I have a few general questions for best practices on work relationships; how much guessing should we apply? I’ve noticed a handful of times when a release credits the band as “writing” a song, previous editors have gone in and credited the specific members at the time as all contributing (generally all performers go to composed, vocalists go to lyrics). For these, I have always tended towards just linking the band entity itself as a writing credit. An example: Dark Endless by Marduk. Most of the writing credits come from the sources linked which come from liner notes. A few of the songs were from previous demos which were more specific in writing credits (specifically the Fuck Me Jesus demo which credited Morgan Håkansson).
Should I make the logical leaps that I’ve seen or is that not considered good practice?
Should I meet halfway and credit all band members at the time with just writing roles?
What about when the release lists lyricists but then says music written by BAND NAME. Should I extrapolate that to all credited members under composed?
Thoughts?
The style guide was what I have been using so far but I lean more conservative in my edits. Just from reading the style guide, I would assume the answers would be no, maybe, maybe?
I would not make any logical leaps, personally. But often more precise credits can come from things like ISWCNet and similar performance rights sites, that theoretically indicate exactly who wrote the work and what their role was. The problem with those is that since those determine who gets paid, it’s not uncommon for bands to for example credit everyone even if that is not true for a specific song just so that everyone gets paid… but it’s certainly not wrong to use that data if it doesn’t conflict with the data on the release credits.
ISWCNet sounds interesting. In my linked example, if I search for the track The Sun Turns Black as Night (which is credited as just Marduk from the liner notes), I find this result:
That seems to suggest that again, Morgan Håkansson would be the person to credit rather than Marduk as a whole. Would that then go to both lyricist and composer or just writer? And what data from the ISWC page should be stored with the work? Are there userscripts to pull these ISWC IDs more easily?
IIRC “CA” means “composer, author” (author being lyricist) but double-check because I haven’t looked into it in a long time.
You can paste the ISWC on the work page - I know some people add all the agency codes too (as work attributes) and unless they are insane I expect they don’t do it by hand, but I do not know what userscript or tool they use.
And also, sometimes, official credits (printed in booklets) are using a pen name and some PRO (not all) will show the artist legal name (JASRAC shows both), instead.
We should keep credited pen name (only).
What about in cases where a pen name is used on one release but their real name is used on another both crediting the writing/lyrics of the same work but different recordings?
I use the first official booklet. However, I too have seen where a later release may show a different name, for the same writer, especially cover songs, etc. So, it definitely happens. Rights societies should only be used when releases don’t have this information (and some don’t) or they only use initials, to save space. But as pointed out, they are not authoritative. Even when a release says written by a band, we should say that instead of the individual members. I think though if definitive information comes out, i.e. a lawsuit - see “The Great Gig in the Sky” for example, then that should be added as well.
