CISAC and music publishers team up to standardise and harmonise cue sheets

By Emmanuel Legrand

The International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC), has teamed up with music publishers and producers through the Society Publisher Forum to produce the Cue Sheet Standards & Rules that will "harmonise music cue sheets" and aim at simplifying the rules governing the identification of musical works used in audiovisual productions.

  CISAC Director General Gadi Oron, said producers and video-on-demand platforms have been "involved to ensure optimum implementation of the project globally." For Oron, this initiative "will bring significant benefits to everyone involved in music productions for audiovisual works." He added: "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."

  Cue sheets provide detailed information to publishers, producers and authors societies enabling them to track the placement of music in audiovisual productions in films and TV programmes and facilitates the payment of royalties to the music creators and rights holders. 

  "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," wrote Oron in a letter to CISAC's partners.

Improving efficiencies

  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.The Common Cue Sheet describes the relevant metadata of both musical works and of the production in which the works are featured, incorporating many existing internationally recognised standard identifiers. 

  For CISAC, the benefits of harmonisation 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.

Global implementation

  "The harmonisation is intended to benefit all actors in the sector and across the world.  In order to achieve those benefits, it is essential the project is communicated and implemented globally, comprehensively and effectively," said Oron, inviting all parties to "communicate this initiative to your members and business partners."

  The Society Publisher Forum is a joint initiative of CISAC, the International Confederation of Music Publishers (ICMP) and the International Music Publishers Association (IMPA), and is supported by the Association of Independent Music Publishers (AIMP) and theInternational Music Publishers' Forum (IMPF). Producers and video-on-demand platforms have also been involved to ensure optimum implementation of the project globally.

  The Cue Sheets Standard & Rules document (CISAVX17-1197), and sample documentation (CISAVX18-0490), are available for download on the CISAC web site.