DDEX was incorporated as a standards organisation to develop and maintain a robust framework of communication Standards to support the digital distribution of digital content with the initial focus on music and music-related assets. DDEX wants to improve the efficiency of information sharing and transaction processing between participants in the digital music supply chain through use of Standards and seeks to promote global awareness and compliant implementation of these Standards. Rightscom was been involved throughout the development and launch in May 2006 of DDEX and now acts as the Secretariat and Technical Support Vendor. DDEX is building on the work of the Music Industry Integrated Identifiers Project (MI3P) which Rightscom was also the principle contractor throughout. Two of the standards developed by Rightscom within MI3P, namely the Global Release Identifier (GRid) and the Musical Work Licence Identifier (MWLI), are now administered by CISAC and IFPI respectively. The current focus of DDEX’s work is the completion of two XML message standards for the transmission of information relating to electronic releases and the reporting of usage. In addition the organisation is developing a data dictionary which supports the messages and a party identification system to enable the unique identification of parties when standard XML messages are being transmitted. Once this work is complete DDEX will continue to maintain these messages through a prescribed change request mechanism and also develop other standard XML messages for the transmission of other data relevant to the digital music value chain. DDEX has three tiers of membership; Charter Members, Contributing Members and Participating Members. Details of the benefits and obligations of these member categories can be found at http://www.ddex.net/member_categories.htm with a list of current members being at http://www.ddex.net/members_list.htm. An application for membership form can be found at http://www.ddex.net/application/form.html. The work of DDEX is carried out by a combination of Plenary Meetings and technical Working Groups. DDEX Plenary Meetings are likely to occur four times a year. They are generally three day meetings during which reports on Working Group progress are provided, planning of future work is carried out, Working Groups meet physically to continue their work, requirements for co-ordination of work between Working Groups are acknowledged and new work items are identified. Plenary Meetings are attended by DDEX members and other organisations associated with DDEX in order that the latter are able to gain an understanding of DDEX's work. DDEX Working Groups are established by a Board resolution, which also sets out the mandate of each Working Group and specific finite time deadlines. The Chair of each Working Group is appointed by the Board from representatives of Charter and Contributing members. Members of Working Groups are representatives of Charter and Contributing members. Decision making on output documents of Working Groups is by consensus with disagreements referred to the Board for resolution. Working Groups carry out their work largely by e-mail and telephone conference and usually only meet physically as part of a Plenary Meeting. Membership of Working Groups offers an organisation the opportunity to participate and influence the development and final outcome of the Standards being produced by DDEX. |