SOCAN's Jeff King named chair of data body DDEX

By Emmanuel Legrand

International standards-setting organisation DDEX (Digital Data Exchange) has named Jeff King, Chief Operating and Corporate Development Officer of Canada's rights society SOCAN, as Chair of its Board. He succeeds Paul Dilorito, the former Director of Innovation and Partnerships at PRS for Music.

  “I’m honoured to have been elected to the role of Chair at such a pivotal time in the music industry, when the mandate to standardise metadata has become even more critical to identify and deliver global digital royalties back to music creators,” said King. “On behalf of myself and the DDEX Board, many thanks to Paul Dilorito for his work with us over the years and his leadership in so many areas of the organisation.”

  King joined SOCAN in 2001 and was appointed COO in 2011, with responsibility over strategy, licensing, distribution, international, information technology and corporate planning.

Setting data standards

  The DDEX Board consists of executives from the 19 charter members of the organisation, including: Jill Chapman (Amazon), Nick Williamson (Chair Emeritus) (Apple), Dena Fletcher (ASCAP), Ed Oshanani (BMI), Till Evert (GEMA), Greg Quillard (Executive Board) (Google), Bob Bruderman (Kobalt Music), Noel Morrison(Pandora Media), Matt Phipps-Taylor (PPL), Keith Hill (PRS for Music), Laurent Fradin (SCPP), Paul Cohen Scali (Executive Board) (SACEM), Kirit Joshi (Executive Board) (Sony Music Entertainment), Luis Bonilla (SoundExchange), Sung Kyu Choi (Spotify), Roberta Fong (Tencent Music Entertainment Group), Kim Beauchamp (Executive Board) (Universal Music Group), and Brigette Boyle (Warner Music Group).

  DDEX has developed eight families of standards that support the entire arc of digital music operations from initial recording through distribution and reporting as well as other types of business transactions in particular sectors of the industry (Release Delivery, Media Enrichment and Description, Sales and Usage Reporting, Claim Detail Message Suite, Works Notification and Licensing, Recording Data and Rights, Collection of Studio Metadata and Linking Works and Recordings).

  DDEX standards are being used by all the major players in the digital music industry as well as most smaller organisations and startups.