# Adding covers uploaded to youtube as a standalone recordings or singles

**URL:** https://community.metabrainz.org/t/adding-covers-uploaded-to-youtube-as-a-standalone-recordings-or-singles/544236
**Category:** Style
**Tags:** digital-media, video, youtube
**Created:** [July 30, 2021, 3:46am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/adding-covers-uploaded-to-youtube-as-a-standalone-recordings-or-singles/544236 "2021-07-30T03:46:45Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Showing post:** 27

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### Author: ![Cetacea](https://community.metabrainz.org/user_avatar/community.metabrainz.org/cetacea/32/34178_2.png) [@Cetacea](https://community.metabrainz.org/u/Cetacea)
#### Post date: [August 5, 2021, 7:24am UTC](https://community.metabrainz.org/t/adding-covers-uploaded-to-youtube-as-a-standalone-recordings-or-singles/544236/27 "2021-08-05T07:24:21Z")

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To provide what I believe to be a very clear example of how these are not releases contextually: the _music video_ for the song VIOLET by another member of hololive, [Ninomae Ina’nis](https://musicbrainz.org/artist/4ca9110a-8313-455f-9ddf-ee26d6db028a), was released several hours ago.

[![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/8ZdLXELdF9Q/maxresdefault.jpg "『VIOLET』 - Ninomae Ina'nis") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZdLXELdF9Q)

It is not available to stream, download, etc in any other capacity currently, but it is a recording of the song and was uploaded to YouTube. By all standards arguing for music videos as releases, this should be the first release of this song, and a single entry should be made for the artist. But by the standard of observing how this artist and those in her company operate and contextualizing this upload, we know that the song is getting an _actual release_ that is _not_ this _standalone recording_. hololive talents make releases of their songs in a certain, recognizable fashion. This pattern appears as though it will be followed for this release, as we can see with the provided [streamlink page](https://inanis.streamlink.to/VIOLET) from the video description for future streaming/downloading in _music contexts_.

This pattern is not followed by the music videos in question. There is clearly involvement at a production level from the same people who would be involved for an on-label release. There is a clear difference from the pattern of what is considered a release for these artists that implies there was a decision to not consider these uploads as releases by any previously set standard.

To address “release”-y-ness:

> [@bsammon](#):
>
> having a “release date” attribute (I don’t see the point in updating the schema/server to have release-date as an attribute type for recordings )

There not only would not be a point, but it would also end up holding redundant and possibly confusing information, since recordings can appear on multiple releases. But we can see that a standalone recording can hold all relationships these releases are being used for with the exception of mirroring the video thumbnail.  
[https://musicbrainz.org/recording/51834fdf-8cdd-41b5-953b-3e6f13188c6f](https://musicbrainz.org/recording/51834fdf-8cdd-41b5-953b-3e6f13188c6f)  
Here is a standalone music video recording for the YouTube upload linked above that I have created. Behold, as it has all information related, including the date it was made available on YouTube, despite using the recording entity. I don’t think there is an argument that the release entity should be used purely so the thumbnail can be saved to the Cover Art Archive, so if there is a continued push for using the release entity I would hope to hear a justification beyond having no place for information.

> [@bsammon](#):
>
> the song was only published on Youtube, and you want to answer the question “was this song ever released?” with “Yes, on youtube”.

The recording I created handles this. It is a music video that exists. It was uploaded and made available to YouTube starting on a certain date. It is attributed to this artist, and several others took part in it’s production. It is not excluded from the database because you cannot see it on the main page of the artist.

> [@Cetacea](#):
>
> As has been mentioned, we can probably all agree there needs to be a new adaptation for “video only”.

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