1 Introduction

This document defines standard messages by which companies operating in the digital music value chain can report apparent anomalies they have detected with regard to consumer engagements with digital music services. The Anomaly Reporting (AR) standard, including this Part 2, was developed by the member organisations of the Digital Data Exchange, LLC (DDEX). Any organisation wishing to implement this (or any other DDEX standard) is required to apply for an Implementation Licence. The terms of the licence and an application form can be found here and here.

This Part 2 of the AR standard enables communication by a company about apparent anomalies it has detected with regard to consumer engagements with a release, resource, work or artist. The standard also defines a message by which that business partner may respond. Consumer engagements include, but are not limited to, the number of play counts relating to a release on a service, additions to play lists and so on. Typically, such consumer engagement anomalies are reported either by a DSP to a rights holder or another DSP, or by a rights holder to a DSP.

The exchange of data can be used to enable the sender(s) and recipient(s) of such messages to work together to identify whether some or all of the reported anomaly/ies may be due to fraudulent activity and then take actions deemed by them to be appropriate. Whether such actions are taken and any actions themselves are out of scope of this standard, and solely subject to the terms of the bilateral agreement between the sender and the recipient of the message.