Changelog - What's new in Curve's Publishing Platform?

Wonder what's new in Curve? This article is continuously and chronologically updated with new functionalities that have been added to Curve's publishing platform.

Our Imports Page Got a Makeover! (November 2024)

To enhance clarity and accessibility, the Imports page is now a dedicated tab in the main menu, with two new submenus: "CWR" and "Other".

Additionally, every import will now need to be linked to an "Import Partner". The intention is for you to create an Import Partner for each 3rd party or source from which you import catalogue. The benefits of these Partners will be

• Presets and previously mapped values can be stored against these Import Partners, making the import process easier and requiring no repeated effort.
• It will enable you to track from which Partner an imported Work comes from.
• It helps Curve recognise when a 3rd party redelivers a previously imported Work to you, so that we can overwrite this existing Work.
• Over time, we'll add functionality that flags when different Import Partners have sent potentially the same Work to you, and offer you tools to cleverly merge these Works upon import.

You can now bulk update your Income Files (November 2024)

Users can now update the Target Period, Sale and Transaction Dates, as well as Exchange Rates of their Income Files in bulk - whether these contain missing values or just values needing adjusting. In addition, as regards to the Exchange Rates, users have the option to select a rate based on the Transaction Date or simply on Today's Date. This will make it far quicker to add these details in bulk when many income files need this information. Just go ahead and give it a try!

New Fixed Report: Audit Report (October 2024)

Another Report has joined our Fixed Reports Group! This new Report, Audit Report, allows users to export all updates captured within the History Tab, in a CSV format. Using our Audit Fixed Report you will be able to review any changes made on your Curve Platform within a given date range, in a standardised format designed by Curve.

For more information on Reports, please visit: How to Create Reports

New Filters Added in the Contracts Page (October 2024)

As part of our recent Contract updates, we’ve introduced two new filters on the Contracts page! Users can now filter Contracts by their preferred End Date range, making it easier to apply changes to specific entries that meet the selected criteria.

How to Create Contracts

Contracts Retention & Collection Periods End Dates (October 2024)

Our latest update on a Contract level allows users to get notified when a Contract's End Date or the Collection and Retention Period End Dates are approaching! This means that, for any Contracts that end, or their Retention and Collection Period End Dates are due in 30 and 60 days, an email will be sent on the 1st day of each month. To activate this feature, simply define the relevant fields in the Contract Overview tab and configure the Event Notifications in the Settings area.

For more info on this new functionality, please visit Contract Duration Details

Contract Templates Now Include Escalations (October 2024)

Our Contract's excel Template has just been updated, allowing users to now store Escalations against your Contracts in bulk. Especially handy in large databases, a user can update Escalation Trackers across many Contracts at once and independently, rather than having to repeat this process for each Contract separately via the Interface.

Using Escalations to Increase or Decrease Royalty Rates

Delivery Status History (September 2024)

You can now see the full history of the Delivery Status of a Work with a specific society, and click through to the Deliveries or Acknowledgements that impacted the status! Just head to the Deliveries tab of a Work; with just a click on the History badge of any Partner you will instantly access the historic data of every Delivery or Acknowledgment associated with this Work.

Ability to Show/Hide IP Chains (September 2024)

You now have the flexibility to hide or show parts of your IP Chains, using the little arrow in the very far right of your Chain. This functionality appears to be particularly beneficial for long and complex IP Chains, that differentiate in different Territories.

SFTP Deliveries via a Public/Private Key Access (July 2024)

Our latest development in the Deliveries Settings will now allow you to deliver CWR files to receiving parties (Music Reports being one of them) via SFTP with Public/Private Key Access as opposed to Username and Password.

The steps to adjust this are:

1. In the corresponding Delivery Partner you will need to select SFTP as the Delivery Type.
2. Then for the Authentication Type  Field, you will have 2 options in the dropdown : ‘Password’ and 'Key File'.
3. When selecting “Key File” , you will have the option to “upload” a directive that will allow you to upload the public/private key file.
4. The file is then uploaded to S3 and an S3 key will be saved against your FTP settings.

Important to remember that we currently do not support PPK files and require a PEM file (PPK files can be converted to PEM files). However, prior to converting a PPK file to PEM, please note that the PPK must currently be generated without a passphrase, as this is not supported

Income Participants in IP Chains (July 2024)

The category of the Income Participant (PA) is now added in our IP Chains. Key facts to keep in mind when building your IP Chain:

• each controlled IP Chain must have an Original Publisher or Income Participant: e.g. a Composer cannot be published by an Admin - there must be an Original Publisher or Income Participant in the chain
• an Income Participant can not have any Owned Shares; the fields Own.Mech. and Own.Perf should always be 0

Filters on Statements (July 2024)

Further on our Statements Page updates, we have just deployed an additional feature that allows users to filter on Statements to then Send and Publish accordingly. Especially useful in large databases, with this latest update we aim to save heaps of time spent on endless scrolling in order to find and select which Statements should be sent.

To see for yourself, just head to your Period and click on the Statements Tab; varied filters are now added in an aim to improve your reporting processes. Just as before, important to keep in mind that any Statements need to be published first in order to be able to send them (so you'd first need to click on publish and then send).

How to Provide Artists Access & Send Statements

IP Chains New Updates (June 2024)

Our IP Chains have just 2 new additional functionalities integrated! An Insert Button at a Publisher level in each chain, that allows the User to Insert another Publisher; and a Copy Button at the top of each chain that copies the chain and adds it below.

With the new updates fully rolled out, Curve Users can modify any fields they need to and repeat as required to build the complete IP Chain for their Work in a flash!

Statements CSV Download Update (May 2024)

We have just rolled out an update on our Statements Download functionality, splitting the different Statement file types into separate zip folders upon download. You no longer have to download all file types, but can instead select the ones you need to download in bulk. To do so, just head to your Period and click on Download > All Statements: Curve will then ask you which files to export. Go ahead, give it a try!

Limitation to two decimal numbers in your IP Chains (March 2024)

We have adjusted our IP Chain configuration to align more closely with CISAC's standard for CWR files. Going forward, you can only input shares with a maximum of two decimal places.

Previously, shares with more than two decimal places would be automatically rounded to two decimal places during the CWR creation process. This update grants you greater control over your IP Chains, ensuring a more accurate representation of how your Works are stored in CWR registrations with your societies.

As always, CISAC permits a margin of error of up to 0.06% in the total shares within your IP Chain. And so, IP Chains totalling between 99.94% and 100.06% will be accepted by Curve for inclusion in your CWR deliveries.

Fixed Reports for Unreported Sales ✪ (November 2023)

We have now rolled out a new feature named Fixed Reports. This tool will enable you to run reports in a standardised format designed by Curve. The first Report available in this tool, provides greater detail on unreported income per Contract. Using our Fixed Reports for Unreported Sales, you will be able to review any unreported sales lines per Contract within a period, even if that same sales line was successfully reported to one or more Contracts.

For more info on this new functionality, please visit: How To Create Reports

Our New Mobile App Is Now Live (September 2023)

We are excited to announce our first mobile app, which is now available for Curve Payees as a mobile option to review and download statements. This app enables Writers to access their statements and headline analytics on the go. All information will still be accessible on the portal, the app simply provides an alternative way to retrieve statement information. This is available to all Payees and the download links for the app (Android and Apple) will be added to all statement emails. 

Normalising the Spelling of Sources (September 2023)

Our latest update on a Template level allows you to add Source Mappings and adjust the name or spelling of any of these Sources according to your preference. To provide clear, concise and accurate analytics, we recommend you normalising your Sources on Curve.

Create Catalogue Through Spotify Search (September 2023)

You can now easily link Tracks to your Works by downloading the Recording's metadata from Spotify without having to create it from scratch. This option can be extremely helpful when registering your Catalogue to societies around the world, as providing ISRC numbers as part of your deliveries will help societies to map the statements they receive from DSPs with the correct Works in their database. This will guarantee you that any online revenue flows correctly, instead of having to rely on labels to provide this metadata

For more info on this new functionality, please visit: Creating Catalogue Through Spotify Search

EU Decimal Format in Reports (August 2023)

It’s now possible to download our CSV reports in the European number format that uses period (.) as the thousand separator and comma (,) as the decimal separator. It was previously only available to download the custom CSV reports in the standard UK/US format. With the new changes now fully applicable, one has now the option to download a Curve CSV Report in either formats (ie $/£123.00 or €123,00) without having to face the hassle of manipulating the CSV file in order to open it and read the amounts correctly!

Automated Scheduled Work Deliveries ✪ (August 2023)

More control, less time spent: our new Scheduled Deliveries will allow you to set up scheduled deliveries to send your Works to societies/partners automatically. Works are given a status which will mark them as ready to be delivered, on hold (etc) to set them up for delivery. You can also assign individual statuses per society/partner per Work: a Work might need to be sent to one partner but not to all partners, which you can control on a Work level easily!

Changes to Delivery Partners ✪ (August 2023)

We now store more information on Delivery Partners, which in turn automatically populates when you’re creating Deliveries so you don’t have to enter the same information every time. We also allow a more elegant set-up for partners like ICE and Musicmark: you can link the individual societies you’re delivering to via ICE/Musicmark as subpartners.

Review your catalogue’s Delivery statuses in one view ✪ (August 2023)

Our new Delivery Statuses page will allow you to see all Delivery statuses for any given society/partner: work on your Rejected Works across different ACK files, all on one page. Use this page as a ‘to do list’ to solve your Rejections, and as an overview page to get a better view of the registration status of your catalogue at any given society/partner

Set status for Deliveries on a Work and Partner level ✪ (August 2023)

You can now set statuses on a Work that will allow the Work to be included or excluded from Deliveries. You can do this on an overall Work level, but also on a partner level. This feature gives you greater control over which Works get sent to which partner, without having to filter those Works out manually.

Unmapped Page Improvements (August 2023)

We have rolled out some improvements to the Unmapped Page, improving the interface to give you fewer lines to map by rolling them up more, and by showing the monetary value per line so you can prioritise your mapping process accordingly.

Mapping Works from the Mapping Manager (August 2023)

You are now able to map Works directly from the Mapping Manager on an Income File. This means you can make all necessary mappings to clear your Invalid Lines straight from the Mapping Manager!

Update Contract Opening Balances (June 2023)

We know you're going to like this update, because it has been requested a lot: you can now update Contract Opening Balances even after a statement has been generated for the Contract. Until now, it wasn't possible to update a Contract's opening balance after a statement had been generated for the Contract. We now allow Users to update the Opening Balance for a Contract, though this should only be done if the intention is to reprocess the statement(s) for the Contract after making the change. This will enable users to accurately reflect the opening balance on the statement, even if it was initially missed. Please note you can only update these manually, not in bulk.

Bulk delete manually generated Transactions (June 2023)

It's now possible for Users to delete manually generated Transactions in bulk. We previously only allowed Transactions to be deleted from within the Transaction itself, so this new feature will be a big time saver if you've accidentally imported a whole bunch of incorrect Transactions. You can delete these Transactions in bulk by using the Delete > Transactions button on the Contracts page. You will need to input the Transaction ID, which you can find by Exporting the Transactions first. Please note you can't delete Transactions created by the platform as a result of Statement generation.

Bulk import Channels, Configurations, Catalogue Groups, Sources, Payee Categories and Contract Categories (June 2023)

You will now be able to bulk import all the above fields in your Settings > General > Configuration area by using our newly added Import button. To do so, click the Import button and select the type of data you want to import. You can add a list of the values you want to import, making sure to list one value per row. Importing has never been so easy!

Automatically Include Track Titles as Alternate Titles in CWR ✪ (June 2023)

We've made some updates to the Track information we bring into CWR files for linked Tracks . When a Track is linked to a Work, we bring the Track Title, Track Artist, Track ISRC, Track Duration, Track Label (new feature) and Release Label (new feature) into the CWR file. We also store the Track Titles as Alternative Titles in the CWR, so all the different titles get registered to your Work. The more data the better!

Ability to import Maestro 400 Catalog Shipment files (June 2023)

We already had an importer for the Counterpoint Excel files, but we now also have one for Maestro 400 .cs files. The new import tool can be used to create your catalogue from these files in a few simple steps. Our updated documentation will explain how!

New Work Validation Rules (May 2023)

We always strive to ensure your dataset is accurate. On a Work level we use industry-wide validation rules to make sure your IP Chains are logical and correct. We have recently added five new rules to Work validations:

1. Original Publisher/Sub-publisher/Admin cannot collect more than 50% of performance
2. A controlled composer needs to be represented by a controlled publisher
3. Owned mechanical/performance for Admins or Sub-Publishers should always be zero. Owned Shares cannot be assigned to Admin or Sub-Publishers
4. An Original Publisher needs to have at least some owned shares
5. Each controlled IP Chain needs to have an Original Publisher (for example: a Composer can't be published by an Admin, there needs to be an Original Publisher).

These validations are in line with collection society rules, and any previously delivered Works that didn't meet these rules would have been rejected. By adding these validations to the Works, we are now highlighting these issues before registration, making sure you send a valid dataset in your Work Deliveries and save time in the long run!

Instant validation of Payees and Contracts (September 2022)

To successfully report royalties on Curve, it is important all Payees and Contracts are accurately created. We have now added validation rules that will instantly provide feedback when you save a Payee or Contract. For example, we may flag that your Payee doesn't have a User assigned, or that your Contract doesn't have an Accounting Period Type specified.

When one of the Payees or Contracts has an incomplete status; it will not stop your royalty processes from completing. It solely flags that some issues or inaccuracies may occur and gives you an opportunity to review and resolve topics that are flagged.

Assign Linked Contracts to Works in Bulk (August 2022)

Using the Bulk Update tool on the Works page, you can automatically update a select or all works on your client and assign the Linked Contracts stored on Composer level. All the Works that you have filtered on will be included in the bulk update. More info

Delivery Profiles (April 2022)

You can now create Profiles which you can use to track which Works are to be included in an upcoming delivery. Furthermore you can include Works in bulk by copying their Curve Work IDs.

Deductions can now be calculated as a percentage of an absolute value (February 2022)

Before, Deduction terms on a Contract could only reduce the existing royalty by a certain percentage or a certain unit rate. For example, a $100 Net Amount with 50% royalty rate and 20% deduction would calculate as $100 x 0.5 x (1 - 0.8) = $40.

Now, Deduction can also be applied as a percentage of an absolute value, including the Net Amount, Gross Amount. So in this same example, we could now say that we wish to reduce our artist's $50 royalty with 20% of the Net Amount; so $100 x 0.5 - 0.2 x $100 = $30. Or perhaps reduce it with 20% of the Gross Amount; so $100 x 0.5 - 0.2 x $125 = $25.

For more info on this new functionality, please visit: Adding Deductions To Your Contracts.

Display Deductions in the PDF Statements (February 2022)

When you go to your Settings > General > Statement Design options, you will find the option to enable "  Display Separated Deductions". This will create a separate line in your PDF statements, highlighting any deductions taken. Via the Deduction Name field, you can specify how these deductions are named in your PDF statement.

For more info on this new functionality, please visit: Adding Deductions To Your Contracts.

Reprocessing a Period has become a lot more efficient (January 2022)

Previously, when reprocessing a Period, Curve would redo all the calculations for all the statements. With our new update, Curve tracks which changes have been made since the last time you processed your Period, and will only recalculate those statements that have been affected by your changes.

For more information on how the new Reprocessing function works, please visit: Reprocessing a Period

Controlled Territories can now be set at Composer and Publisher level (January 2022)

When registering your copyright with the societies via CWR, you could already specify in which Territories you wish to collect per Work. But now, we have also added this functionality to Publishers and Composers, allowing you to cover scenarios where you collect royalties for one controlled Composer but not another within a specific Territory for the same Work.

Songwriter's statements can now be transferred from the artist portal right into a calculation client (January 2022)

Statements that are created as part of a Period on Curve can now instantly be transferred into another Curve client that you have access to. So if you receive any statements via Curve and wish to report these on, you no longer have to download and reupload the csv files.

Cross-Contracts can now link two Contracts in different currencies (January 2022)

You can now connect two Contracts that are set in different currencies. Any transfers created will automatically be converted as per the exchange rate you have provided in your Period.

For more information on Cross-Contracts, please visit: Using Cross-Contracts to Transfer or Subtract Royalties

Works Are Automatically Validated For Delivery (September 2021)

The moment you create or adjust a Work, we will instantly validate whether your Work is fit for CWR delivery. We will check for common mistakes such as the total ownership in the IP not adding up to 100, or no controlled Territories being selected; and notify you on the spot. Works that are fit for delivery will get a green tick on your Works page, Works that are not will get a red cross instead.

Works that are not fit for delivery will automatically be excluded from your CWR deliveries, though this status will not impact the royalty accounting process. Income for Works that are unfit for CWR delivery will still report as per usual.

Curve to assign Main Identifiers to a new Work (November 2021)

You can choose to let Curve automatically assign a new unique Main Identifier with customisable prefix to your new Works.

For more information on this new functionality, please visit: Let Curve Automatically Assign Main Identifiers to New Works.

Tracks, Composers and Publishers can be created within a Work (September 2021)

When creating Works via the interface, you can now create new Tracks, Composers and Publishers right from within your Works page.

List of smaller updates (September 2021)

• The total Owned Performance share of a Work is now displayed on the index Work page, this to help you review if an IP Chain is set correctly.
• Foreign ID fields are added to Composers and Publishers.
• Associated Tracks can now be created directly within a Work.
• New Composers and Publishers can now be created directly within the IP Chain.
• The Party ID (the work identifier used in CWR deliveries) is now visible in your Works.
• You are now able to use Territory Groups to set the Territories in which you control a Work.
• We have updated the Works excel template, to accommodate for the above changes. Furthermore, Contracts and Aliases are now displayed on a separate tab in a row format. And also the way IP Chains are built in the Work template has changed, and better reflects how its set in the interface. To get a good idea of the new format, we advise exporting some of your Works in this new template to see how your IP Chains are translated in this format.
• We are now better displaying whether a Delivery has been delivered, even prior to an ACK being imported.
• CWR files delivered via email are now available for longer than 24 hours.
• Improved functionality to instantly redeliver those Works that had previously failed.
• Via the index Work page, you can now instantly create a Delivery for the filtered Works.
• We have added a Copy button to Deliveries.
• We have added an Income Database page that allows you to query and adjust all your income lines from all your income files combined.