label.gvl: Help and FAQ

label.gvl is the web portal for producers of sound recordings and audiovisual recordings who are GVL rights holders. Since 2017, producer rights holders have been submitting their repertoire on a track basis in order to participate in GVL distributions.

Furthermore, repertoire that has been submitted and processed can be managed in label.gvl, rights ownership can be edited and possible rights ownership conflicts can be resolved.

Under "My repertoire", you will find all recordings that you submitted to GVL which were successfully processed by GVL's systems.

Submitted repertoire is therefore not immediately visible under "My repertoire” once you uploaded it but only once it has been processed by GVL’s systems and after the respective conflict checks have been carried out. This is usually done once a day. You should usually be able to access your recordings in label.gvl within 24 hours after your upload at the latest.

In the repertoire view in label.gvl (My repertoire), you can, at any time, see the total amount of and detailed information on your recordings that have been submitted to GVL and processed. Below that, you can see the number of identified and not yet resolved rights ownership conflicts with other producers of sound recordings and audiovisual recordings at the time of retrieving this list.

To provide a better overview and better editing facilities, the portal offers different filter and search options which you can use to search for individual or a set of recordings.

If you have selected the menu item "My repertoire", you will be taken to your repertoire overview where you can view all the recordings you have registered and processed by GVL's systems with the relevant data on your registered rights ownership.

In addition to the overview of your reported and processed repertoire, label.gvl offers the possibility to complete changes and adjustments of rights ownership and mandates, the claiming of unallocated usages as well as the independent resolution of possible rights ownership conflicts.

In addition, GVL provides all detailed reports, broadcaster analyses and payout notifications after distributions have been made.

In order to remove repertoire that you added by mistake, please select the relevant recording(s) under “My repertoire” and revoke your rights ownership using the button “Revoke”. The recording is then removed from your repertoire and will no longer displayed or paid out to you.

Via the menu item "My repertoire", you can export your complete repertoire that you submitted to GVL and that is shown as processed into an Excel file and download it.
For an export of your entire repertoire you do not need to make a selection or carry out a search once you have accessed the page. Instead, you can directly initiate the export using the button “Repertoire”.

By using label.gvl, you can change submitted rights ownerships at any time, regardless of whether a recording is affected by a rights ownership conflict or not.

You have the option to completely revoke a rights ownership or carry out changes in the relevant sections “Period”, “Share” and/or “Countries” (Region).

These functions are available to you via the corresponding buttons under the menu item “My repertoire”.

Under the menu item “Add recordings”, you can also add new audiovisual recordings (music video clips) to your repertoire via upload. Music video clips can be easily made by using an Excel template under “Upload video”.

Under the menu item “Add recordings”, you can also add new audiovisual recordings (music video clips) to your repertoire via upload. Music video clips can be easily made by using an Excel template under “Upload video”.

By selecting the rights profile when using the audio repertoire upload, you declare the countries in which you have rights for the recording you are registering.

Select from the regions:

• Worldwide
• Germany
• GSA

Under the sub-item "Includes the countries" you can view the individual countries that are included in the selected region.

Important: Please note that your selected rights profile matches the mandate you granted to GVL. If you have granted GVL a worldwide mandate, we cannot manage this for you if you only register your repertoire with the rights profile “Germany” or “GSA”.

In order to be able to match your repertoire to the broadcast reports from radio and TV stations, we depend on your registration of your track-based metadata.

As such, the more data you provide to us, the better our matching is likely to be.

The following mandatory fields are defined as minimum requirements:

• Title
• Performer
• Composer (only a mandatory field for classical works)
• Recording ID (producers): a unique identifier for a recording for you; where applicable, you can also additionally indicate an  ISRC here.
• Genre: please only use the genre codes predetermined by GVL here.
• Start of rights ownership: Start of your rights ownership in a recording, usually the release date; please take any early promotional campaigns or sampling campaigns for radio stations into account and set the date, where applicable, to the start date of the sampling or promotional campaign.

With a view to the available broadcast data of the years 2016-2018, we decided against making the ISRC a mandatory information when the Collecting Societies Act came into force in 2016.

As the quality of the broadcast data is improving, however, we recommend to always indicate the ISRC of a recording (if known) in the corresponding field. The ISRC may not be mandatory yet when it comes to submitting your repertoire to GVL but it plays an increasingly important role when it comes to matching broadcast reports and is expected to become a mandatory information in the context of the repertoire registration with GVL.

The ISRC is also necessary with a view to international rights management by GVL.

Under the menu item “Add recordings” -> Upload history” in label.gvl, you can access an overview of all your registrations and their status at any time. You also receive an initial confirmation directly after your upload.

Uploads incurring critical errors (e.g. missing or faulty details in the mandatory fields) are rejected. Errors in fields which are not mandatory will also be shown to you in the upload history. These can be corrected by submitting a new notification.

Conflicts arise when two producers submit identical or similar rights ownerships for a recording and the two overlap. Titles that are involved in a conflict are marked by a specific icon in label.gvl.

During conflict identification, recordings with an identical ISRC or with the same combination of artist, title, title supplement and duration are identified as conflicts, provided that the features of these reported rights ownerships in these recordings overlap.

The following overlaps of rights ownerships are possible:

• Period: Start and/or end date of the rights ownership of a recording
• Share: submitted shares in a rights ownership for a recording add up to more than 100% (e.g. 60% plus 50% or two times 100%)

• Region: submitted regions or countries of two rights ownerships of a recording overlap (e.g. Germany and GSA or Germany and worldwide)

Own conflicts arise if you submit a recording for the second time, but with deviating information on rights ownership. If it is only information relating to the recording that is different and if the information on rights ownership such as period, share and region remains the same, your second submission only updates your original submission and no own conflict is created.

If you set the filter “Show conflicts only” under the menu item “My repertoire”, and enter the name of your company in the search field “Conflict partner”, you can get a display of all potential own conflicts. Now, if you sort this view by title, you will see all duplicate submissions below each other. Revoke the rights ownership in the recording whose submission was incorrect in order to resolve the own conflict.

You have the option of resolving a conflict by revoking your rights ownership completely or editing it so that the overlap that led to the conflict is resolved.

Once you have edited the rights ownership of a recording marked as a conflict accordingly, the conflict is resolved and disappears from your list of conflicts.

If your submitted rights ownership is correct and the conflict has arisen due to the submission of one or more conflict partners, please contact them and point out that they need to resolve the conflict. GVL provides you with all relevant contact details in the product details (detailed view).

In order to ensure that no party is favoured until clarification, the product concerned is blocked for distribution for the period of the overlap until clarification. Periods not affected by a time overlap are paid out unhindered in the event of a distribution.

GVL, in its fiduciary capacity, is not authorised to interfere in rights ownership conflicts between two producer rights holders. We are happy to support you when it comes to making contact and will also introduce an escalation process for conflicts which affect a usage year shortly before the relevant final distribution in order to speed up the resolution of conflicts.

Apart from that, the parties in dispute are responsible for clarifying and resolving the conflict.

To get an overview of all the details of the conflicts identified for you or of a set of them which have been limited by filters and search options, you can create a conflict export.

To do this, label.gvl provides you with an option called “Conflicts” in the repertoire view “My repertoire” within the download options. It creates an Excel export of the rights ownership conflicts selected by you with all the relevant details.

Unallocated usage relates to broadcast reports regarding the use of productions with sound recordings and audiovisual recordings whose rights holders have not been clearly identified and where GVL could thus not allocate them to a repertoire registration. Said usage is listed in label.gvl in the menu item “Unallocated  usage” for all distribution years that have not had their final distributions yet. Pursuant to the German Collecting Societies’ Act (VGG), GVL is obliged to publish all unallocated usage. Label.gvl also provides you with the option to claim such unallocated usage.

You can claim unallocated usage directly in label.gvl by either entering the corresponding GVL recording ID or the ISRC of the matching recording from your submitted repertoire which is shown as processed. You can access the GVL recording ID in the detailed view of a recording under “My repertoire“ and in the repertoire export.

As an alternative of making claims for unallocated usage via the user interface in label.gvl, you can also add your claims to an Excel export of the unallocated usage. You can enter your claims in the export file, and subsequently upload your usage claims to label.gvl. This procedure is recommended if you have a larger volume of unallocated usage for which you want to submit claims. After the upload, there will also be an error file made available under “Unallocated usage“ > "Upload history“ if errors occur.

GVL also manages rights related to copyright (neighbouring rights) at international level and offers rights holders the option to grant GVL a mandate for additional countries when they conclude a GVL representation agreement. The countries available for selection are those with which GVL has concluded bilateral representation agreements for producers of sound recordings.

Under the label.gvl menu item “Mandates”, you can see for which countries you have already granted GVL a mandate for the management of your neighbouring rights and you can, where applicable, also change your mandate there.

Since each mandate change constitutes an amendment of the agreement, it is strictly mandatory to comply with the written form by means of an appropriate application form for the change of the mandate.

In order to generate the form required, please select the countries in the label.gvl menu item “Mandates” where you want GVL to manage your neighbouring rights in addition to the territory of Germany. Once you have clicked the button “Change mandate”, the respective application form will be sent to you via e-mail. Please print out this application, sign it and return it to GVL.

Please observe that your mandate change is only verified and thus legally binding once your application has been received and after it has been successfully checked by GVL. Until your mandate change has been checked and verified, the status of your mandate will remain "Submitted/Received”. In the context of a distribution, no distribution result can be calculated for you while this status is active. Please therefore be aware of any potential upcoming distribution dates when making a change to your mandate.

You can, at any time, change your mandate by adding countries or removing them again. Please observe that your mandate for Germany cannot be removed.

After each distribution run, various documents will be provided to you in relation to your individual distribution results: Detailed reports, station usage reports (broadcaster reports) and distribution statements (payout information) if you had payouts made to you.

When the German Collecting Societies Act (VGG) which entered into force from 1 June 2016 was implemented, changes to the documents made available for the individual distribution results had to be made. Detailed reports, distribution statements and station usage reports for the distribution years from 2016 can be accessed in the submenu “Documents from 2016” on tabs which are subdivided accordingly.

Balance statements are provided for download on the respective tab a couple of days after a distribution run has been completed.

In the submenu “Reports until 2015 ”, you can download the distribution results for the distribution years up to 2015. Distribution statements from these years are not available there.

Distribution statements are only generated if there was actually a payout during the distribution run, i.e. if an additional remuneration was allocated during a subsequent distribution. In the case of identical or reduced results of a previous distribution for a distribution year, no distribution statement or payout notification will be generated.

In the case of special distributions (e.g. payouts of instalments) and ZPÜ supplementary distributions, no detailed reports will be provided. In this case, the broadcast minutes allocated in the relevant distribution years will be used as a basis, as such the detailed report/statement of the distribution year affected by a back payment therefore applies.