1 Introduction

This document defines automated message exchange protocols that enable record companies or distributors to reliably communicate standard messages (created in accordance with Part 1 and/or Part 2 of the Electronic Release Notification Message Suite standard (ERN)) and associated resource files to digital music service providers (or DSPs), using web services. It was developed by the member organisations of the Digital Data Exchange, LLC (DDEX). Any organisation wishing to implement this (or any other DDEX standard) is required to apply for an Implementation Licence. The terms of the licence and an application form can be found here and here.

The standard messages contained in Part 1: Definition of Messages, Version 4.3.1 of the ERN standard provide a mechanism for record companies or distributors to inform DSPs about releases containing one or more resources that can be made available to consumers as electronic products. To aid companies that only wish to communicate a small subset of the types of releases that can be communicated using the NewReleaseMessage from Part 1 of the ERN standard, the structure of the message that should be used for such subsets is defined, depending on the type of the release, in Part 2: Release Profiles, Version 2.3.1 of the ERN standard.

Part 3: Choreography for Cloud-based Storage, Version 1.8.1 of the ERN standard defines a message exchange protocol using cloud-based storage servers.

This Part 4: Choreography for Web Services, Version 1.8 defines how record companies or distributors can securely transmit information to DSPs using an Atom-based web service architecture. This part of the ERN standard does not address issues arising from data mismatches detected during the information exchange.