Le Sage

• First steps in Le Sage
• Actors
• List of actors
• Editing an actor
• Special actors
• Works
• List of works
• Editing a work
• Creating new works
• Work groups
• General
• Catalog fixing workhop
• Importing/exporting catalogues
• Importing a catalogue
• Importing CWR ACKs
• Royalty statements
• Importing rights
• Matching rights
• Viewing rights
• Royalties
• Agreements
• The statements
• Configuration
• Connection to a hosted database
• Royalties - Applying contracts
• MusicMark
• Conditions on rights - Specific deals to pay out royalties
• The Power of the catalog fixing workshop
• Type of Rights in Music Publishing
• Closing : step by step

First steps in Le Sage

You have just purchased Le Sage and do not know where to start. Here are some key steps to get you started with the software.

First settings

Companies

We will not detail each tab here but mainly the first settings necessary to import your catalog.

The configuration of the company is necessary to link your works to companies. If you only manage your catalog, and you only have one legal entity, you will only create your company name. To add a company, press the "+" symbol and enter the name of your company. It is not necessary to set all of the available fields right away. These will be used later on for the statements.

Third parties

Third Parties are any entity with whom you will exchange data. You are going to want to integrate a first catalog into the database. You must therefore configure the third party that provided you with this catalog. As for the company, press "+" and type the name of the catalog supplier. The configurations on the right will be necessary when exporting your catalogs for this same Third Party.

These two basic settings will get you started.

Actors

List of actors

The list of actors is comprised of a search engine and the actual list of actors. To access the list and its functions, you have to launch the search (even empty).

The default choice is by name, the search will bring up all the names beginning with what you key in. You can use * to say that the name contains instead of starts with.

An advanced search enables you to find an actor with specific information :

If you double-click on one actor you can open its form.

Editing an actor

The actors form is composed of several tabs:

General

The header with :

Generic information concerning the actor

Statements

You can define here through differents options/settings which way the statements of this artist are calculated (frame1) and edited (frame2)

You can fill here informative fields to personnalise the statements of this actor.

• Client : you can link here this actor with the client providing you the catalog. The client could be your own company. You can add new clients in « Settings » → « Clients ».

• Calculations :

NB : Those two different options have the same result : the statement calculations will stop with the gross amount.

• Statement layout :

NB : All those “View” options are changing the statement layout in the way of how payouts are edited/presented.

Misc(ellaneous)

IMPORTANT : Those two fields must be filled to export CWR to a PRO as a sub-publisher

Codes

This tab shows you all the codes linked to the actor. Those codes could be attached to the actor automatically through importing catalogues but also manually.

You can see several informations here :

• code types : IPI, coad, etc...
• code itself
• the third party providing the code

An actor can have several code from the same type. If this actor has several IPI or Coad code, LeSage will export or fill your documents with the code that as been created in the first place (chronologically speaking). To avoid the wrong code to be chosen so used, you must define it as “main”.

Royalties

The fields of this tab will allow LeSage to fill automatically a work royalties when this actor is linked to this work. Those fields still remain manually editable.

Special share : this part is only dedicated to create special actors.

Works

Here are listed all the works linked to this actor no matter the role he is having. The header frame provides you informations about :

At the bottom left, you find a tool bar allowing you to :

In the Copyright section, you can see the role of this actor in each work.

In the Royalties section, you can see every works on which this actor received rights and so payouts. You can double-click on a work to see more details.

The amount generated column indicates the collected publisher share.

In the Contracts section, you see the list of every contracts this actors is involved/part of.

Balances

This tab shows the actors account payouts statement.

In the frame n° 1 you can see :

In the frame n°2 :

Payments

Here is the list of the rights, advance and others payouts already paid to this actor.

Payments are done through :

IMPORTANT : If you want a manual payment to be postponed/integrated to the next statement calculation you must date it from the 1st day of the next statements calculation period

Credits

Here are the amounts positive or negative (but not rights)  you would like to make appear on the statement.

IMPORTANT : To integrate those special credits the date (in period) must be the 1st day of the next statement calculation period.

Succession

In case of a dead actor, you must fill the beneficiary heir detailed information here :

The Share (%) representing the part being paid to the heir as new beneficiary in case of several heirs for one deceased actor.

IMPORTANT : The deceased actor will still have a statement on his behalf and his heir(s) will have a different one with their share(s).

Aggregate

Grouping or gathering actors allows you to calculate and edit aggregated statements. Concerning mostly the sub-publishers to edit and calculate specific statements for each catalog but also a global or aggregate one.

To define a grouping of actors :

Special actors

General principle

Whether in a work or in a contract, we could indicate to Le Sage payments to be applied "blindly": we created a group of works for a catalog, we associated a contract which defined that we kept 10% and that 90% was paid to our client and the trick was (more or less) played. This system works very well for sub-publishing but obviously is a big problem for local works, in particular because, depending on the number and the shares of authors, composers and publishers present in each work, this “blind” distribution is unusable.

It is possible to create “virtual” rights holder who will be responsible for distributing the shares according to the copyright data.

Let's take an example :

We create an actor to whom we give an explicit name (this name will be visible only to you) and, in the "Royalties" tab, we ask him to distribute the rights between all the controlled actors. We take the opportunity to give it 100% on all types of rights because, in most cases, that's what you want.

Now, let's fill in a work. We need two lines in the "royalties" part:

We do not specify a supplier (in fact this rule will apply regardless of the supplier), we delete the DEP, DRM and Phono parts and we indicate, in the “Copyright sharing key”, that we wish to use the “Mechanical owned” shares in the copyright.

Here is the "Copyright" content of this work: I create a line of direct rights of 1000 € in miscellaneous rights and Le Sage calculates: He did note that the total share of actors checked is 50% and therefore that each person's share is respectively ¼, ¼ and ½. Let's change the copyright to indicate that we control almost everyone (remember that we chose to use the "Mechanical owned" part for our calculations):

And let's recalculate the count: The Sage still distributes the same amount, but this time giving ⅓ to the publisher (25% out of 75% in total) and ⅙ to each of the authors / composers (12.5% ​​out of 75% in total). Of course, at the scale of a work it's not very interesting but it also works on contracts, of course.

We've seen the easiest way to share here, but there are other cool things you can do. You have seen that we can create rights holders capable of distributing rights especially between authors / composers or only between publishers. Let's go back to the "Copyright" configuration from the beginning: We create two rights holders responsible respectively for distributing the rights between the A / C and between the Publishers. Next, let's modify our “Royalties” area as follows: The distribution "All actors" is empty for the various rights but distributed at 10/90 between the A / C and the Publishers (one can imagine, for example, that for the Songbooks, the publishers keep a majority of the sums to amortize the costs. Manufacturing) : The publisher keeps 90% of the sum and the A / C split the remaining 10% in proportion to their "Mechanical" shares.

Special actor setting

We are going to create 3 actors: 1 for the sharing to take place:

All the actors will not be useful perhaps but know that it is possible to create them. In the list of actors, click on "Create". Give it the name you want: here: * split between A/C controlled (the asterisk will allow you to have the actor at the very beginning of the list of actors). Go to the Royalties tab and check "Share between controlled authors/composers.

Your actor allowing you to split between the songwriters (arrangers and adapters also) according to one of the sharing keys issued by copyright is finished. The operation must be repeated to create the other two, by checking the special sharing according to the name you give it.

Works

List of works

Two options here :

• searching bar
• create a work

The searching bar function is having an advanced (detailed) mode to target a specific kind of work :

If you start the search with no content (empty field), you will find the list of all the works from the database :

Here you find :

• The Title of the work
• The Favorite Code (ISWC) of the work
• The creation date of the work in LeSage
• The Registration Date
• The Company representing the work
• The Actors within the work's copyright
• The SACEM code :  CoCv ?

And with the bottom left tool bar (or right click anywhere on the list) you can do some actions about :

• Add/create a new work with +
• Delete a work with the green bin
• Modify a work (you can also double click on a work to open an edit work) with the pencil
• Refresh the list two cycled arrows
• Duplicate a work
• Save the column size settings with the small disk
• Maximize the columns double blue arrow

If you right click on the work list you can access to a scroll menu with secondary options of actions :

• Merge works : after selecting 2 works, merging will only keep the 1st one and delete the 2nd one. All the 2nd work's information not yet present will be transferred on the 1st one at the same time. The remaining work (1st one) will keep and obtain all the missing rights, and royalties copyrights information  as group, tags, and movie songbook links. You could decide to swap, to change the work remaining and the one deleted. You could also decide (ticking the proper box) to not copy the royalties and/or copyright information.

IMPORTANT : This action could generate duplication (for example copyrights information of the 2 merged works). In this way, we highly recommend to check remaining work's information /!\

• Use work as template : allows you to copy a work's information to other works within a group. After picking the template work and right click on it, choose "use work as a template" and then select a group (1) and the information you would to copy (2).

• Create a static work with the selected work(s) : creation of a temporary group with selected works
• Search for lost works : search and/or recreate works which CoCv exists already in the sales imports but not yet in the works' list (database?)
• Check payouts : ?
• List templates : allows you to customize the header columns you would like to see inside this list :

If you double-click on one work you open its edit in a new tab to consult and/or modify it.

Editing a work

General

You find here 3 different but important zones :

• a small window (1) with general information :

• Subtitle : to dissociate/distinguish 2 similar works
• Company : the publisher, you or the one you represent on a specific territory. This field is important for the statement export to be clear and the actors paid on the correct company behalf. The company concept inside a contract or royalties (« controlled by ») settings will be priority over this field information.
• Performer : (optional) You can add one (or several) actor (s) in the copyright zone with this specific role.
• Author : optional here because it is already filled in the copyright section. This field could be used to force the auhtor’s name appearing in the statement
• Territories : the territory in which you represent the work.
• ISWC : international standard work code (add/modify in the “code” tab).
• idimport : allows you to know through which import this work was created in your database.
• Protected : protected work from the massive changes in the workshop.
• Do not export : this work will be not exported in the catalog (CR / Chrono).
• Already submitted : meaning this work was already submitted to a PRO through a catalog.
• Submit comment : if the works was accepted or rejected
• Genre : type of music
• duration : work duration

In the same window, you can also check the chain of right (= hierarchy) to check the copyright according to a third party in order to export the work :

Still in the same section, you can click on menu button to :

• Verify payouts of this work
• Generate documents (contract in english)
• Export the work

• another window (2) with copyright information about this work and its actors :

• Actor : click on the eye to open an edit actor

• IPI code : standard unique code for copyright actor

• Role : A = author, C = composer, AC = author & composer, E = original publisher, SE = sub-publisher, CE = co-publisher, ADM = administrator,

• Chain : to separate rights' chains according to publishers/sub-publishers representations

• which publisher or sub-publisher is managing the co-publishing

• the performance & mechanic shares (owned & collectable), IMPORTANT : the shares total must be 100%

• the Third party (who provides you the work and its information)

• if the actor is controlled

You can customize the header columns (so information) you would like to see clicking on the settings button.

You can also open/generate a copyright preview according to the third party you would to export this work to, clicking on the yellow file button.

This preview will be visible in another tab :

You find here the same information as in the copyright section but in the way it will appear within the CWR/Chrono export according to the PRO you are sending to.

• a last window (3) with royalties/contract information attached to this work :

You can read this section according two ways :

• horizontally
• vertically : this way could be hidden clicking on the blue arrow situated on the top right of the royalties zone.

This section is proposing two ways of setting royalties up :

• the contract mode
• the work mode

In both mode, you must define one (or several) actor(s) and the payout shares (%) according to the type of rights (mech or perf).

Within the contract mode, you must create a contract with the payouts conditions (royalties) beside.

Then you attach the contract to a group so to all the works in the group.

This mode is highly recommended because :

• it’s working efficiently whether there is one ore a thousand work in the group
• if there is a payout mistake, you just need to change the contract and all the works are impacted
• if you create new works, you just need to add them in the group and they will be automatically attached to the contract thanks to the dynamic group concept

Within the work mode, royalties are set directly in the edit work (this section).

IMPORTANT : this mode and this way to inform royalties will always be priority over the contract mode to calculate the statements. This mode is recommended only to deal with specific situations.

Codes

You find here all the codes attached to this work.

Those codes could be attached to a work automatically with catalogue and/or rights import or even manually.

• # : internal number automatically generated by LeSage when creation
• Code type : ISWC, CoCv, etc…
• Main : tick this box to determine which code is the favorite, main attached to this work
• Code : the code in itself
• Third Party : the entity providing the information
• Title : work title
• Author : author/composer present in the work copyright
• Album ref : commercial reference of album where the work is attached
• Album title :
• Track num :
• Duration :
• Label :
• Release :
• Artist : performer present in the work copyright
• Created : creation date in LeSage
• Import # : Import number generating/providing the work code

A work could have several but same type code attached.

If so, LeSage will consider a code as main one according to its creation date (the oldest, the first created).

To define a correct work code as main and avoid a sale to be assign to a wrong one, you must tick this correct code as main.

Notes

Those notes are for your own personal use in LeSage and will have NO impact/effect on statements.

Those useful and complementary information are recommended to organize your database management.

Rights

You find here all the rights imported attached to this work.

• Rights # : internal number automatically generated by LeSage after importing rights
• amountpaid : amount to pay in the rights' file imported
• amountpaidincurrency : amount to pay converted in the correct currency
• % collected : from the total copyright shares
• TypeOfRights : type of rights from the rights' file imported
• Title : of the work imported
• Authors : present in the copyright from the rights' file imported
• date_paid :
• typeofrights_text : way to broadcast the work, provenance from the rights' file imported
• Source : way to broadcast the work, provenance translated for LeSage

Groups and tags

This tab shows all the groups and tags attached to this work.

 

Exports

You find here all the exports where this work is present.

• idExport
• Date
• Format
• File name
• Description

Subtitles

Creating new works

Once your catalog has already been placed in the system, you will maybe want to manually add new works. Several solutions are possible, depending on the diversity of the copyright that you will want to integrate.

From the list of works

The option to create a new work appears directly when opening the list of works. By clicking on create a work file will open and you can add your copyright.

National shares (with statutory shares) and international shares have been indicated. The statutory parts will come out if you edit your contract as original publisher using Le Sage and the international parts if you send your catalog to your foreign sub-publisher (CWR). In order to deposit the works in a blank bulletin, or to take out the contracts to have them signed by the artists, certain information must be added in the detail of the work.

 

From an existing work

 

If you wish to use the copyright of a work already present in the database, after having searched for this work in the list of works, right-click on the work concerned, and click on clone this work or use the "Clone this work" button at the bottom of the screen. You will be able to create one or more works (by putting the titles on the line) having the same characteristics.

The works will be put in a group.

Be careful with this solution all the data in details will be duplicated in addition to the copyright.

From an Excel file

If you are more comfortable filling out an Excel file and importing it into the system as your catalog of deposited works, we provide a template in c:\LeSage12\Examples to import a catalog of new works. Just follow the steps of the catalog import using the "Excel All on one line" filter to import it.

Work groups

General

Work groups are one of the most powerful features of Le Sage. As their name implies, they enable you to regroup works into logical sets that you may use for different purposes:

Once the import of your catalog is finished, you can find the works in "Groups of works". A group integrating all the works was created automatically. It has the name "ImportCat + the name of the filter + the name of your file" unless you named it at the time of import. From this list of groups you can see the number of works that the group contains (here 2 works), the type will be "Import" because it was created at the time of an import and other characteristics related to the Group.

To « enter » (edit) a group, just double click on its line or press the pencil icon at the top.

The group of works opens on the works contained in the group.

The icons at the bottom left allow:    

The secondary list model on the right allows you to choose what information you want to see when you deploy the works: copyright, royalties present in the work or messages (CWR ACK).

Find the chapter dedicated to group actions here:

Catalog fixing workhop

Importing/exporting catalogues

Importing a catalogue

If you are affiliated with an author's society, which will be called later PRO, you can request or download your catalog of deposited works on its platform.

Steps of a first catalog import

The import takes place in 4 phases:

• File and filter selection
• Pre-import
• Choice of validation options
• Import validation

Only the last step really does anything to your database. You can therefore use the pre-import at any time (to check the content of a catalog that has been sent to you).

File / filter selection

Choose the file to import by clicking on the yellow folder button on the right.

Choose the filter to use. The choice of filter will depend on the source of the file. In the case of a PRO, the filter bears the name of the latter. If it is a foreign publisher, either the filter will be named after the publisher or the tool he uses. Do not hesitate to send the file by email with the name of the publisher to emily@improvize.eu if you do not know which filter to choose, or simply because the filter does not yet exist.

Click on "Next" to proceed to the second step.

Pre-import

During the pre-import, Le Sage informs you of the progress of his work. If it stops along the way, it will give you an error message. Usually this will be "Headers Not Found". This means that your supplier has changed its format and it is necessary to adapt the filter accordingly. Send the file to technical support, remembering to specify the name of the filter used.

At the end of the pre-import, Le Sage presents a screen divided into four areas:

• (1) contains the work titles, codes, duration, etc.
• (2) contains the beneficiaries, their owned shares, roles, affiliation, etc.
• (3) contains phonographic data
• (4) contains additional information for rights holders: the collection shares.

The data will depend on the file sent by the supplier (with more or less detail). Le Sage's filters automatically adjust to the richness (or poverty) of the information provided and it is absolutely normal that you do not see all of these columns filled in. In addition, the areas containing codes (workcode or code) do not always contain the same type of information: for SACEM, we will generally have a CoCv (or IDE12) and an ISWC. Some files have no code at all (that is a problem, but we just do with what we have). The area (3) is only very rarely present (mainly in files for musical illustration). When you browse the works (zone (1)), zones (2), (3) and (4) are updated accordingly. Likewise, when you navigate in the actors, the zone (4) is updated.

If the data you see looks correct, click next to choose the validation options.

Validation options

Company

Choose to which society the works will be attached. The system will suggest the companies you created in "Settings".

Provider

Indicate where the catalog you are importing came from. If you had not yet created this provider, do not close the window, open the settings of Sage, create a data provider, validate the configuration and, on the validation options screen, press the button with the 2 blue arrows: your new supplier will appear.

Place the works in a group

The Sage places new works in a group so that you can easily view / rework them. You can choose to place all the works of the imported file in this group (not just the new ones). By leaving the group name empty, Le Sage will automatically assign one.

Add a tag to the works

Likewise, Le Sage can automatically add a tag to imported works in order to constitute / complete catalogs. If the tag is empty, Le Sage will not add a tag. If the tag is unknown, Le Sage will ask you to create it.

Choose the fields to keep

By clicking on this button you will see the available information appear, which may or may not be of interest to you. You choose to keep only the data that is important to you.

Press Next

Matching options

When Le Sage analyzes a work to import, it seeks to know if this work is already present in your database or if it is new. If the import file contains a primary key (for example a PRScode) or a unique key (for example an ISWC code), Le Sage scans the database to find out whether or not this code is already present. If it is present, the work is unambiguously identified and will match automatically without creating a duplicate.

If this code is not found or if the import file does not contain any key, Le Sage offers to search by title, but the question of disambiguation arises. It is therefore necessary to give it a matching strategy in case of absence of common codes between the file and the data base.

For the import of your first catalog there is no question to ask. The database is empty so you will not want to match. All you have to do is select "NO" and click next.

But here are some explanations for your future imports.

Try to match on titles

The Sage offers 5 choices:

• Yes, with all the works

Le Sage searches for an identical title throughout your database.

• Yes, with the works of a particular company

You have to choose a company. Le Sage then searches for an identical title in all the works related to this company.

• Yes, with the works of the group

You must choose a group. The Sage then searches for an identical title in all the works that are members of this group.

• Yes, with the works bearing the tag

You must choose an artwork tag. The Sage then searches for an identical title in all the works with this tag.

• No Le Sage does not search by title and considers all the works to be unknown (therefore new).

Manual Matching

But this search by title may not be enough: nothing says that you do not have, in a given catalog, two homonym works. The Sage then offers you to manually control these homonymies.

Always

Le Sage will always ask you to establish the matching manually (even if he has not found a homonym). Use if you know that some works already exist in the database but there is a good chance that the titles do not match perfectly.

Only if title match

This is the best choice: Le Sage will only ask you questions if he is about to establish a match. If he does not find an identical title, he will treat the work as new.

Never

You consider that there is no homonymy and that in the event that a work is presented with a title already known to the Sage, it is the same work. This is very dangereous.

Works

This option determines what Le Sage will do on the "general" part of the works when it meets existing works:

Leave the identified works as they are : Le Sage will do nothing.

Fill in only empty fields : If the import has, for example, the filing date and this date is missing from the work in Le Sage, the latter will inform it; the work will be completed, no data will be overwritten.

Overwrite pre-existing data : All the information contained in the import file will replace any information that may have been in Le Sage previously: if a filing date is present in the imported file, it will be entered in Le Sage, the title contained in the imported file will replace the one that was there until then.

Actors

Do not touch the beneficiaries : the system won't take under account the copyright information in the file.

Replace the data coming from this third party : If data from this third party is already attached to this work, Le Sage erases them to replace them with the imported info. Other copyright data (from third parties or entered manually) will not be affected.

Replace all copyright data : Any copyright data that may have existed on the work is erased (even those entered manually or from other third parties) and the data contained in the imported file will be added.

Add if the work does not yet have any actors : When the work was created following an import of a statement /direct rights, it has no related rights holder. In this case, Le Sage completes the form. On the contrary, if the work already contains any copyright line, the work is ignored (as in the first choice).

If no match was found

Do not create new works: by checking this box you prohibit the creation of all new works, present in the file absent in your database.

Tap Next.

Territories and sharing keys

Ignore the territories

Theoretically, the collective shares (perfcoll and mechcoll) of the rights holders are linked to a territory (since they are likely to be different from one territory to another, depending on what each PRO allows. ). We will therefore have several lines for each actor: one with its shares owned and one or more with its collectable shares  by territory, which can turn out to be relatively illegible. Today, only files in CWR format sometimes offer to import "international" data. Checking the “ignore territories” box allows you to place the collectable and owned shares on the same line, which makes the worksheets much more readable.

Split keys

Share keys define the copyright columns that will be populated with the information contained in the file. For example: The Performing and Mechanical shares owned by the actors are equal. If your file only contains Performing shares, you can copy them here in Mechanical owned.

Click on Next.

Your catalog import is complete.

Importing CWR ACKs

After you exported catalog to a PRO, you can, sometimes, receive a status feedback about this same catalog.

Most of the time, it is even 2 feedbacks :

IMPORTANT : this preview reporting is only providing you information, no works in the imported groups !

Those feedback are assigning each work an internal and specific PRO code and so ACK-CWR import are crucial to incorporate in order to complete and update your database works information.

You could also choose to assign this reporting a Group type and/or a tag in order to organize your database.

IMPORTANT : LeSage matches automatically with internal workcodes. In this way, in the works matching strategy and especially in the field "Try to match on titles" , you must choose "No" let untick "Do NOT create new works"

Click on Imported Files

Right click on the ACK CWR import and then choose Create a group

A new tab is opening with works in the group, in the field "Work list template" make sure you choose "default" and in the field "Secondary list template" make sure you choose "messages". This way, you can open with the + situated on the left side of each work and so consult the PRO assigned message/status.

Clicking on the blue funnel in the tool bar (bottom left of the tab), you can then filter the works of the group according to the status/message :

This way, you can target the rejeceted works (for example) to correct its copyright and export it again to the PRO but without affecting the accepted with codes works.

Royalty statements

Importing rights

The rights imports allow you to integrate the statements of PROs and your sub-publishers.

The rights are linked to a rights provider, called a third party in the Sage.

When importing the file, you must know the sender in order to indicate it in Third Party, as well as choose the appropriate filter. The filter is named after the rights provider. A Third Party may have more than one file type. This is how we have four filters for SACEM, for example, as they can send several different formats. If you do not find a filter corresponding to your rights provider, please send us the file with the name of the provider.

Unlike catalog imports, rights imports are done in two stages to allow you to manage the time allocated to matching:

The pre-import

1/ Indicate the Third Party   

2/Select your file (s) to import    

3/Choose the appropriate filter (this can be preconfigured in The Sage configuration)    

Next

1/ Rights dates: allows you to force a date of reception of rights on all imported lines and indicate one when the file doesn't contain the information. It is always a good idea to indicate a date.  

2/Currency: if nothing is entered, the currency will be the default currency indicated in the Settings.    

3/ Share to keep: if you want to deduct a percentage on all the lines of rights   

4/ Counter value: this is the amount actually received, in your currency if the file is in a foreign currency.

5/ Filter on a condition: by indicating a condition you can only import the lines of rights that answer that condition.    

6/ Force a rights tag: forcing a rights tag then allows you to create a rights condition to pay the imported lines of right.    

Next

If an error message appears and the file analysis remains blocked, please send us a screenshot, the file being imported, as well as the name of the filter you have selected. The files of your rights providers evolve and we have to adapt the filters accordingly.

A summary of the number of imported lines as well as the amount present in the file appears. ActiveZone is the zone used inside the filter to import the data of your file. It is important to make sure that the amount found matches the amount indicated in the PDF file sent by your rights provider. Otherwise, do not hesitate to contact us to make sure that it is not an error in the filter but an error in the file transmitted by the third party.

Next

Import completed

Matching rights

The import of the rights at this stage is not complete. You cannot analyze them, output your statements, or simply view them as they are. It is necessary to establish the correspondences between the imported rights and lLe Sage database. To do so, you have to go to the list of imports.

1/ The import we just made is red. It indicates that the rights collected are not usable by the system for the moment.  The system does not know yet how to read the information from the file.

2/ The status indicated summarizes the matching lines that are to be made for this file in order to be able to payout, analyze and extract the rights collected.

In the example: 2/2/2/2 should be read as follows: 2 types of rights / 2 families of rights / 2 lines of rights concerning territories / 2lines of rights concerning works  without correspondence. In order to get a precise information on how many works and territories have to matches you can click on "Detailed status".

To start the matching, double click on the import line.

The matches are always made as follows:

The tabs "types of rights", "Matched works" and "Songbooks" must be matched in order to use the information from the file. The "families of rights" and "territories" tabs allow you to give a more precise information to your beneficiaries on their statement but are not mandatory.

The Matched Works Tab

In this example there is only one work in the distribution file.

Start by establishing the already known correspondences : Le Sage will analyze the codes linked to the works: if the codes in the file match with the codes in Le Sage, the rights will be automatically associated with the works.

If works did not find matches after the first analysis, you will :

The information in the first box-1- is the information contained in the file. Depending on the files you will have more or less details.

Box 2 is your database. It will be a question of identifying if the work which arrives via the file is to be compared or not to a work within your database.

If it is  :

All works matched manually will be listed in the "Matched works" tab. If you made a mistake in a match, all you have to do is select the line with the wrong match and click "Delete" (trash can icon). It will be necessary to start again "Start works match" to match it with the good work or to create  new one. All created works will be listed in "Created works". This will allow you to create a group to process them.

The songbook tab

The songbooks must be created within the Sage in "Songbooks" to then establish the matching.

Viewing rights

Once the rights have been integrated into the system, you will be able to view them in "View rights".

View rights is a menu that allows to read, analyze, and extract data of collected rights. The quantity of rights imported or entered manually in the system rarely makes it possible makes it possible to visualize all of them. It is therefore important to restrict the search by:

Viewing tools

List templates

It is interesting to establish different list templates depending on the rights analysis to be performed. A lot of columns are available, depending on the information available in the files you have imported. List templates are displayed and adjusted by right-clicking on the list of rights. Once the columns have been chosen, each can be filtered to keep only certain information: origins, types of rights, etc.

Sum of rights

The sum of the rights is displayed by right-clicking on the bar at the bottom of the list at the level of "amount paid pressing "Add".

It is also possible to set up subtotal bars to group the rights according to certain characteristics (Right click on the column headers). You will select the column on which you want subtotals and place it above on "Drag a column".

Export

An export of the rights wiewing in xlsx format is available by right-clicking on the column headings.   

Associate a tag

Tagging rights allows you to isolate certain lines of rights to treat them differently from traditional payments.

Example: you have obtained a new catalog. A work is paid to you, whereas it should be paid to the previous sub-publisher given the start date of your contract. You can tag these rights lines to say that those with this tag must be, regardless of the type of rights paid, paid to the previous sub-publisher. We will see that for this same example, it will not necessarily be useful to tag the rights but to explain in the contract that before a certain date we do not pay for the rights received and the date we pay the actors.

Royalties

Pay out the rights received

One of the primary functions of Le Sage is to allow to pay out the rights collected. In order to give you maximum flexibility in the way you manage these payments, Le Sage offers two complementary operating levels: the “contract” mode and the “work” mode. In both modes, the definition of payouts is done in the same way: you define one or more beneficiaries and the splits (percentages) that will be paid to them according to different criteria.

In the "contract" mode, you create a contract and indicate the payout information (the "royalties"). You attach this contract to a group and all the works of this group will be subject to the payout provided for in the contract.

This mode is to be preferred because:

In the "works" mode, the royalties (payouts) are defined directly in the work. The payout information defined in the work takes priority over that of the contracts. If you modify the percentages in a contract and your statements do not change, it is likely that the rates taken into account are those defined directly in the work. This operation makes it possible to define a general case and exceptions: if a work in a group must be subject to special payments, it is not necessary to remove it from the group (and this group can continue to be used for other treatments - such as analyzes).

Agreements

Payout agreements allow you to create payment rules, royalties, and apply them to a group of works.

They are created from "Agreements" in the "Main Menu".

From this screen, you can:    

The agreement form

To have access to the royalties box, you must fill in a description and a type of agreement and press Create (2)

You can then enter how you want the contract to work.

Style

Styles make it easier to read royalties when they are complex. Different repayments for the same types of rights under certain conditions can be easily red through the colors and styles of text. Styles are set in Le Sage Settings (Styles).

Actors

Royalty basis

The royalty base (by default at 100%) makes it possible to adjust the amount received. For example, if you collect the share of two co-publishers and you need to pay 90% of the rights to each, you should indicate a payout of 45% to each (50% of 90%). Your customers may not understand the reason for this fancy rate. By indicating a royalty base of 50% and a repayment of 90%, the amount collected will be divided by 2 and the accounts will show 90%. The amounts will be the same, of course.

Conditions on rights

Selection of a condition on rights, among those created in the Settings of Le Sage.

Distribution key

The payout key uses a column in the copyrights to pay out the royalties. The key is associated with the special actors described in Special Actors. The "Special sharing" column makes it possible not to use the statutory distributions.

Controlled by

This field allows you to force the headers and footers of a different company from the one listed in the work or in the contract. This is often useful for catalogs in management. The called field is a company. The companies are to be added in Settings of Le Sage (Companies).

Payments by type of rights

Use of contracts

A royalty contract applies to a group of works. Once the contract has been entered in the list of contracts:    

The statements

The "Royalty Statements" screen allows you to calculate and print the royalties statements. Before going to the"Royalty Statements"  tab, you will need to go back to "Settings" to define one or more periods that you want to calculate.

You can create as many periods as you want. Once your periods have been created, you can go to the "Royalties statements" menu.

Choose the period and press "Calculate". You will be redirected to the estimate tab which shows you the actors for whom there are payments over the period.

The columns

The actions    

Closing and payment

The closing of the accounts moves the balances. This allows gross balances to be carried out to the next statement and transform into a net balance if necessary. 

Two options: select the account (s) to close it (them) or to close it (them) by exporting it. If you do not close a statement, on the next statement, the unpaid gross balance will not carry out and you will lose visibility of the status of pending payments for the actor.

The payment will be automatically checked if the sum exceeds the payment threshold you have indicated for the company. The latter can also be forced. This checkbox shows the net balance payable on the statement that you send to your actors.

To enter the actual payment for the amount due, click on Pay:        

To resume :

Verification

The verification's tab reports all works for which there are payment errors. This will enable you to analyse the rights paid and going back to the work to check the rules that apply.

We have a work for which we have received money (1253 €) but for which the payment rule defined does not add up to 100% (Min rate 55% and Max rate at 55%). To understand why this work is not paid out correctly, you can start by clicking on see the detail

We see that we have received rights, whose entitlement type is ETDEP for an amount of € 1,253 and for which there is 55% payed out. It is therefore a question of closing this verification and double clicking on the problematic work. By opening it we see that there is a contract attached to the work. But if we look closely, there is only 5% instead of 50% in the foreign performing splits.

To modify the contract you can double click on the name of the contract attached, modify the split and save.

The work will disappear from the verification tab after recalculating the statements.

Configuration

Connection to a hosted database

Certificates

If we host your database, you will need to get a certificate so that our servers know who is connecting.

Creating a Certificate Signing Request (CSR)

A tool is delivered in the folder "LeSage12", named "MakeCSR".

The CSR (Certificate Signing Request) is a file that you will generate and send us so we can sign it and provide you with a CRT file. The second file created .key is to be put into the folder c:\LeSage12 without sending it to us. Once both files in the folder each time you will want to access your database your password will have to be entered.

How does it works ?

From Windows access c:\LeSage12. Double click on  MakeCSR.exe : this will pop up :

1/ Le dossier de destination is the folder where both files will be saved : .csr et .key. If you don't specify anything it will go on your Desktop.

2/ Société : company name

3/ Vos Prénom et nom : Name Surname

4/ Email

5/ Password : this password will be asked each time you connect to Le Sage. You can leave it empty but it won't be GDPR compliant. We won't have any access to this password.

6/ Generated file : name used in the generated file. You won't need to modify this name. It is the one that will be present in your shortcut properties ssl=xxxx

Press Générer : both files (CSR and KEY) are created.

Send the .csr file to cat@improvize.eu (only that file). Keep the .key and place it in c:\LeSage12.

We will send you the .crt file and you will save it in c:\LeSage12.

Royalties - Applying contracts

Royalties

How to organize the database to payout

The idea is to explain in a contract how you want to pay out several works.

The first thing to think about is how to create the groups so you can correctly pay them out - to your fellow publisher clients - to your authors/composer - or to other third parties.

Creating groups using the copyright

The idea is to organise your database, separating your works, where you are original publisher, the copublished works, where you would have money for you and the copublisher, the administrated catalogues and the subpublished works.

List of actors

The menu list of actors show you all people present in copyright, in royalties, or any actor you would have acreated to explain links in contracts.

The idea is to look for the publishers, right click on them to create groups - them having specific roles or not.

The idea is to have a group where you are the original publisher : find yourself in List of groups - Right click - Create a group where Original Publisher :

On this group you will be able to apply a contract that splits out on the copyright to pay your A/C and keep a 100% when you only receive your share :

We have used a special actor that splits between all the A/C that we control in the copyright.

When using special actors, it is mandatory to indicate on which Copyright Rate of the works the split has to be done.

Once you have explained for each type of right how the money had to be split you can attached that contract to the group.

Open the dynamic group and add the contract :

Exceptions - very specific ways of paying out

The idea is to have clean groups, where you don't have to extract works of general catalogues just because the generic contract doesn't apply.

You will keep all the works in one dynamic group that represents your catalogue and you will have smaller group.s for dealing with different ways of paying out for that catalogue on certain works.

1/ If only one work works differently

If one work has to be delt with differently you can define a specific way of paying out in the royalties of the work.

The fact of writing the royalties in the work, will have for consequence that the contract linked to it - or the contract.s linked to it, won't be seen.

You can write royalties from scratch -1- or copy the generic contract and modify the lines according the specific way of paying out-2-.

Once you have defined specific royalties the "Warning" will disappear.

The work remains in the group where the contract applies.

2/ If several works work specifically

Isolate in as many groups you need the works that have to work differently to the generic contract.

Create "Payout" agreements that explain how to payout - you can duplicate the generic contract if you don't want to work from scratch :

Define the rules and most importantly put a higher floor to the specific contract so that the system knows he has to applys this one not looking at the one.s on the lower floor.

Apply your specific contract to your smaller group.

MusicMark

CWR for MusicMark

MusicMark is a collaboration between ASCAP, BMI and SOCAN. Through MusicMark, publishers can submit a single registration file to all three performing rights organizations (PROs) simultaneously, even if the work was co-written by members of different societies. Each PRO will then integrate the registration data into its respective repertory of works. MusicMark is currently available to publishers that register music through Common Works Registration or Electronic Batch Registration. 

The specificity of MusicMark :

Authors/Composers affiliated to ASCAP have to be registered to ASCAP and the ones linked to BMI to BMI. So if a work has authors/composers from both societies the work has to be partially registered to one and the other PRO.

Settings in Le Sage

1/ The affiliations

When importing catalogues or creating the works directly in the system you have to make sure you have the information if you want the system to understand how he is supposed to send out the CWR.

Each actor can be affiliated to one PROs for performing rights and one for mechanical rights

If you put NS for mechanical rights the system will automatically say that you collect the authors/composers shares.

2/ The agreements

The agreements explain wich publisher gives the right to collect to an other publisher on certain territories.

In the case of MusicMark you can have 3 different publishers to register to ASCAP/BMI/SOCAN.

Between ASCAP/ BMI and SOCAN there are no problem of territories, ASCAP/BMI taking care of US and SOCAN of Canada, but you will have to explainb what you want the system to do if you have a work with A/C or even publishers that you control and that have no affiliation to ASCAP nor BMI. Do you prefer registering the work to ASCAP or BMI?

In this example we choose to say that BMI is the principal PRO.

I am myself affiliated to all of these PROs I just have different IPIs and names to deal with registration.

Entering the agreements :

ASCAP agreement 

Inside this agreement we explain

• which publisher - actor - give the right to claim the collection shares for ASCAP.
• on what territory we ask ASCAP to collect the rights
• a number of Agreement if the society gives you one - it is a number given once the representation is registered.
• and what is important for MusicMark - as we are going to have two contracts that can apply for one same territory, is to explain that this co,tracts applies only if the creators in the copyrights are affiliated to ASCAP.

BMI agreement 

As BMI is our principal contract for US we have to add the choice of this contact in "Favorite for the USA". This contract will apply in case of both BMI or ASCAP should apply.

You have to specify that this contract doesn't apply to creators that are ASCAP.

SOCAN agreement

Same as the above, select the assignor and assignee, but this time for the territory Canada and ask for the collection shares of the mechanicals if you want to collect them to payout the A/C.

3/ The Third Party MusicMark

The Third party defines what copyright does the entity want to receive.

MusicMark needs to receive the copyright for the 3 PRO's : SOCAN, BMI & ASCAP and then spreads it to the three. The CWR file will detail the copyright for the three PRO's following the contracts entered. 

1/ Territory : MusicMark takes care of North America and further if you want one of the PRO's to collect for a vaster territory.

2/ You have to ask the system to View the subpublishers, so that the system adds the correct Subpublisher affiliated to the correct PRO depending on the territory/pro where the copyright has to be registered.

3/ If SOCAN collects the mechanical shares for the authors and composers you have to indicate it in the Third Party as well as in the contract. And in the ASACP and BMI contracts you will say you don't collect the mechanical shares as they don't take care of mechanical rights.

4/MusicMark wants a CWR format in 2.2 with her receiver code : 707.

5/You have to link the Third Party to the different PRO so that your PRO contracts apply : BMI ASCAP & SOCAN.

 

Conditions on rights - Specific deals to pay out royalties

Deals with your clients are not always simple to apply, certain works have very specific copyright, or can be shared by different clients making things complicated when you have to calculate statements.

To payout these specific terms the system has - Conditions on rights-.

You can create as many as you need and they can rely on any information that you receive in your statements.

Example : when you have a copublished work where you pay both clients, you will make a condition on the information of the account paid.

If the account paid concerns Clients A you will pay him taking your commission and if it's client B you will do the same. In case you don't have that information you will split in half and pay each of them as followed.

The conditions are called in the last column. The contract will follow the conditions, looking at the account paid, and if no information is given in the file, you have a fallback solution to split the money in half to pay both cients.

 

An other example can be taken on a specific deal with a third party that claims a share if the rights come from a concert in a certain country or from the broadcasting channel :

In this case you would always keep your own publisher's shares except if one of these conditions is true, in which case you would give out part of your share.

 

The Power of the catalog fixing workshop

You can import in Le Sage all catalogs you received from your clients, CMO's, distributors, etc. You won't always get the same amount of information, the same point of view in the copyright , the right information for you to be able to send out and register the songs.

Therefore you will have tools in the Catalog fixing workshop to help you clean the data and shape it to fit CWR requirements and the way you are supposed to see and send out the copyright.

The catalogue fixing workshop is a toolbox and can massively makes changes on the copyright of several songs at the same time. All the tools we have have been added after specific needs from our clients.

To illustrate the use of this toolbox we will take an example of catalog imported and show the modifications that have to be done on it to be able to send it out.

It is extremely important to analyse and understand what the copyright needs to be clean and ready for registration. The catalogue fiwing workshops gives you the keys to understand and modify the copyright according to you needs.

In this catalog the person has send the collection shares and not the owned shares, because the % are on the Subpublisher and not on the original publisher.

These works are also lacking of chain of rights, meaning that this catalogue isn't explaining which publisher represents which A/C/AR/AD.

In addition to what can be seen straight away we have a tool called "Check Before exorting" that looks at a series of mandatory requirements 

We will use the catalogue fixing workshop to give back the owned shares to the original publisher that is on the same chain than the subpublisher.

Catalogue fiwing workshop -> action on rates

There are remaining errors in the check before exporting menu

Eahc time you want to correct a problem you click on "List".

• -Writers/ composers without last/first name split

Select only the Authors/composers/arrangers/adaptators -> A

You can filter on only the one than havn't got their names split.

Then CTRL+A -> right click -> seperate first name/last name

• Invalid role
  

Go to the catalogue fixing workshop -> action on actors

All the invalid roles have question marks around them :

Replace the role with the adequate one.

• No writer/composer has perfomance shares

In this case the works have an actor names "Public Domain" with a role CA, that doesn't have any shares and arrangers.

This actor has to have the role "DP" so the system can add the Public Domain IPI when exporting the works and for the system to export this actor that has no %. to make a work with only arrangers with shares valid.

You have to then make sure that the system understands the copyright according to your agreements when you are sending it out to a third party.

If you send it to BMG this is how the system understands the work

If I send it to SAYCE the system show that this work isn't represented

If the work is supposed to be seen by SAYCE then the idea is to look into why the original publisher.s in the work is.are not linked to an agreement that includes the territory of the third party.

 

When the copyright is seen than you just have to export your group.

Type of Rights in Music Publishing

These are the four main royalties in music publishing:

1 - Performance Royalties

Performance rights refer to compositions (songs) being publicly performed ej : Live performances, airplay on radio or TV, and even streaming,...Performance royalties are managed by performance collection societies in each territory, also commonly referred to as Performing Rights Organisations (PROs). These organisations are government-mandated to manage the performance royalties within their borders, and reciprocal agreements between these PROs mean all catalogue is globally represented and royalties are collected and paid. PROs pay the publisher and the writers directly, essentially splitting the royalty due between these parties. The common split is 50/50, but some PROs have their own splits, which usually lean in favour of the writers. 

2 - Mechanical Royalties

Mechanical royalties are due whenever a song is reproduced, whether that's on a vinyl, CD or even in a stream. Each territory has mandated mechanical collection societies that collect mechanical royalties on their members’ behalf. As a publisher, you might receive your royalties from different parties: in some territories, labels pay these royalties directly to the publishers, but in others, the labels pay the royalties to the collection society, which then pays the publisher. Each territory can have its own calculation basis and rate for mechanical royalties. 

3 - Synch Royalties

Synch royalties are for the synchronisation of music and (moving) picture, such as film, TV shows, adverts and games. When music is used in any of these media, a synchronisation fee needs to be negotiated. These fees are decided between the producers of the images, often with the help of a music supervisor (internal or external) who will find the music, negotiate the fee, and the rightsholders. When music is used in a sync project, a deal will need to be made with both the master and publishing rights holders, and the resulting royalty is payable directly to them. Because these royalties are payable directly from the producers to the rightsholders, there often aren't any royalty files associated with the fee. 

4 - Print Music Royalties

Print music royalties encompass any ‘print’ form of music. This can include traditional scores as well as modern digital reproductions. If you ever sing along to songs using Spotify's lyrics feature, for example, that's technically a print reproduction! Less obvious examples of print royalties include merchandise with lyrics on them or the use of lyrics in a book. 

Closing : step by step