Changelog - What's new in Curve's Label platform?

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

New US Stat Mechanical Rates Starting January 1st, 2024

As it was recently announced, the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) upped the U.S. statutory mechanical royalty rate from the current rate of 12¢ to 12.40¢, if the song has a run time of 5 minutes or less; If over 5 minutes, the rate is 2.38¢ per minute.

Rest assured, Curve has implemented the new rates automatically on all Tracks where the mechanical basis is set to "Sale Date", ensuring you're calculating your mechanical royalties correctly.

You can read more about it here: The Statutory Rate

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

You can now set Mechanical Defaults in Your Settings (October 2023)

In your General Settings > Mechanicals, you can decide which basis will be applied by default on any Tracks that you create. You can also decide whether new Tracks should by default have "Report Mechanicals" enabled or disabled. On this page, you can also view the Stat Rates that will be used in your calculations.

Our New Mobile App Is Now Live (September 2023)

We are excited to announce our first mobile app, which is available for Curve Payees as a mobile option to review and download statements. This app enables Artists 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. 

Add Tracks & Releases via the Spotify API (September 2023)

You can now easily download your catalogue from Spotify and all the metadata that is stored there, such as Title, ISRC, Artist etc, without having to create it from scratch. You'd simply need to go to your Releases or Tracks page, click on Import top right and then select Import from Spotify. You can then search by the applicable Keyword, Label and/or Artist, select and confirm. Next thing, a notification will be received informing you that your import from Spotify has completed.

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!

Multicurrency Costs ✪ (July 2023)

Another long-awaited update: we now allow multicurrency Costs. When creating a Cost, you will now also have to select the currency for this Cost. This will enable you to add Costs in the currency they were made in, rather than having to calculate their equivalent amount in your Home Currency. An Exchange Rate is applied to the Cost if the Contract is it mapped to has a different Currency than the Cost itself.

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 Catalogue Groups, Configurations, Contract Categories, Cost Types, Distribution Channels, Payee Categories and Price 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!

Instant validation of Payees, Contracts and Catalogue (September 2022)

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

When one of the Payees, Contracts or Catalogue items 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.

New Flexible Profit Share deals (February 2022)

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, PPD, Unit Price or Retail Price. 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. Or, well, you get the point, a whole new arrangement of possible deduction scenarios has now been enabled.

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

Artist'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