Session, the Swedish music start-up co-founded by Abba’s Björn Ulvaeus and songwriters Max Martin and Niclas Molinder, formerly known as Auddly has launched Creator Credits, an initiative that aims to help music creators be correctly credited for their work.

Creator Credits is described by Session as “the world’s first end-to-end ecosystem for creator credits, in collaboration with leading music industry players” It is designed to enable music creators (songwriters, producers, musicians, artists) to assign credits in the studio at the point of creation by burning this metadata into the audio files and automatically pass those credits ‘downstream’ to managers, record labels, publishers, broadcasters, performing rights organisations (like their partner society PRS), distributors and streaming platforms.

In order to collect that data from the beginning of every tune, Session is partnering with Avid to embed its technology into Pro Tools. Session will then be able to automatically detect and add crucial industry identifiers before its proper release.

With Session’s platform, the metadata travels with the song in the music industry standard DDEX RIN format as it is delivered to record labels and publishers. The creator credits package includes crucial industry identifiers for songwriters (IPI) and performing artists (IPN), as well as the emerging ISNI identifier. Finally, this creator identification information, along with their contributions to the recording and song, are assembled with the ISRC (recording identifier) and ISWC (composition identifier).

Once the track is distributed to a streaming service like Spotify or Apple Music, fans will have the opportunity to access more information about songs, while streaming platforms will enable consumers to follow their favourite songwriters, performers and producers.

Niclas Molinder, Session’s CEO told us…

“We are super-excited to announce this project and our collaboration. I’m convinced that the best way to involve the creators in the data collection is as early as possible in the creation process. Session’s technology performs a short handshake with music society systems to authenticate creators and associate their vital industry identifiers with their account.

When a creator walks into a Pro Tools powered studio their presence will be automatically detected and their identifiers, along with their typical contributions, can be easily added to a song.”

Aside from Avid, Session's initial collaborators and supporters for the new ecosystem include Universal Music Group, Max Martin's MXM Music and DDEX, the supply chain data standards organisation.

Abba’s Björn Ulvaeus and Niclas Molinder, Session’s CEO demonstrated Creator Credits at SXSW recently during a panel called "Providing the Missing Links." The also included UMG Executive Vice President of content strategy and operations Barak Moffitt, Avid’s director of audio product management Francois Quereuil and Phil Sant, chief engineer at Stage.

Barak Moffitt from Universal Music Group told us…

"UMG is proud to work with Session’s team to make the process of assigning credits even easier and to ensure that the important work of contributors to songs and recordings are widely available,. In addition to our own efforts, we have been working closely with Bjorn and Niclas for a couple years on the development of this platform as part of our commitment to a robust and effective crediting system for the benefit of the entire music ecosystem."

Francois Quereuil added that…

“With Pro Tools software at the core of many of today’s music production environments around the world, the Avid team shares in the vision that all contributors to a piece of music or any audio work should be clearly identified, recognised and rewarded appropriately throughout the production and distribution process,. We are particularly excited to enter a technology collaboration with Session and work with key players in the music industry to provide a durable solution to the challenges associated with capturing and recognising creators’ credits in an increasingly complex digital world.”

The past two years have also seen Session (formerly Auddly) enter into partnerships with collective management organisations including PPL and SAMI; ASCAP; U.K. based PRS for Music; its Swedish counterpart STIM, and Universal Music Publishing Group, which was the first major publisher to team up with the data hub.

We also understand that Creator Credits will also enable streaming services such as Spotify and Apple Music to give consumers a better experience and presentation of liner notes-style information for songs and albums.

It would seem that one of the feature options included in the 21 Feature Suggestions For Pro Tools In ACA Vote. We Take A Look At Them And The Future Direction Of The Avid DAW is already being built into Pro Tools with the integration announced by Swedish tech start up Session.

In the 2018 ACA vote there was a feature suggestion identified as ‘DDEX-compliant Metadata Recording’. DDEX is a consortium of media companies, music licensing organisations, digital service providers and technical intermediaries, focused on the creation of digital supply chain standards. To support the automated exchange of information along the digital supply chain, DDEX has standardised the format in which information is represented in XML messages and the method by which the messages are exchanged between business partners.

DDEX standards have been designed to help rightsholders, retailers and technical intermediaries to more effectively communicate information along the digital supply chain. This leads to efficient business transactions, reduced costs and increased revenues for all sectors involved.

The DDEX standards need to cover not only the music industry sector but we also the TV, OTT and film production sectors too. The more online delivery content there is, with the rise of the likes of Netflix and Amazon, the more important the subject and implementation of metadata becomes. For example, metadata will help musicians get paid for music used in other people’s projects if the metadata embedded in the music file used in a Pro Tools session could be transmitted through to the programme master. Metadata may be boring but it will be the oil that lubricates the money flow.