The Music Producers Guild has secured the support of the BPI and AIM music industry bodies for its ISRC in Broadcast WAV initiative – both have agreed to adopt Broadcast WAV as standard.
‘BPI is pleased to support this MPG initiative and we’ll be encouraging our members to adopt Broadcast WAV as a standard,’ BPI Chief Executive Geoff Taylor confirms. ‘By incorporating ISRC data into the WAV file, we can provide a more accurate and reliable means of identifying recordings when they are exchanged between labels and studios.’
‘This is fantastic news for all recording artists and copyright owners, because Broadcast WAV will make file identification and content tracking much easier and more accurate,’ says Alchemy Mastering’s Barry Grint, who has led the MPG ISRC campaign. ‘It will also help royalty agencies develop more precise systems for payments, thereby safeguarding the incomes of artists and copyright owners when their recordings are played on air.’
With two major UK music industry organisations behind the new format, and with a number of mastering hardware equipment manufactures also onboard, the Music Producers Guild believes it is only a matter of time before Broadcast WAV is adopted by the music industry worldwide: ‘WAV is the standard format for music interchange in the production process, but MPG members were frustrated that there was no method of embedding industry standard ISRC information in the format to enable more accurate identification the content of files,’ Grint explains. ‘Working in collaboration with the European Broadcasting Union, which created a professional version of the WAV format called Broadcast WAV, we have been able to ensure the carriage of ISRC information in this type of file, thus removing the need for it to be re-entered and reducing the opportunity for error.’
‘In an environment where labels of all sizes now understand that effective metadata management is the key to maximising revenue from their master rights, the work MPG is doing to adapt the BWF format will result in a clearer, more accurate approach to identifying tracks and minimising potential mis-allocation of income from repertoire usage,’ says AIM Membership Manager, James Farrelly. ‘AIM is proud to support this initiative and looks forward to working with the MPG and their partners to build industry wide adoption of the format.’
The MPG is now planning to address mastering engineers by holding a seminar to demonstrate the ease with which Broadcast WAV can be implemented. This will take place in London in early November 2013.
‘For engineers using Magix/Sequioa or Merging/Pyramix, switching to Broadcast WAV will simply involve a software upgrade as both of these workstation manufacturers are already backing the Broadcast WAV initiative, ‘ Grint says. ‘Now that this issue is higher up the priority list, we hope other manufacturers will quickly follow their lead.’
More: www.mpg.org.uk
