The intended audience of this document is music partners who want to do either/both of the following:
- Create Art Tracks for YouTube Premium.
- Upload Music Videos to their channel(s).
- Manage rights to sound recordings and/or music videos through YouTube’s Content ID system.
YouTube supports Version 3.4 - 3.8 and 4.3 of the DDEX Electronic Release Notification (ERN) standard. This document describes specific requirements for the YouTube Music DDEX feed. For a general introduction to DDEX, see the Music Metadata Style Guide from the Music Business Association. For details about the DDEX ERN standard, see ddex.net. All feeds delivered to YouTube should follow either the Audio Album profile or the Single Resource Release profile, as published by DDEX.
ERN 3.x message structure
Every DDEX ERN 3.x message includes four top-level elements:
<MessageHeader>provides information about the message itself: a unique identification number, the sender and recipient, and a timestamp.<ResourceList>contains the details about the sound recordings and associated artwork.<ReleaseList>defines the releases that can be made from the resources in this message.<DealList>defines the key commercial information for each release, such as which territories the release can be made available in, usage rights, and start date for each release.
DDEX Art Track packages are processed in the order they are received, based on the timestamp of the BatchComplete file that completes the package.
ERN 4 message structure
Below you can find details on the ERN 4.3 NewReleaseMessage structure.
- MessageHeader: Contains information about the sender and recipient, including their unique DDEX Party IDs (DPIDs), and a timestamp indicating when the message was created.
- PartyList: This is a new composite in ERN 4 containing
<Party>composites, consolidating data for all parties in the message—such as artists, writers, and labels. - ResourceList: Lists all
<Resources>composites in a release, including sound recordings, videos, and images. Each resource is assigned a unique reference to enable association with a release. - ReleaseList: Lists all the
<Release>composites with metadata about different releases, such as single tracks, EP and albums. This section outlines the structure and content of each release, including resources and their sequence. - DealList: Lists all
<Deal>composites which specifies the commercial terms for each<Release>in<ReleaseList>, including territory specific usage rights, Content ID policies and related date and times. The deal list in ERN 4 includes the ReleaseVisibility composite to inform when metadata can be displayed before the product going live.
In accordance with the DDEX convention, the filename of the DDEX file needs to include the unique Release ID for the album. The Release ID is the UPC, EAN, or GRid provided by the <ReleaseId> element.