Frequently asked questions

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 the menu item "Expand repertoire" you have the option of adding new recordings to your repertoire. To report individual tracks, we recommend using the online mask under "Single audio recording". More extensive audio repertoire can be conveniently uploaded using an Excel template under "Upload Audio". Please make sure that you always use the latest version of our template. This is available for download under "Expand repertoire" > "Upload audio".

Under the menu item "Expand repertoire", you also have the option of adding new audio-visual recordings (video clips) to your repertoire via upload. Video clips can be easily completed by uploading an Excel template under "Upload video". Please make sure that you always use the latest version of our template. This is available for download under "Expand repertoire" > "Upload video".

By selecting the rights profile for the repertoire upload (audio and video), you declare in which countries you have the rights for the recording to be reported.

Choose between the regions:

• Worldwide
• Germany
• DACH

Under "Contains the countries" you can view the individual countries that the selected region covers. If necessary, you can add or remove individual countries after processing your message in label.gvl. To do this, edit the corresponding recordings under "My repertoire" > "Edit" > "Change".

Important: Please make sure that your selected rights profile matches your mandate granted to GVL. If you have granted GVL a worldwide mandate, we will not be able to manage this for you if you only register your repertoire with the rights profile "Germany" or "DACH".

In order to be able to match your repertoire with the radio and television stations' broadcast reports available to us, we are dependent on the reporting of your track-related metadata.

The more data you provide us with, the more accurate our matching can be.

We have defined the following mandatory fields as minimum requirements:

• Title
• performer
• Composer (only a mandatory field for classical works)
• ISRC
• Playing time
• Genre: please only use the genre codes provided by GVL here
• Recording country
• Recording year
• First release date
• Start of rights ownership: Start of your rights ownership of a recording, usually the release date; please be sure to take into account any early sampling by the broadcasters and pre-date this date to the start of sampling or promotion if necessary.

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.

Under "My repertoire" you will find all recordings (audio and video) that you have reported to GVL and that have been successfully processed by GVL's systems.

Repertoire reported is therefore not visible under "My repertoire" immediately after the upload, but only after processing by GVL's systems and the conflict check carried out in this process. This takes place once a day so that you can usually view your recordings in label.gvl no later than 24 hours after your upload.

In the repertoire view in label.gvl (My repertoire), you can see the total quantity and detailed information of your recordings reported to and processed by GVL at any time, as well as the number of identified and unresolved rights ownership conflicts with other producers of sound recordings and audiovisual recordings at the respective time this list is accessed.

For a better overview and editing, the portal offers various filter and search options with which you can search for individual recordings or a set of recordings.

You can also display the "Score" and "First distribution score" columns. Here you can see immediately whether broadcast messages could be assigned to your repertoire message. The columns show the number of unweighted minutes assigned to audio tracks and the number of broadcasts for video clips.

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.

To remove incorrectly registered repertoire, select the recording(s) concerned under "My repertoire" and select the "Withdraw" option via the "Edit" button to withdraw your rights ownership. The recording will then be removed from your repertoire and will no longer be displayed or remunerated for you.

Via the menu item "My repertoire", you can export and download your complete repertoire, which has been reported to GVL and processed, into an Excel file at any time.

To export your entire repertoire, you do not have to make a selection or complete a search after calling up the page, but can initiate the export directly via the "Download" button and the "Repertoire" option.

label.gvl offer you the option of changing reported rights ownerships at any time - regardless of whether a recording is in a rights ownership conflict or not.

You have the option of withdrawing rights ownership completely or making changes in the relevant areas "Period", "Share" and/or "Countries" (region).

These functions are available to you under the menu item "My repertoire" via the "Edit" button and the "Change" option.

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)

Self-conflicts only arise in very rare exceptional cases, e.g. if you perform a recording with different rights owner information a second time within a repertoire notification and thus register a recording twice in one notification. A subsequent second registration of a recording with different rights holder information to the first registration will update it.

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 completely withdrawing your rights ownership or editing it in such a way that the overlap that led to the conflict is resolved.

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

If your reported rights ownership is correct and the conflict arose due to the incorrect reporting of one or more conflict partners, please contact the conflict partner and inform them of the resolution of the conflict by them. GVL will provide you with all relevant contact information for this purpose in the recording details (detailed view).

To ensure that no party is favored until clarification, the affected product will be blocked for distribution for the period of the overlap until clarification. Periods not affected by a time overlap are paidout unhindered during distributions.

As a trustee, GVL is not authorized to intervene in rights ownership conflicts between two rights holders. We are happy to support you in making contact. In addition, we have an escalation procedure for conflicts concerning a year of use shortly before its final distribution in order to speed up conflict resolution.

Apart from this, conflict clarification and resolution is the responsibility of the parties involved.

You can create a conflict export to obtain an overview of all the details of the conflicts identified for you or a set of conflicts narrowed down by filters and search options.

The "Conflicts" option is available in label.gvl under "My repertoire" and the "Download" button. This will generate an Excel export of the rights holder conflicts you have selected 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 can also administer your neighboring rights internationally and offers rights holders the opportunity to mandate GVL for countries other than Germany when concluding a rights administration agreement. The countries available for selection are the countries with which GVL has concluded bilateral representation agreements for producers of sound recordings.

Under the menu item "Mandate" in label.gvl, you can see for which countries you have already given GVL a mandate to manage your neighbouring rights and, if necessary, change your mandate there.

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.

With the implementation of the Collecting Societies Act (VGG), which came into force on June 1, 2016, changes to the documents provided for the individual distribution results became necessary. Detailed reports, payout notifications, broadcaster evaluations and balance statements for distribution years from 2016 onwards can be found in the "Documents from 2016" submenu under the corresponding tabs.

Balance statements are only made available for download under the corresponding tab a few days after a sound recording distribution has taken place. The balance statements only refer to the regular audio distributions of GVL.

In the submenu "Reports up to 2015" you will find your distribution results for the distribution years up to 2015 for download. Payout notifications 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.

You will not lose any remuneration for notifications and conflict resolutions that have not yet been made! In subsequent distributions, all further notifications and subsequently conflict-free repertoire will be taken into account.

For conflicts remaining in a final distribution , the Associates' and Delegates' Assembly of GVL has decided that the revenues blocked by conflicts for the final distribution year will be included in the surcharge from unallocated revenues and distributed pro rata with the final distribution.

Please note: GVL can only consider affected recordings for distributions after the conflict has been resolved. Information on how to resolve rights ownership conflicts can be found in these FAQs and on the help page of our producer portal label.gvl.

There are two types of conflicts: Third-party and in only rare circumstances conflicts with yourself (internal double claims). You can only have a third-party rights ownership conflict with other rights owners. Internal double claims arise, by contrast, with yourself.  They occur on the basis of different rights ownership details that you provided for a track (original recording), for example by registering several different sets of details on a track or ISRC within one upload or repertoire delivery. Please note that GVL requires precise track details i.e. data on specific original recordings and that details on releases are not used as a basis: As such, there are usually several releases of an identical original track.

You can report your productions on label.gvl for three years and resolve conflicts in order to receive remuneration in one of the subsequent distributions. We will inform you of the exact reporting deadlines separately at the end of each year for the following year. Detailed information on distribution dates and deadlines can always be found on the help page of our manufacturer portal label.gvl.

In addition, we inform our rights holders about deadlines and distribution dates by e-mail and news in label.gvl.

The detailed report is available for download after each distribution run in label.gvl under "Reports" > "Documents from 2016". Here you will find two types of reports. Firstly, the overview report as a PDF and Excel file, which shows the distribution of your distribution revenues across the various rights categories in addition to the remunerated recordings with their total broadcast minutes. Secondly, a detailed station evaluation as an Excel file, which contains the breakdown of the broadcast minutes per recording for the evaluated stations in addition to other detailed information.

Since the 2016 usage year, the new billing system has provided you with a track-by-track billing statement for all remuneration received and for the use of your recordings. In the label code-based billing system that was valid until the 2015 usage year, however, the remuneration received was summarized per label.

You will get your remuneration for the first time within 9 months after the usage year. The notification period, i.e. the time which you have for your notifications and to clear the rights, ends three years after the end of the respective financial year of the initial distribution.

GVL assigns label codes at the request of a producer of sound recordings with a valid rights administration agreement. The label code (LC) is currently a six-digit number (example: LC 123456) and is permanently assigned to a label. The label code is an additional label identifier, which is usually also requested by German broadcasters and stations as part of a promotion at the sampling stage.

If you have not yet concluded a rights administration agreement and do not have a label code, you can conclude an online rights administration agreement here . Concluding a contract and applying for a label code is free of charge.

You have already signed a GVL rights administration agreement and received a label code from us, but would like to register an additional label code? As a direct member you can register new labels easily online in our producer portal label.gvl. You will find the option to register a new label under "My labels".

GVL’s label search provides you with an option to check on the status of issued label codes, updated once a week, and the registered  labels. 

To deregister a label registered with GVL, please use the function in label.gvl under "My labels". Alternatively, there is also a form available here that you can sign and send to label@gvl. Deregistered labels are no longer displayed in the label search.

A label name that has already been registered with GVL can no longer be changed.

Collections for rental and lending and private copying are carried out by third-party organisations and paid through to GVL. This creates administration costs.  Please click here for more information on this topic.

It increases the transparency of the calculation and shows the remuneration categorised into subject to VAT and not subject to VAT.

The amount consists of the final amount of both payout notifications. In the case of a simultaneous distribution across several usage years, the transferred amount can include the final amounts of all payout notifications made available.

The payout notifications without debt collection all remain the same.

There is no tax deduction on collection costs.

You will be subject to a tax deduction on collection costs.

You will be subject to a tax deduction on collection costs.

Distribution only takes place if the title has been published digitally or physically and has been reported in label.gvl.

Your title might have been broadcast on the radio, but it may not have had more than 200 minutes of broadcast usage in the corresponding usage year.

No. The process requires a significant usage in public space e.g. as part of a mass event. Distributable amounts from usage in smaller public places such as retail stores, catering businesses etc. fall below the minimum threshold level as set out in the distribution plans.

In order to be able to participate in direct accounting of public performance, rights holders must assert their claims using the ‘Notification form for direct distribution for communication to the public’ / ‘Certificate of communication to the public’.

Claims to remuneration from the distribution budget “Sound recordings that have been publicly performed without any relevant broadcast usage” can always be submitted up until the 31st of December of the following year, after the public broadcast has taken place.

Distribution is planned for the first half of the year after the registration deadline. However, a later distribution is also possible for technical or factual reasons.

We require the following documents for processing:

• GVL notification form for public performance ("Notification form for direct distribution of public performance sound recordings (TT)")
• Proof of public performance of the sound recording ("Certificate of Public Performance")
• Proof of rights ownership, if applicable

Yes, this is possible. The organiser can send a scan of the certificate to label@gvl.de or choose the postal route (GVL, "Direktverteilung Öffentliche Wiedergabe", Podbielskiallee 64, 14195 Berlin). Please make sure that you - as the label - add the necessary information about your company to the certificate.

There is no charge for signing a rights administration agreement with GVL - it's free.

Please call us on 030 48483650. We will then ask you a few questions about identification.
We can then tell you whether you are already a GVL rights holder.

No, in order to obtain a label code, you need to enter into a rights administration agreement as a producer of sound recordings first.

Please enter your IBAN in the format DE021203000000202051.

In Germany, the IBAN contains of 22 digits. This may differ from country to country.

If you do not currently have a tax number, please enter "NONE".
We would like to point out that a tax number is mandatory for payments.

You can find more information about tax here.

The following details must be clearly legible on your ID copy: Date of birth, name, date of validity, signature, nationality.  You can blacken everything else.

You can check your data at the end in the contract preview and have the option to jump back to the individual pages if you want to correct an entry in the online form. If you have already clicked "Complete" and want to make a change afterwards, you need to contact us, either by email at label@gvl.de or by phone  030-48483-650.

Once the six-week period has lapsed, please contact us by phone or e-mail before sending any documents. Please also indicate your case number as a reference.

No, we do not issue the registrant (first owner) code for the ISRC. It is the Bundesverband Musikindustrie e.V. / Federal Association of the Music Industry (BVMI) that issues such codes. Further details on this topic are on the BVMI-Website.

Please call us on +49 (30) 4843650. We will then ask you a few questions to verify your identity. We will then provide you with your contract number.

You can change your master data, such as address and bank details directly in our producer portal label.gvl. In case your tax ID, your name or the type of your legal entity has changed, please send us an e-mail to label@gvl.de and provide us with your contract number and/or GVL ID.  We will then send the relevant forms through to you.

Yes, this is possible. Information on representation agreements that GVL has for performers and producers of sound is located at our website and in the  frequently asked questions on this topic.  You can also change your mandate at any time in the producer portal label.gvl.

The German copyright law distinguishes between so-called exclusive rights which are granted to users by contract and remuneration rights which exist by law, independently of any contractual arrangements. GVL only manages remuneration rights at this time. Interactive streaming of audio and audio-visual content is set up as an exclusive right and therefore does not fall under the rights generally managed by GVL. It is possible that exclusive rights are managed by collective management organisations or music licensing companies. However, to collectively manage these rights, it is necessary that nearly all involved rights owners grant these rights on a large scale. This, in turn, presupposes a general consensus of rights owners and other market participants or a statutory regulation. We were not able to establish a consensus so far, remuneration rights for interactive streaming rights do not exist as of now. Of course, we are open towards an expansion of our rights portfolio if required.

GVL uses two different identification numbers. 

You receive your contract number (or customer number) when you conclude a rights administration agreement with GVL.

The GVL-ID was introduced as part of our system changes. It enables us, for example, to record more precisely whether you are represented in different functions, for example, as an artist and heir or producer at the same time.   

The GVL ID is also used for correspondence. You will find it on your payout notifications and your detailed reports, among other things.  

When contacting us personally, we can identify you equally with both numbers. Please have either your contract number or your GVL ID ready when you communicate with us.  

You can access all your payout notifications and detailed reports in our producer portal label.gvl. Please go to “reports” in the menu and select “documents from 2016”.

Yes, please visit our help page for label.gvl, where you will also find useful quick start guides and video tutorials.

In 2013, the EU Directive 2011/77/EU was implemented into the German Copyright Act. The protection of sound recordings was consequently extended from 50 to 70 years by inserting a new Section 79a UrhG. The provisions therein create a liabilities for producers of sound recordings to pay 20% of the income from exploitation such as distribution, reproduction and making available in Germany for the contributing artists to GVL. This remuneration right is essential for performing artists and was assigned to GVL and its sister organisations for administration purposes.

Negative replies enable us to create a plausibility check that the repertoire registered with us is actually complete. 

No, because the rights of the producer of sound recordings for earlier recordings can be acquired via contractual transaction by anyone in Germany, at any time. If you hold such rights, you must notify GVL and, where applicable, pay such shares.

Accounting for claims arising from the term of protection extension requires additional and different data than the ones you had already submitted for your repertoire, e.g. your relevant gross income (from the sales of physical sound recordings, digital downloads, exploitations on streaming platforms or synch rights (ads) - but not the GVL income).

For the notification process, GVL provides a template for the relevant year. If you have only joined GVL since the last notification from us or if you receive this request for the first time for different reasons, we would like to kindly ask you to let us know your income from the years 2014 to the current year. Please contact us in such cases as we are happy to provide you with the respective tables in that case.