verify the shares total 100%. Also note the check-marked Controlled boxes, stating we fully control this work.
Sub-Publishing Agreement
In this example, CPG sub-publishes this work, whereas Madonna Publishing is the Original Publisher. The Original Publishers own the full mechanical share & half the performance share. But the Sub-Publisher, will collect this share.
Admin Agreement
Similar to the above sub-publishing agreement, CPG administrates this work worldwide, whereas Madonna Publishing is the Original Publisher.
Multiple writers & Publishers
In a work where multiple writers & publishers are involved, as many Publisher & Composer layers can be added as needed. In the below example, CPG is the Original Publisher of Dave Grohl’s share, whereas Foo Fighters Publishing is the Original Publisher of Nate Mendel & Pat Smear’s share. The check-marked controlled boxes notify the collection societies that we only control Curve/Dave’s share.
Rights
This is where catalogue items are connected to one or more contracts to account for Sales/Returns & Costs. To what extent a contract will interact with associated revenue is defined by the Rate.
When linking the contracts, you need to know which of your songwriters should be accounted to & how much of the income they are to participate in. As a rule of thumb, the Participation Rate should be calculated according to the following formula:
Participation Rate of Composer = (Writer Share of Composer / Sum of Writer Share of all Controlled Composers) * 100
Let’s look at some scenarios to better illustrate this, first some simple examples:
- You publish a Composer 100%, who is the sole writer of a work. Your contract for the Composer will be added at a rate of 100 (=(100/100)*100) to the Work
- You publish two Composers 100%, who have equal writers share on a work. Both respective contracts for your Composers will be added to the Work with a Participation Rate of 50 (=(50/100)*100)
Not all publishing arrangements are so easy to layout:
- You control 100% of a Composer, who equally shares the credit of a Work with another composer. This second composer you do not control & as such you are not receiving revenues for. In this instance, you would apply your Composers contract to work at 100. (=(50/50)*100)
- You publish two Writers, who both have credits to a song, along with other parties. Your writers are credited with 20% & 30% respectively.m Your first writer’s contract will be applied with a rate of 40 (=(20/50)*100) & 60 (=(30/50)*100)
If you have set up a default Linked Contract for your controlled Composers, the system will automatically add the relevant Contracts to the work & calculate the respective Participation Rates.
Aliases
Aliases are secondary identifiers to match Income data to your Works. Quite often you will be reported identifiers that differ to those you entered on the Work Overview (the Main Identifier, ISWCs or Tunecodes). You can use Aliases or Society Identifiers to match them to the Work.
Society Identifiers – These alternative identifiers will only match income from statements for the stipulated society.
Aliases – These are general alternative identifiers that will work regardless of the source of income.
Society Identifiers & Aliases can be entered on the Aliases tab of your Work or, more efficiently, via the Unmapped page in the Income directory. When you upload an income file, Curve will attempt to match the work identifiers in the income file with the unique identifiers of your Works on Curve. When Curve does not find a match, these income lines will appear in the Unmapped page. Here you can then map the alternative identifier to the correct Work, which will then be added as a Society Identifier or Alias. Curve will then automatically match any future income lines using these alternative identifiers.
For more information on the Unmapped page refer to the Income – Unmapped article.
Deliveries
Any CWR deliveries this Work has been included in will be logged here. You will see the reipient, date of delivery & once an acknowledgement file has been uploaded if the delivery was successful. For more information on how to create a CWR delivery, please visit our documentation on Deliveries.