Three months after the release, something is off
Your single is online and the first weeks go as expected. Then you notice it. On one service the track sits under your artist name, on another under a second profile with the same name and zero followers. The co-writer who delivered half the lyrics is not credited anywhere. And the payment that belongs to the use of the composition has not been paid out, because no registration of the work exists that the use can be linked to. The music is not the problem. The problem is a handful of fields that were filled in within ten minutes on the day of the upload.
Metadata is the layer that connects your music to the systems that count it, display it and settle payment for it. A recording, a composition and a release are three different things, and they are kept apart with three different identifiers. If you know that distinction and collect your credits during production instead of afterwards, you deliver a release that is correct. If you reconstruct it afterwards, you pay for that in time and sometimes in money.
What you will learn in this chapter
- You keep ISRC, ISWC and the product ID apart, and you know exactly which object each of the three identifies.
- You determine when something is a new recording and therefore needs its own code, and when an existing code simply carries over.
- You organize credits so that both the rights side and the display side are correct.
- You fill in titles, versions, artist names and product fields following a discipline that makes your release matchable.
- You collect metadata while the information is still fresh, instead of reconstructing it months later.
- You run a check round before uploading that catches the mistakes that are most expensive afterwards.
Who this chapter is for
For everyone who releases music or is about to, alone or with others, through a distributor or through a label. You do not need software for this: a text file is enough. The chapter on splits and credits is useful prior knowledge, but not required. Terms you are missing can be found in the free intro lessons of the earlier chapters.
The core idea in one paragraph
Each identifier points to exactly one kind of object, and no identifier says anything about ownership. The ISRC points to a specific recording, the ISWC to the musical work underneath it, and the product ID to the release you put on the market. Credits tell who did what and on which of those layers. If those layers stay separate in your administration, delivery is a matter of copying things over. If they get tangled, delivery becomes a reconstruction from memory.
One more thing up front: this chapter is educational and not legal advice. Copyright and collection systems differ per country, and for a specific contract you consult a specialist.