AVDE - AV Data Exchange

The AVDE working group has the following main tasks:

  • Putting together the Business Rules for the group
  • Maintaining the Global Cue Sheet Standard
    • Converting to electronic format
  •  Sharing Requirements and Use Cases

 

The next meeting will take place on 25 February 2025 via Teams.

 

The group is chaired by Helena Segersten (SACEM), Leslie Chan (SOCAN), Dee Hale (Sony Music Publishing), and Teri Nelson Carpenter (Reel Muzik Werks).

 

The Cue-Sheet Standards & Rules simplifies the rules governing the identification of musical works used in audiovisual productions. The harmonisation improves the administration of music rights, brings a new consistency to the use of cue-sheets, and will lead to increased efficiencies and potentially reduced costs for rights holders and users.

The Cue-Sheets Standard & Rules document, and sample documentation are available for download.

The harmonisation will, in a nutshell, make life simpler and more efficient for all actors using cue sheets. The common goal is to ensure a standardised flow of data between Publishers, Societies and Producers, and thus improve the flow of revenue back to the creators and rights holders.

The project has involved the creation of a new comprehensive template – the Common Cue-Sheet – and a set of standardised terminology that can be used by Producers and Publishers across all the different formats and platforms.  

Using the common terminology, the Common Cue-Sheet describes the relevant metadata of both musical works and of the production in which the works are featured. It also includes the context and duration of the usage of the musical works, incorporating many existing internationally recognised standard identifiers. 

Particular benefits include:

  • improved efficiency when processing Cue-Sheets and amending the details of a musical work
  • a more efficient musical work registration process and more registrations of works
  • payment records can be linked to musical work documentation, so that publishers can efficiently track royalty payments 
  • greater consistency between the publishers’ registrations and the societies’ payments for exploitation of film/TV productions 

Latest specifications can be found in the Cue Sheets Document Pack

 

Music in Commercials: Ensuring that the music used in commercials (advertisements) is correctly identified is a challenge for Creators, Societies and Publishers. With many stakeholders outside the Society/Publisher community within the life-cycle of a commercial; meta-data related to the music used in a commercial can often be lost. The SPF brings Publishers and Societies together to work on ways to improve the global distribution of royalties for music used in commercials.

The group has developed a new template (here) known as the ‘Commercial Sheet’. Creators, Publishers and Societies are encouraged to use the document when sharing information about music in commercials.

The Commercial Sheet forms the basis of two sets of information:

  • As a ‘Submission’ form – containing the information which is available to Publishers at the creation of the synchronization license or the commissioning agreement. This should be submitted to societies at the earliest opportunity.
  • As a ‘Cue Sheet’ – containing the additional information and all the relevant music details together with usage information where available.


The Commercial Sheet forms part of a wider set of recommendations for the industry, which include:

  • Use of a standardised template – Commercial Sheet
  • Circulation of key identifiers; the ISWC and Ad ID/clock number (or territorial equivalent)
  • Use of music recognition technology for commercials
  • Best Practice principles for Publishers
  • Best Practice principles for Societies
  • Access unidentified commercials (UC) lists for Societies, Publishers and Creators