How to deliver your data to Blokur

Blokur is a music rights platform for music publishers and music users. We have built a database of over 6 million works with songs directly sourced from publishers and have built tools for them to utilize the global rights picture we’re building to help save them time and money in rights administration.

Blokur’s lifeblood is song data. In order for us to ingest and present global rights data on our platform the delivery process from publishers to send us their works needs to be as smooth as possible. Although we pride ourselves on flexibility and adaptability, there are certain preferred methods of delivery that will ensure a quicker and easier process.

CWR files have become a standard format in the industry and are becoming more widely used internationally. CWR stands for Common Works Registration, and is a protocol and data format for the registration of musical works. Ideally, a publisher creates a single CWR file and sends it to societies all over the world as well as Blokur.

Since Music Maestro is also a common organization method, we support those files as well.

Alternatively, we have also developed a simple excel format that if filled out contains all the info needed. Sometimes publishers have organized all the necessary information in their own way and we will also try to work with those formats as well.

What information we need

Blokur’s value proposition is based on being able to present a highly detailed global rights picture of every work. In order to do that we need specific data points:

• Chain of Title
• Role/Class
• Name
• IPI Number
• Control Status
• Performance Rights Organization (PRO)
• Mechanical Society
• Performance Share Collection
• Mechanical Share Collection
• ISWC Number
• Internal Work ID
• Song Title
• Song Duration
• Territory Control

Not every data point is mandatory for ingestion, but most are needed to build a valuable rights picture.

Delivery methods

1. Many publishers have current delivery methods with various music rights organizations. The most popular and easiest method is via a secure FTP. This way a shared drive can be established and files can be dropped in and can automatically be ingested into our platform.
2. The second easiest option is simply emailing your files directly to data@blokur.com
3. Once an account has been created, there is also an upload option directly on the platform.

Ingestion

Once a file has been received we go through an internal process of ingestion. We have an internal parsing and matching process where we illuminate duplicates, match compositions to recordings, and then verify via third party partnerships.

When this process finishes, the publisher will be able to view their works and see conflicts that were identified in our ingestion process.

If you want to find out more about Blokur and how we’re working to improve rights data, visit us at blokur.com. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to reach out to derek@blokur.com