VISUAL ARTS is the parent company of Key Sounds Label, it holds copyright and manufactures releases.
Key is a brand under the publisher Visual Arts (Wikipedia), in MusicBrainz, the brand name “Key” took in place of Key Sounds Label and disambiguated as collection of composers/arrangers from Key Sounds Label.
Other than that, “key” is an alias of Jun Maeda in KSLA-0015, but MusicBrainz database marked Key not “key (alias of Jun)” as the lyric writer of ひとひらの桜.
Edit #47720722 created a new artist VisualArt’s / Key Sounds Label, I think this is unnecessary and should be merged into Key. This is just a label name and I see no difference between this new artist and the old Key artist.
My suggestion:
- VISUAL ARTS should be used as release artist when only VISUAL ARTS (no Key Sounds Label occurrence) is the artist of the disc. e.g. TVアニメ「球詠」Original Soundtrack has “Music by VISUAL ARTS” on its front and no sign of Key Sounds Label appeared on the booklet, therefore VISUAL ARTS is the release artist. Other releases artist by VISUAL ARTS should be changed to Key.
- Change release artist to Key or “Key / other artist” on Various Artist releases but labelled by Key Sounds Label. (e.g. Release “Kanon ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK” by Various Artists - MusicBrainz )
- Releases by Key Sounds Label should not contain Visual Arts as well (e.g. Release “KeyCLASSIC” by VISUAL ARTS / Key - MusicBrainz Release “Kanon ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK” by VISUAL ARTS / Key - MusicBrainz ) this distinguish releases by KSL and other VISUAL ARTS productions.
- Merge VisualArt’s / Key Sounds Label into Key.
- Change release artist that use VISUAL ARTS / Key instead of Key.