Frequently asked questions

General Guidelines

• Repeated Submissions – Do not submit multiple copies of the same content and / or audio files, such as the same song with a slightly different title and / or artist, as these are likely to be removed by stores.
  Excessive Quantity – Content may be hidden by some stores if there are too many versions of a song that are available.
  Compilations – Compilations may be hidden by some stores if they contain tracks that duplicate tracks elsewhere in the store. Compilations may also be hidden if we or the stores realise that the tracks are not properly licensed or if the content has no editorial value.
  Cultural Sensitivities – Content must be legal and appropriate for the countries you own the licence to distribute your content to.
  Track Count Limit – Tracks on any album are not to exceed 99.
  Copyright DisclaimerIt’s important that you own the copyright for the music that you distribute through us. If you are looking to distribute a cover track, you will need to provide licences that allow permanent digital downloads and clearly show the original copyright holder’s approval. For more information on song licences and how to get one for your cover,
  If you attempt to distribute music that you do not legally own, your music will be taken down and you could face account suspension and legal action taken against you.
  If you have used “copyright free” samples, it is important that you have informed our distribution team to make sure your releases isn’t sent to Content ID and wrongly claiming videos. Failing to notify our distribution team could cause your release to be taken down from stores.

Titles

• Basic Formatting – Titles must be accurate and formatted correctly with ‘Title Casing’. More information on Title Casing can be found under the Title Casing Explained section of this guide.
  Multiple versions should be indicated in the ‘Mix/Version Description’ field (e.g. ‘Live at the SSE Arena’ or ‘Radio Edit’).
  Singles – Any release that contains 1 to 3 songs that are less than 10 minutes long each should be classified as a single. However, this should not be included in any way in the title – stores will include this automatically.
  One-Track Singles – One-track releases must have matching product and track titles, which includes any parentheses or brackets. All artist information for one-track singles must also be consistent throughout.
  EPs – Any release that contains four to six songs with a total running time of 30 minutes or less should be classified as an EP. A release is also an EP if it has one to three songs, but one song is at least 10 minutes long. Videos aren’t counted as songs.
  Generic Titles – Do not use generic titles such as Track 1, Track 2, or Instrumental, unless they are actual titles of the tracks.
  Multiple Albums and Tracks – If a track contains more than one song, in the ‘title’ field these names must be separated by a slash (/). Note that you must place a space before and after the slash.
  Silent, Hidden and Ghost Tracks – Silent, hidden and ghost tracks must be clearly labeled in the ‘Mix/Version Description’ field.
  Album Version Information – Differentiate multiple versions of an album using the ‘Version Description’ field to indicate how it differs from the original e.g. ‘25th Anniversary Edition’ or ‘Bonus Version’.
  Use of “Exclusive or “Limited Edition” – Titles must not contain terms like “Exclusive” or “Limited Edition”.
  Reference to Physical or Digital Content – Do not include references to the digital or physical format of the content. For example, titles must not contain: ‘E-Release’, ‘Digital Only’, ‘Digital Download’, ‘Digital Single’, ‘E-Album’, ‘2 CD Set’, ‘With Lyrics’ etc.
  Unnecessary Version Information – Additional information must not be included in the track title. For example, titles must not contain: ‘Album Version’, ‘Original Version’, ‘Previously Unreleased’, ‘Reissue’, ‘Original Mix’ etc.
  Also, do not submit any title version information which will already be applied by stores. This includes: Clean Version, Explicit Version, Mastered for iTunes etc.
  Live Content – If the audio is from a live recording, the title version must be indicated as “Live”.

Artist Names

• Basic Formatting – Full, standard artist name spellings must be used for all main performing artists. Ensure that the spelling is correct and consistent across all releases by the same artist.Artists’ names or those of performers should not contain any additional information such as role, date, instrument, band or former band, a translation etc.‘Various Artists’ should also not be abbreviated in any way.
  Various Artists – If there are 5 or more primary artists on the album, the main artist on the album should be written as ‘Various Artists’. ‘Various Artists’ should not be used for each song on the release, here you should list each of the performers on the song.
  Generic Artist Names – Generic artist names such as ‘Yoga’, ‘Workout’, ‘Meditation’, ‘Top Hits’, ‘Chorus’, ‘Orchestra’, ‘Singer’ etc. are not accepted for any genre. In the case of cast names, they must be specific to a given show or production.
  When you don’t have a specific artist name or are working with studio musicians, list the production house, label name, or studio as the artist name.

Title Casing Explained

Title casing is core to good metadata and keeps titles in the same format for all consumers across stores.

Title casing is a consistency that our store partners ask from us and should be followed if you would like to get your music on stores without any holdbacks.

There are a number of rules for title casing, but the main thing to remember is that capital letters are given to words we wouldn't usually capitalise.

It differs from how we usually write sentences (known as sentence case) by the words in the middle of the title that have capital letters.

This is an example of sentence case.

This Is an Example of Title Case.

The Rules

• The following should all be lower case, unless they are used at the beginning or end of a title:

  a, an, and, as, at, but, by, for, from, in, into, nor, of, off, on, onto, or, out, over, so, the, to, up, with and yet.

  The first letter of all other words should be capitalised. The first and last words of a title should always have capital letters at the start of the word. The first and last words of anything in brackets should also have a capital letter at the start of the word.

  
  Abbreviations

  The following words should be abbreviated, and must be in the format outlined below:

  Featuring = feat.

  E.g. Queen feat. David Bowie

  Number = No.

  E.g. Mambo No. 5

  Part = Pt.

  E.g. Read About It, Pt. 3

  Volume = Vol.
  E.g. BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge, Vol. 5

  Versus = vs.
  E.g. Avicii vs. Nicky Romero

  Other common abbreviations include: TV, DJ, a.k.a.

Soundtracks, Scores and Albums in a Series

Album Version Information - Soundtracks and scores must include version information in the album title written in parentheses, e.g. ‘(Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)’ or ‘(Original Score)’.

Composers - Scores for movies, TV, and musicals must list the composer on both the album and track levels. In the case of a soundtrack with more than one composer, the composers should be credited in the Composer and Artist fields.

Track Version Information - If the tracks are not from the same soundtrack, the track title must indicate this. To indicate the correct soundtrack, the track title must include ‘From “Soundtrack Name”’ in the version description.
On store this would be displayed as: Make ‘Em Laugh (From “Singin’ in the Rain”).

Soundtrack Genre - Use ‘Soundtrack’ as the primary genre.

Crediting Featuring Artists

• Featuring Roles - If you are performing with another artist, they should be listed individually under the artist section. The display artist field can be used to indicate how you would like this to appear on stores.

  Credit at Track Level - Featured artists must be listed on the tracks that they perform on.

  Use of “feat.” and “with” - The display artist field can be used to show how you would like the featured artist to be shown on stores.

  Do not use any other spelling (for example, “featuring,” “Featuring,” “Feat,” “w/,” and so on).
  
  Use of “vs.” or “Meets” - For artists using these titles, all artists involved must be listed on each track they perform on.

  On store this would be displayed as:
  Brute (Ferry Corsten vs. Armin van Buuren).

  Remixes - When these terms are used to describe an album that is a collection of songs remixed by a single DJ, the mixing DJ must be listed as an artist when entering this on our system.
  
  Artist Designation - When these terms are used to describe an album in which two artists perform separate songs, both artists must be listed individually on the release.

Genres

• Accuracy - Genres must not be misclassified. The first genre will be the primary genre and must be the best description of the content.

  The secondary genre provides an additional search term that may help consumers find the content.

  We ask for 2 genres to be chosen from a drop down menu, with the option for 2 more to be entered manually, these are sub-genres and although they are not compulsory they should be used when applicable to help with search terms.

  Genre Specificity - Use the most specific primary genre that applies to your music, and the most broad. More specific genres can be applied as the secondary genre.

Original Release Dates

• Accuracy - The original release date must be the date that the product was originally released, regardless of the record label or format type.

  This could be a date that has already passed or a date in the future if it is a brand new release.

  The original release date for additional versions must still be given the original release date for the album and original tracks.

Parental Advisory

• Explicit Content Flagging - If your release contains anything that could be considered explicit, this must be indicated on both the album and the track itself. This can be anything from swearing, violence, mentions of drug use or homophobic and racist language.

  We also reserve the right to refuse any content that we do not deem appropriate for distribution.

  Clean Version Flagging - Clean versions of audio content with an available explicit version must be marked as ‘Clean’ to prevent customers from accidentally purchasing the explicit version.

  Censoring Words - Artist names, track titles, and album titles must be submitted in the original form intended by the artist. Explicit words are automatically censored by stores.

Languages

• All languages that include the use of accents must be included where appropriate. All characters used in German orthography must also be used.

  Non-standard Capitalisation - Titles must not be in all capitals, all lower case, or random casing.

  English Title Casing - English titles must be in title case format. Words that are before and after a dash (-), slash (/), or colon (:) must be capitalised.

  Spanish and Portuguese Casing - For Spanish and Portuguese titles, the content provider can decide on either title or sentence casing, as long as the casing is consistent throughout at the release.

  Swedish, French and Italian Casing - Swedish, French and Italian titles must be formatted in sentence-case format.

• German Casing - German titles must use sentence case, and the first letter of every noun must be capitalised.

  Side-by Side Translations - Don’t use side by side translations in metadata, use one language in each entry.

Artwork Standards Explained

• Rules to Consider

  An eye catching, attractive piece of artwork to compliment your new music release can make all the difference when it comes to sales and making your release look as professional as possible. Before choosing your artwork it is important to consider a few things:

  Is the artwork representative of the music?

  First and foremost you don’t want to mislead your fans. Creating artwork that is a misrepresentation of your music is not only annoying for fans, it can also land you in hot water with other artists. Using brand names, celebrities or trademarked logos without permission is very bad practice and can lead to your release being removed from stores without notice.

  
  

  Does it include all the correct information?

  Stores insist that each release has artwork that (at bare minimum) has the release title and the artist name on it. It should not have store logos (E.g. Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Tidal… you get the idea), information about other releases or other text that could confuse fans.

  
  

  Does it warn sensitive listeners about explicit language?

  If your release contains adult themes or explicit language, this needs to be clear on your artwork. You can do this by adding a parental advisory logo in the right hand corner of your artwork with the following dimensions:

  
  

  Is your artwork the correct size?

  Digital stores require all album artwork sent to their stores to be a square .jpeg (or .jpg) at 3000 x 3000 pixels in dimension, a resolution of 300dpi and in RGB colour model.

  
  It is crucial that you abide by these specifications as failing to do so could hold up the distribution process.

  Problems frequently arise because the default resolution for many photo editing suites is 72 or 96dpi. Please ensure that these are changed to 300dpi before exporting the image - files under 300dpi will be rejected by our system.

  Does it look good?

  As mentioned above, it is important to make your artwork as eye catching and attractive as possible.

  In most cases it is important not to stretch or squash an image out of its natural proportions as this can lead to distorted and pixelated images that make your release look amateur. It is much better to crop an image than it is to transform (stretch/squash) an image.

  Remember, if your artwork is not up to scratch, we may have to reject it, which can delay the distribution process for your release.