# About localized URL relationships **URL:** \ **Category:** MusicBrainz\ **Tags:** en, url-relationships, digital-media\ **Created:** [February 24, 2025, 7:10pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/about-localized-url-relationships/745731 "2025-02-24T19:10:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![XonE](https://community.metabrainz.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/x/439d5e/32.png) [@XonE](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/XonE)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2025, 11:47am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/about-localized-url-relationships/745731/21 "2025-04-28T11:47:49Z")
just here to question if the icelandic AppleMusic really is more relevant than the US website since only a small fraction of listeners use the Icelandic Apple Music service. Additionally, it is an US-American streaming service operated by US metadata, not an icelandic one. personally i am in favor of leaving all the relationships and _adding a drop down menu for Apple Music_ (little “+”) 😗 ---
**Author:** ![afrocat](https://community.metabrainz.org/user_avatar/community.metabrainz.org/afrocat/32/64972_2.png) [@afrocat](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/afrocat)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2025, 1:48pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/about-localized-url-relationships/745731/22 "2025-04-28T13:48:15Z")
Well, it’s more relevant to the artist’s page, since the artist is from Iceland. It’s part of why I started this thread in the first place - I (and some other editors) think it makes more sense to localize URLs to the artist’s area. The opposite logical extreme is to add all 167 variations of the same link, one per country available on apple music 😆 > [@XonE](#): > > personally i am in favor of leaving all the relationships and _adding a drop down menu for Apple Music_ This just seems unnecessary to me tbh, I’m sure there are hundreds of other tasks MB devs are focusing on instead of solving a problem that doesn’t really exist. The “issue” right now is that editors add any working URL to artist pages, more often than not, it’s whatever the editor themselves have available to them, so for example, a German editor may add a /de/ URL because that’s what the streaming service served them when they looked up the artist. It’s not necessarily wrong, but is it correct? So then it comes back to the question of, if it can be any link, why not use the one most relevant to the artist? ---
**Author:** ![XonE](https://community.metabrainz.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/x/439d5e/32.png) [@XonE](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/XonE)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2025, 2:28pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/about-localized-url-relationships/745731/23 "2025-04-28T14:28:56Z")
> [@afrocat](#): > > Well, it’s more relevant to the artist’s page, since the artist is from Iceland. > It’s part of why I started this thread in the first place - I (and some other editors) think it makes more sense to localize URLs to the artist’s area. i disagree. there are not many Apple users (in numbers) from iceland so it is not relevant for our purpose gathering metadata for the whole internet! i also think, that many of the country websites are hosted on us servers, so the country flag in the URL is only virtual. imo it should not be relevant where an artist resides or is from. it should be relevant, where you can find the most complete discographies! There is this one quote from idontknowwho about the most important film for the Netherlands and it is of course Gone With the Wind, as it is a cultural product that has been recieved by the most number of people 😉 > [@afrocat](#): > > I’m sure there are hundreds of other tasks MB devs are focusing on instead of solving a problem that doesn’t really exist. You cannot assume what the MB devs want to do next. But of course it might not seem necessary to keep all the URLs. > [@afrocat](#): > > So then it comes back to the question of, if it can be any link, why not use the one most relevant to the artist? For me it is an important question asking “What do you understand under relevance? Can you define your criteria?” I think relevance is not where someone comes from but the infrastructure they are involved. If you choose Iceland Apple Music over US Apple Music it seems to me absolute besides the point of commercial, cultural, consumism relevance but on the relevance of Identity. and personally i think we do not show understanding of the infrastructure of Apple Music if we relate to unvisited websites (which the icelandic AM-page for Sigur Ros is) ---
**Author:** ![reosarevok](https://community.metabrainz.org/user_avatar/community.metabrainz.org/reosarevok/32/69228_2.png) [@reosarevok](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/reosarevok)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2025, 3:21pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/about-localized-url-relationships/745731/24 "2025-04-28T15:21:36Z")
I think the point is probably that the local version for the artist is the most likely to be the most complete, since wherever else they release or do not release their music, they probably release it in their own locale. Not sure how important that is though. But in any case, even though the infra might be in the US, there are almost certainly some releases not available on US Apple Music that are available in some other countries. ---
**Author:** ![yindesu](https://community.metabrainz.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/y/b77776/32.png) [@yindesu](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/yindesu)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2025, 4:42pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/about-localized-url-relationships/745731/25 "2025-04-28T16:42:55Z")
Yes, there are Apple Music links that are not available in the US. You can find hundreds and thousands of examples in MusicBrainz. ---
**Author:** ![boysmithers](https://community.metabrainz.org/user_avatar/community.metabrainz.org/boysmithers/32/94769_2.png) [@boysmithers](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/boysmithers)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2025, 11:18am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/about-localized-url-relationships/745731/26 "2025-04-30T11:18:51Z")
Hmmmm, thanks for your reply, that is very confusing! I guess you can only get these links if you are not logged in to Qobuz… A bit of fiddling (and guessing) led to this link - does this work for you? I tried [https://www.qobuz.com/fi-en/album/sallinen-sinfonia-chorali-string-quartet-paavo-berglund/zd4kmpbj2n7ha](https://www.qobuz.com/fi-en/album/sallinen-sinfonia-chorali-string-quartet-paavo-berglund/zd4kmpbj2n7ha) Weird that it is “fi-en” ---
**Author:** ![tigerman325](https://community.metabrainz.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/b9bd4f/32.png) [@tigerman325](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/tigerman325)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2025, 4:10pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/about-localized-url-relationships/745731/27 "2025-04-30T16:10:43Z")
I can see it just fine. But then again, this particular release is also in US. But in general, yes, that what you’d add. ---
**Author:** ![boysmithers](https://community.metabrainz.org/user_avatar/community.metabrainz.org/boysmithers/32/94769_2.png) [@boysmithers](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/boysmithers)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2025, 4:24pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/about-localized-url-relationships/745731/28 "2025-04-30T16:24:22Z")
Nice, thanks. I’ve updated the Qobuz links I’ve added since getting Qobuz! ---
**Author:** ![afrocat](https://community.metabrainz.org/user_avatar/community.metabrainz.org/afrocat/32/64972_2.png) [@afrocat](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/afrocat)\ **Post date:** [July 24, 2026, 2:36pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/about-localized-url-relationships/745731/29 "2026-07-24T14:36:27Z")
A few days ago I published a userscript - [A new MusicBrainz user script was released - #239 by afrocat](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/a-new-musicbrainz-user-script-was-released/77897/239) It edits Apple artist links to match the artist’s area, so for example an artist from the US that has a link like `https://music.apple.com/gb/artist/...` will be edited to `https://music.apple.com/us/artist/...` I wanted to revive this thread to ask specifically about **iTunes links** Currently, the script edits artist’s iTunes links the exact same way it does Apple Music links, except in cases where the iTunes link has no localization, eg. `https://itunes.apple.com/artist/id...`, the script does nothing with these. What’s the community consensus about these links? by default, the MB interface shows them as “iTunes US”, see [MBS-10623](https://tickets.metabrainz.org/browse/MBS-10623) and [MBS-6314](https://tickets.metabrainz.org/browse/MBS-6314) I’ve seen different editors do different things with iTunes links, some people mark them as [ended](https://beta.musicbrainz.org/edit/107125340), I’ve seen people [remove the localization](https://beta.musicbrainz.org/edit/66712860) from the link, and also [add localization](https://beta.musicbrainz.org/edit/149831403) to it. I’ve also seen people [change them to Apple Music](https://beta.musicbrainz.org/edit/150022040) links. Of course some people try to [remove them](https://beta.musicbrainz.org/edit/120564770) as well, though this is likely the wrong thing to do. Is there a consensus about what to do with them? I could set up my script to do any of these things, or just leave them be I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![tigerman325](https://community.metabrainz.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/b9bd4f/32.png) [@tigerman325](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/tigerman325)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2026, 12:18am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/about-localized-url-relationships/745731/30 "2026-07-25T00:18:18Z")
I’ve always edited those to include the country code of the artist when I see them. But all iTunes links should also be marked ended now as well as they all now would forward to Apple Music. Then just add the current Apple Music for both streaming & purchasing if it’s not already done. ---
**Author:** ![friedelfreiraum](https://community.metabrainz.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/858c86/32.png) [@friedelfreiraum](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/friedelfreiraum)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2026, 10:24am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/about-localized-url-relationships/745731/31 "2026-09-06T10:24:48Z")
I’m wondering why MusicBrainz fixes `https://www.deezer.com/de/artist/1247` to `https://www.deezer.com/artist/1247` (which makes sense to me), while `https://music.apple.com/de/artist/20478838` does not redirect to `https://music.apple.com/artist/20478838`? In both cases, the URL redirects to my local URL. Has there ever been a case where there’s a different artist behind an Apple music ID depending on the country code? I wonder why in case of Apple it’s suggested to have the same ID for x countries while in case of Deezer, we’re fine with the number. ---
**Author:** ![tigerman325](https://community.metabrainz.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/t/b9bd4f/32.png) [@tigerman325](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/tigerman325)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2026, 4:50pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/about-localized-url-relationships/745731/32 "2026-09-06T16:50:45Z")
Do you live in the US? I ask because maybe it has changed under Apple Music, but when it was iTunes, at least for awhile, if there was no country code in the URL it always defaulted to the US. Update: Okay. I see you live in Germany. So, yes, they must have actually made it localized now. So, your question is a good one that I would agree with if the behavior is the same as Deezer’s. ---
**Author:** ![raelthelamb](https://community.metabrainz.org/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/r/7bcc69/32.png) [@raelthelamb](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/raelthelamb)\ **Post date:** [September 6, 2026, 5:55pm UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/about-localized-url-relationships/745731/33 "2026-09-06T17:55:16Z")
I remembered that behaviour too, so I tried one earlier – for me it still redirected to the US, even though I am not there. I think my actual location should have been visible to Apple, so it’s a bit odd. [Previous page](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/about-localized-url-relationships/745731.md?page=1)