CONTACT TYPES
There are two types of contacts: Creator and Company
A creator is an individual such as a songwriter, vocalist, or musician.
A company is a group (including band or ensemble) or an organization such as a record label, music publisher, distribution company.
You can also store information about any person or any company that you work with in the music industry such as an attorney, manager, publicist, or booking agency. Simply select the appropriate contact role for an individual vs. organization.
Create A Contact
There are two ways to add contacts within our system. The first way is within the Contacts module and the second way is within the Catalog modules.
Creating your initial set of contacts is the first thing you should do when preparing to use our system. You will want to create contacts of your frequent collaborators and entities that frequently contributes to your Song, Recordings and Releases. This will reduce reduce the amount of time and effort required to successfully add your catalog to our system.
Create Them Once
No duplicates required.
There's nothing more painful than having to constantly re-enter the exact same information, especially when you're managing hundreds of songs. We make it easy to re-use and dynamically update contacts across our platform. Simply create a contact once, and use it over and over again.
Create Contacts within Modules
From within the Catalog modules (Songs, Recordings, Releases) you are able to create contacts by using the Add New button for each section which leverages the contacts modules. You are able to provide all the same information you would for contact from within the Contact module except for physical address and alias. The role for the new contact is pre-assigned based upon which section you initiated the creation from. You can specify any additional roles of the contacts prior to creation. The contacts you create within the Catalog modules will be accessible in the contact module.
If a new contact has an alias you will need to add the alias and its associated information to the contact via the contact module.
ROLES
We leverage roles to surface them at the right time
Roles provides our system with context on each individual contact that we then leverage to surface the contacts at the right time. This helps to reduce the amount of time and effort it usually takes to complete registration especially when combined with our system's dynamic contact search capabilities.
Creator Roles
Artist role is for performing artists, whether they are the main or featured artist. When you select this role, the ISNI (International Standard Name Identifier) field appears. This is an optional field that you can complete if you know the artist's ISNI number.
Note: A musical group such as a band should be added as a company contact type with the role Band/Ensemble selected. The individual members of the group should each have their own creator contact record with the role Artist selected.).
Writer / Composer role is for a songwriter, composer, or any individual that will receive publishing share in songs. When you select this role, the writer PRO and writer IPI field appears. If you know it, you should enter the writer's PRO (Performing Rights Organization) such as ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC in the United States and the writer's IPI (International Party Identifier) number, which is assigned by the writer's PRO.
If you do not know the writer's IPI number, you can search the online song databases of the writer's PRO to locate the writer or a song written by the writer. Then, you will be able to locate the writer's IPI). The ISNI field will also appear; enter if known.
Production Contributor role is for session musicians, background vocalists, beatmakers, engineers, and other individual contributors to the production of recordings. The ISNI field will also appear; enter if known.
Note: If there is a production team or production company that you would like to setup, use the company contact type with role Production Contributor selected. You should also create individual creator contacts records for each member who will receive individual credit for their specific contribution (e.g. a production house that has a mixing engineer and a mastering engineer who each needs to be properly credited for their individual contributions separate from the credit the company receives)).
Company Roles:
Label role is for companies that are record labels or individual owners of copyrights in sound recordings. When you select this role, the ISNI (International Standard Name Identifier) field appears.
Band/Ensemble role is for musical groups. A musical group such as a band should be added as a company contact type with the role Band/Ensemble selected. The individual members of the group should each have their own creator contact record with the role Artist selected.).
Publisher role is for a publishing company or any individual who has a business entity formed to publish their songs that will receive publishing share in songs. When you select this role, the publisher PRO and publisher IPI field appears. If you know it, you should enter the publisher's PRO (Performing Rights Organization) such as ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC in the United States and the publisher's IPI (International Party Identifier) number, which is assigned by the publisher's PRO.
If you do not know the publisher's IPI number, you can search the online song databases of the publisher's PRO to locate the publisher. Then, you will be able to locate the publisher's IPI).
Production Contributor role is for any group or company contributor to the production of recordings. The ISNI field will also appear; enter if known.
If there is a production team or production company that you would like to setup, use the company contact type with role Production Contributor selected. You should also create individual creator contacts records for each member who will receive individual credit for their specific contribution (e.g. a production house that has a mixing engineer and a mastering engineer who each needs to be properly credited for their individual contributions separate from the credit the company receives).
CREATOR ALIASES
Use alias to add stage names, professionally known as names, and any alternative names to prevent duplicating the individual.
An alias is useful to create sub-profiles of an individual. For example, if a singer-songwriter uses her legal name as a songwriter (Katheryn Hudson) and a stage name as an performer (Katy Perry), you should create a main contact using their legal name with the role Writer/Composer and then add an alias for the performer name with the role Artist. You will be able to provide the PRO, IPI and ISNI assigned to the alias.
NOTE: Once a registration has been submitted, the Contacts that corresponds to the data sent to the exchanges will be locked. You will not be able to delete a contact once it's been submitted with a registration.