Hybrid carriers & Bundles | Recommendation - November 2006

In application of Article 7 of the BIEM Statutes, the Management Committee recommends to apply the following terms and conditions to hybrid carriers and bundles. The Management Committee is aware of the fact that some national agreements are already in place and, therefore, suggests that they be replaced, when possible, taking into account the present recommendation.

Hybrid Carriers
Hybrid Carriers are digital storage media that use more than one technology to encode data. Examples of hybrid carriers are the hybrid Super Audio CD (SACD) [1], the hybrid DVD-Audio, the Dual Disc (DD), and the DVD plus [2].

Aimed at providing much higher fidelity audio reproduction than the CD, hybrid carriers typically offer the musical content both in the traditional CD audio quality and in a variety of enhanced audio formats that are stored in the DVD layer/side of the carrier.

However, hybrid carriers can combine the audio-only musical content with audiovisual [3] musical content (mixed-content products) [4].

Bundles
Bundles designate packaged products that contain carriers in any number and combination of formats (regular audio CDs, SACD, DVD-Audio, Dual Disc, music video DVDs or any DVD with any kind of content) - see also the Recommendation - approved December 2007 re. Bundled music DVD.

Applicable terms and conditions
The applicable terms and conditions should be the same as those in use for the corresponding audio or audiovisual products when they are released on their own, taking into consideration the following:

  • no allowance shall be granted for TV advertised products (to support this position, a reference should be made to the decision of the German Schiedstelle, dated 6 November 2000);
  • pro rata temporis shall apply with respect only to the musical content and only for public domain and non member musical works;
  • over-licence based on the duration/tracks maxima provisions shall not apply when generated by the multiple reproduction of the identical musical works in different enhanced audio formats;
  • the audio-only and the audiovisual reproduction of the same work are different works/uses and shall therefore lead to an increased fee and to the application of combined minima;
  • In case of audio parts together with music video in limited numbers like CD-Enhanced, the conditions of CD-Enhanced apply.

Criteria for the splitting of PPD
The PPD shall be split according to the quantity of musical content reproduced on each layer/side of the hybrid carrier or on each carrier of the bundle.

The following two alternative solutions can be applied for the splitting of PPD:

  1. in proportion to the playing time of the music/number of musical works, or
  2. by using a matrix system of fixed ratios basing on the configuration of the carriers.


[1] Hybrid Super Audio CD (SACD) is a one-side/two-layer optical audio disc, based on DVD technology.
[2] Hybrid DVD-Audio, Dual Disc (DD) and DVD plus are two-side, reversible optical audio disc, based on double-sided DVD technology. Dual Disc and DVD plus replace one of the DVD sides with a CD.
[3] In this recommendation, “audiovisual” is meant to be music video and not e.g. film.
[4] Most hybrid carriers have also non-musical content, such as artist interviews, behind-the-scenes footage, documentary films, photo galleries, lyrics, and links to web sites.