#1 in Contract Rights Management


www.jaguartc.com - Pasadena, California - Lincoln Center, New York - London, UK

Contract Accounting Software for Intellectual Property Management
Publishing - Entertainment - Consumer Products - Patents

Executive Web Queries
Rights Inheritance
Participation Statements
Previous Editions
About Jaguar News
 

Executive Web Queries

Source invoice, payment and revenue recognition transactions are permanently available for detailed inspection. Desktop monitoring tools (My Jaguar) ensure that nothing goes unnoticed on a moment by moment basis within System 7’s ongoing operation. New invoices, new cash receipts, new events, new contracts, new customers, new relationships all surface instantly, as appropriate to each user’s unique areas of interest.

Continuous Desktop Monitoring

My Calendar
My Contracts
My People
My Royalties
My Assets
My Finance

Linked Web Queries (by category)

Contract Rights Management
Acquisition/Development Contracts
Sales Contracts
Contract Terms
Contract Type/Function

Asset Rights Management
Assets

Participations Payable
Participations Performance

Royalty Receivables
Royalty Performance

Receivables
Receivables Aging
Cash Flow Projection
Invoice History
Payment History

General Ledger
G/L Account Activity

Sales Support
People/Entities
Territories
Distribution Channels
Languages
Rights
Customer Orders

Calendar
Actions

Rights Inheritance

In order to accomplish this, System 7 asks two questions during Asset Parent/Child linking
Parent Linking - Underlying Rights Inheritance? (Y/N)
Child Linking - Ignore in Collisions? (Y/N)

Setting URI to "Yes" instructs System 7 to seek rights ownership information for each linked parent for that asset. Multiple parents may impact a single asset in situations where rights have been acquired in multiple agreements, perhaps over overlapping time frames with differing exclusivities. Actual rights ownership is defined in acquisition agreements by asset, territory, right, distribution channel, language, exclusivity and date window (fixed or contingent). Participant Restrictions Inheritance (cannot do this) are not prevented by a "No" URI answer in order to assure that rights management convenience does not expose licensees to breach of contract.

Setting "Ignore in Collisions" to "Yes" instructs System 7 to treat the child asset as irrelevant to collisions involving each linked child for that asset. An article could then be reused in multiple publications without causing the licensing of two of those publications for the same purpose to cause rights collisions. A film clip could inherit the rights ownership of its parent but then leave that parent unaffected in collision testing. A song version could establish its own unique rights through a specific acquisition agreement but then cause collisions when its parent lyrics were licensed for a second exclusive use in a feature film soundtrack.

For Territories, Rights and Distribution Channels, roll up/roll down analysis is always active. Zimbabwe will always impact Southern Africa, Free Satellite will always impact Free Television, Wal Mart will always impact Discount Retail. For languages, French will always override All Languages. Unique situations are recorded in the form of exceptions within master agreements or as separate agreements relating to a specific asset/territory/right/channel (and possibly language) combination. An unlimited number of agreements are considered in the production of each Availability Report or Collision Test.

Asset Groups are commonly assembled from a diverse set of assets, tied together by producer, content theme or by marketing concept. Their constituents may be anywhere from several, to dozens, to hundreds of unique assets, each with their own rights ownership profile. One goal of each Availability Report and Collision Test is to provide notification that insufficient rights ownership of a child asset is inhibiting options for the parent or group in question. This becomes particularly critical when a marketable asset such as a book or television documentary is assembled from a number of licensed materials, each with a distinct rights profile. Each of these pieces must be granted sufficient rights to allow profitable exploitation of the collection, otherwise, particularly in second cycle licensing sales, specific articles or film clips might be excluded to avoid violating licensing agreements to the detriment of the whole.

Participation Statements

Transactional accounting at the contract level, long before Accounts Payable cuts a check, is essential to justifying large monetary flows in both public and tax accounting. These transactions are recorded in multiple dimensions, each tied to a specific asset, potentially modified by the distribution channels, exploitation methods and geographic territories being referenced in a particular licensing contract or business activity.

Licensing Revenue Analysis
Fee Revenue
Guarantee Revenue
Royalty Income

Internal Exploitation Import
Wholesale Distribution
Self-Manufacturing
Promotional Marketing

Authorized Deductions Import
Distribution Costs
Manufacturing Recoupment
Advertising Costs

The above transactions justify calculations later produced during the participation statement generation process. They have no direct relationship with the payments themselves. However, they do allow auditors to trace back key calculation components to source documentation from internal divisions or external business partners, in addition to core sales contract collections data (fees, guarantees). All of these transactions are controlled by governing agreements, either external sales contracts or internal usage definitions.

Participation Report Transactions are generated from sophisticated calculations that integrate revenue performance, contractual terms and prior payment history into an incremental increase, decrease or zero effect change in monies owed. These Participation Report transactions are calculated and posted according to internal company accounting cycles without specific regard to contractually agreed upon Participation Statement reporting timetables. This transactionalization of participations payable enables interim reporting of known and contingent liabilities and expenses whenever desired. Traditional non-transactional approaches require time consuming ad hoc estimating, or worse, waiting for historical payment activity, to generate key management reports.

Previous Editions

About Jaguar News