Setting Up Deliveries to ICE and MusicMark

Before you can start sending CWR deliveries to societies on Curve, there are a few things to consider (more info on that here). The main piece is that you will need to create a Delivery Partner for each society that you wish to send deliveries to. Via this Delivery Partner, you can store delivery presets such as the delivery format, and where the delivery should be sent to. It also means you can now store a Delivery Status for this Partner against each Work, so you know exactly whether a Work has previously been delivered to this Partner, and whether it has been registered successfully.

Once a Work has been delivered to a Delivery Partner, the Work is given a Delivered status for this Partner. Once an Acknowledgement file is then returned by this partner, it will then update the status to say whether the registration has been Accepted or Rejected. It is therefore important that you have one Delivery Partner for each Society that you send deliveries to, so you can keep perfect track of the status of each Work with each society.

Now, there are scenarios where it's not as simple as sending the CWR to one society, and this society subsequently returning one ACK. The most notable examples of this are ICE and MusicMark. These partners represent multiple societies. For example, you can send one CWR file to MusicMark to register your Works in the United States and Canada; and MusicMark will pass this file onto BMI, ASCAP and SOCAN.

How to set up the ICE and MusicMark scenario on Curve

Create one Delivery Partner for each society

In the example where you send a registration to MusicMark to register your Works with BMI, ASCAP and SOCAN; you will need to create four Delivery Partners. One for the society that you send the CWR file to, and one for each society that they will subsequently share this with.

a MusicMark Delivery Partner with the Receiving Party set to MusicMark
a BMI Delivery Partner with the Receiving Party set to BMI
a ASCAP Delivery Partner with the Receiving Party set to ASCAP
a SOCAN Delivery Partner with the Receiving Party set to SOCAN

To create these Delivery Partners, please go to Delivery > Delivery Settings > Delivery Partner

Below is an example of the ASCAP Delivery Partner. For the BMI, ASCAP and SOCAN partner, you can set the Delivery Type to "Export Only" (unless you are looking to also send CWR files directly to these societies sometimes rather than via MusicMark, in which case you can store their preferred Delivery Type). For the MusicMark Delivery Partner, you can store the FTP details with which they prefer to receive

Add the Delivery Partners as Sub-Partners to the umbrella Delivery Partner

Sticking to the same MusicMark example, on the MusicMark Delivery Partner, it is important to list the Delivery Partners for the local societies as Sub Partners.

If you are looking to send deliveries to ICE, the same will apply. You will need to create Delivery Partners for all the local societies (eg PRS, BUMA, STIM, ...) and a Delivery Partner for ICE which has all the local societies linked as its Sub Partners.

How it will work

You are now set up to successfully send your deliveries to MusicMark/ICE for the Works to be registered with the local societies.

Send your Delivery to MusicMark/ICE

To register your Works, create a new Delivery for MusicMark (or ICE). More info on how to create a Delivery can be found here.

Once a Delivery is sent to MusicMark, you will notice that the delivered Works will have a Delivered status against MusicMark, as well as all of its local societies. This is because when a Work is delivered to a Delivery Partner, it will be seen as Delivered for that Partner as well as all of its Sub Partners.

Acknowledgement files will come in from the individual societies

MusicMark (or ICE) will return Acknowledgement files to you which will tell you whether a Work has successfully been registered with a society or not. You will receive separate ACK files from each of the societies, this is because for example a Work can be accepted by BMI but rejected by SOCAN. You can either drop these ACK files into the Acknowledgement page on Curve or set up an FTP pickup to automatically take these ACK files from the MusicMark (or ICE) FTP. More info

Curve will automatically match each ACK file to the respective Delivery Partner. It does so by comparing the CISAC Society Code with the Receiving Party of each of the Delivery Partners. Each society has their own CISAC Society Code. MusicMark is 707, ASCAP is 010, BMI is 021 and SOCAN is 101. It is therefore extremely important that each Delivery Partner has the correct Receiving Party specified as per the earlier instructions (and not give each Partner the Delivery Partner MusicMark, for example), so that Curve can accurately and automatically match each ACK file to the right Partner.

Below is an example of where in the HDR row of the ACK file you can find this code.

As you ingest the ACK files, Curve will then read the feedback from the societies and mark whether the Work has been Accepted or Rejected. Below is an example where we have received an ACK from MusicMark confirming successful registration of this Work, as well as from BMI. We are still awaiting ACK files from ASCAP and SOCAN. It is possible that BMI or ASCAP return a status of "No Participation", which would be returned by ASCAP if there are only BMI writers on this Work, or vice versa.

If any Works are Rejected by one of the societies, then you will want to review this Work, resolve any discrepancies and then redeliver this Work to the society. Once all Works are delivered and accepted by each of the societies, your job is complete.