Despite the seeming uniformity of digital audio, there are a lot of areas where one digit doesn’t know what the other digit is always doing. Metadata from differing digital formats, users, machines, programs, etc. is often different or nonexistent.
To try to bring an industry standard to fruition, the Recording Academy’s Producer’s and Engineer’s Wing, the Library of Congress and broadcast/entertainment/media/archive industry data storage specialist BMS/Chace have teamed to build an open source/open industry standard. Also involved are Sony BMG Music, Universal Music Group, EMI Music Group and Disney Music Group.
Such a standard, dubbed CCD (Content Creator Data), would make metadata useful to everyone from the artists themselves to researchers to rights monitors.
Demonstrations have been made at the DDEX (Digital Data Exchange) Plenary and NARM (National Association of Recording Merchandisers) Digital Task Force meetings in New York in mid-June. More demonstrations are scheduled along with testing throughout the rest of the year.
BMS/Chace President John Spencer said in the announcement: “It is the first attempt to bring documentation of commercial recordings into the 21st century and to actively work with standards organizations to promote a unified metadata environment. CCD puts the collection of metadata where it is most accurate, at the actual genesis of the recording process, and it is accessible to all content creators, whether they are recording in a multi-room commercial facility or a home studio.
“Proper metadata and crediting are invaluable from a historical perspective, for archiving and repurposing, and ultimately, for connecting those who participate in the royalty stream — in other words, getting people paid.”
Read the full announcement.
