1 Introduction

This document defines the communication protocol for the Entity Cluster Message Suite (ECM) standard and was developed by member organisations of the Digital Data Exchange, LLC (DDEX). Any organisation wishing to implement a DDEX standard is required to apply for an Implementation Licence. The terms of the Implementation Licence are available here and an application form can be found here.

The ECM standard is composed of multiple parts, with ECM-C being Part 1 of the Entity Cluster Message Suite (ECM) standard. This part of the ECM standard, together with all other Parts of the ECM standard, at time of writing: Musical Work Clusters (Part 2) and the Duplicate ISRC Clusters (Part 3), defines the underlying transport, network, or messaging technology used to convey the messages in Part 2 and Part 3 of the ECM standard.

This part of the ECM standard defines an automated message exchange protocol that enables the reliable communication of DDEX messages, using cloud-based storage (such as SFTP). It enables the secure transmission of data and caters for non-repudiation requirements to be met and, while the location and owner of the cloud-based storage server is not defined herein (this is left to be in accordance with the bilateral agreement between the sender and the recipient of the messages), the organisation of the servers and names for files are defined by this standard.