A multi‐source seeder for digital releases

Something I’ve noticed: If a release is only available for streaming on Apple Music (as opposed to purchase in the iTunes Store), querying it via the seeder (via the iTunes API) will return a release with no tracklist. @marlonob, are there any plans to add Apple Music support in the future?

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The logo doesn’t work in Safari 13.1, I get this error:

This page contains the following errors:

error on line 5 at column 67: xmlns:ns: '&ns_sfw;' is not a valid URI

I get the same error for the favicon as well:

This page contains the following errors:

error on line 5 at column 59: xmlns:ns: '&ns_sfw;' is not a valid URI

Also, as other people have mentioned, the image in the upper left corner of the page doesn’t load.

So, thinking about #2 above, clearing the fields automatically may not actually be a good idea after all, because on quite a few occasions I’ve needed to re-run the exact same query as before… but several minutes later after I’ve added a release on MusicBrainz to get the new MB release to show up on the page… because…

  1. The page of “Complementary links”, doesn’t have a link appear unless there is already a release in MusicBrainz with the same UPC/EAN.

So, most of the time, there’s already a release in MB, but without a UPC… so I look it up manually on MB, and then I use A-Tisket to lookup the Spotify/Deezer/etc. links and UPC… and then I cut and paste those into the existing digital release. (Usually it’s from Bandcamp)

But the link to the page of “Complementary links” doesn’t appear until after there’s something in MB already with a matching UPC, so I need to “Search again” for the exact same thing, again. And then I can get to that page…

  1. On the complementary links page, If the release album artist is “Various Artists” the edit icon goes to the edit page for that special artist… which most editors can’t edit.

As a general UI workflow note, with Chrome on OSX, if I have A-Tasket’s Complementary links page open in one window, and the MB Artist edit form open in another window. I can drag and drop the links from the tiny icons on one window, into the URL fields of the other window. It requires much less dexterity than right-clicking on everything and selecting things while trying not to click them, etc. etc.

Is the code available via Git yet? I’d love to take a look and help out, maybe host another version if your Spotify API key is getting too much use. I’d love to contribute to this project as well. Thanks

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Unfortunately the detection of missing artist relationships on the complementary links page has stopped working correctly. It has started to suggest links for all(?) involved artists, regardless whether they are already linked on MB or not.
Can you please fix this @marlonob? An alternative would be to provide the current version of your source code (ideally via Git), because I guess there are a lot of people who love your tool and would like to help improving it. Thank you.

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Maybe a bug in relation with recent change made by Apple (iTunes change alert).

No results could be retrieved for this 3 iTunes id:



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I think that bug may have something to do with the release being an Apple Digital Master. I tried looking up this ID via the seeder, but it didn’t work:


The link, if you open it, shows a release, and the “Also available in the iTunes Store” link works, but running it through the seeder doesn’t.
Fortunately I had already imported a UPC for that release, and I was able to get results by feeding that into the seeder. So if you run into this issue again, you could try searching using the UPC, if you or someone else has already managed to extract it.

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Anyone have the code that was posted? It seems this link is broken. I’m interested in hosting it on github.

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I found a couple of streaming services we could potentially add support for:
http://music.migu.cn/
https://y.qq.com/

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Spotify has updated their country list again.

If editors have noticed the past couple of days of a blank country being added by the seeder, that is Kosovo. Which isn’t on the country availability pull down list on MB. That needs to be added. I reopened (https://tickets.metabrainz.org/browse/AREQ-269), but I’m not sure if area request is where this change comes from as that is typically just places for relationships.

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A second ticket is needed to add release countries. I made one for this case:

@marlonob will have to update the “countries where available/excluded” automated message to include Kosovo and any other newly-supported territories.

It already shows up on a-taskit for Spotify. I guess because it’s straight from the API. Though I don’t think it does for iTunes which he probably needs to add to his query.

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When a search with an iTunes album ID reveals a release date that differs from the date (year) on the album page, can I conclude that a-tisket’s data sources are outdated?

Invisible Girl: 2000-02-10 is not on the album page.

This Is Me…Then: 2002-11-26 is not on the album page nor on the MB release with that UPC.

The Look of Love: 2011-01-01 is not on the album page.

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I’d say it’s incomplete rather than outdated.
a-tisket gets its data straight from the iTunes API, so it only shows whatever dates iTunes has. Often times when submitting an album to iTunes, labels will include an album’s original release date (or what they think is the original release date, depending on the age of the album) rather than the date the album was made available through iTunes, which is what we prefer here at MB. iTunes didn’t launch until April 2003, so a release date of November 2002 would not be appropriate for a release imported from iTunes.
For cases like these, I would either check a different source for a more plausible date (e.g. Deezer or Amazon) or just leave the date field blank. (You can do this by typing “0” in the “change date” box.)

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What exactly is the purpose of the date box? (I am hesitant to try without knowing. How does setting a different date affect anything - which data source gets changed and is this a temporary change or a permanent one?)

iTunes doesn’t always have the correct date. Since atisket is showing a different date for iTunes than it is for Spotify/Deezer, I’d investigate.
https://isrcsearch.ifpi.org/#!/search?upcCode=696998623125&tab=lookup&showReleases&start=0&number=10 shows a date of 2002-11-19 as does both Spotify & Deezer. That’s the date I’d go with. That also matches the date of the CD release, so it’s more likely that date.

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The purpose is to override the date give. Many times digital releases may actually have a date newer than shown because they sometimes use the original release date instead of the actual release date. If uncertain, check ISRC.net.

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Thanks for the isrcsearch link as another way to validate.

I don’t favor this conclusion. The iTunes guidelines ask for the original release date.

In the case of This is Me…Then which we looked at here, there is different information out there:

Wikipedia: November 26, 2002 (United States)
Discogs: November 26, 2002 (United States)
fnd.io: November 26, 2002

iTunes: November 19, 2002
Fandom: November 19, 2002
ISRC Search: November 19, 2002

a-tisket shows 2002-11-26 instead of 2002-11-19, which brings me back to the question. If a-tisket gets its data straight from the iTunes API, as @HibiscusKazeneko said, then why is the date different?

The current iTunes album ID for the album “No More Drama (Version 1)” is 1440817211. a-tisket returns UPC 602547111470 for it. This UPC does not correspond with the UPC of the release in MB, which otherwise represents this digital release exactly (with occasional 1-second track duration differences though).

Btw, Apple has been changing the album ID numbers over time, and as you can check, the old iTunes Store link on the MB release page will be redirected to the current album ID.

So, I am thinking I should edit the release and update the UPC and update the iTunes Store link. But first, I would like to know from you @marlonob please:

Why do you think the barcode might be different? This album has been available from iTunes at least since 2007. Why would they change the barcode?

I am asking because I would like to have some reassurance that a-tisket uses up-to-date data sources and the correct data source. Reading iTunes UPC Database, I got the impression that it might depend on the copy of a database. How sure are you that the UPC is correct?

I can see in the editing history, that the release was added by @a23bed 2 years ago with a script. That too might be a source of error, and there is no information how this script obtains the UPC…

I think that is a potential problem with this (currently) closed-source script. I can guarantee that nobody using this is actually verifying every detail it adds, and nobody can see the actual code to make sure it’s doing the right thing.