The country must be the label country when there no evidence the issue was for other country.
Some voters think because an issue was for sale on a distributor site, we must add the country of the distributor.
But the distributor don’t sell exclusively to one specific country; and there are not always the mention on the record / sleeve. It means we cannot be sure if the distributor sell the issue since the release date or started to sell later.
Logically we add a different country than the label when at least there are the distribution logo or code printed. Perhaps the barcode gives us info and rights society.
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I believe this question continue the topic started here, linking for a completeness.
I tend to disagree. In my opinion the “release country / region” refers to the country/region in which the release was distributed by the original publisher / label (that is, the primary market). If a publisher located in France distributed release only in France, the release country is France. If a publisher located in France distributed release all over the Europe, the release country / region is Europe.
A huge hint on the intended distribution country / region are languages on the cover. If the CD cover is printed only in French, it is intended primarily for distribution in France. On the other hand, if the CD cover is printed, for example, simultaneously in French, English and German, it is intended not solely for the French market, but for other countries as well, hence “Europe” as the release country is more appropriate.
And a final criteria: if a MusicBrainz user bought the release on the primary market (that is, not a second-hand resell) in country ABC, than the release event was also in the country ABC.
The question is when there are no distribution indicated on the issue.
Musikproduktion Dabringhaus und Grimm : Germany. Barcodes starts with 4, pressing plant is in Germany and rights society is GEMA. All indicates Made in Germany.
I’m not sure what side to take with this with regards to external distributors in other countries having deals with record companies. An example of this is Only Blues Music who distribute European releases from Provogue Records and Ruf for sale in Australia, with no distributor label on the covers.
I would still distinguish on a case-by-case base.
Sämtliche Orgelwerke: CD cover in German, no indications that they distributed this release outside of Germany, hence release country is Germany.
Virtuoso Music for Clarinet and Guitar: CD cover in English, looks like they intended to distribute this release either all over the Europe, or at least to to English-speaking countries. I would set the release country to Europe. If they aimed just for Germany, the release title would be something like “Virtuosenmusik für Klarinette und Gitarre”.
The thing is very clear: often the records are distributed in many countries by differents distributors. And a distributor site is not a reference for the release-country. The reference must be the record!
https://musicbrainz.org/edit/6924877 > should not be accepted
Voix d’Afrique is from Cologne. All records indicated Made in W. Germany GEMA and german pressing plant. There are no mention printed Nocturne or code NT as the site indicates. Nothing is in French and more it was distributed by Stern’s also and others distributors.
The label name being in French is because it’s African musicians from French speaking regions.
The title on cover can be in any languages, when it’s the artist work.
When you changes or add the country, it’s preferable to have the record or to know the label releases.
For a country like NZ this doesn’t work - a record shop will get in music from all over as standard. Adding ‘NZ’ as a release country for all popular releases that didn’t get their own NZ distribution deal (e.g. most of them) is just muddying the data imo.
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https://musicbrainz.org/edit/75621737 https://musicbrainz.org/edit/6924893
Nobody want to stop it? They don’t have the issues or know about this label. The distributor site is not a prove it’s affilated to this label. Probably Voix d’Afrique was founded before Nocturne. I have some records distributed by Nocturne and there are always the logo Nocturne and the NT code.
The reality seems be Nocturne distributed the record later the realease date; but not exclusively by Nocturne.
Date on Stern’s site is not the release date (first release was about 1989) but the date sold by the distributor. As you can to see the same date for this label : http://www.sternsmusic.com/search_results.php?search=Label&prmm=voix+d’afrique&dvd=on&cd=on&vinyl=on&video=on&book=on&SUBMIT.x=0&SUBMIT.y=0 and this link don’t mention the barcode.
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https://musicbrainz.org/edit/75620957 > What means these IDs?
The tracks are taken from the album “Le Serpent”. And the track on compilations need to be fusion with the album track.
Yes but how to define the original? In the case Voix d’Afrique, distributors are not selling the originals. And when you have the issue, you see it’s very clearily Germany.
Your topic for L’Oiseau Lyre was very different; and yes could be UK & Europe. Because it was planned for Europe market when the record was manufactured.
OK, fair enough, this is a good argument indeed.
How would you define a “release country” in such way that the definition still supports not only countries, but regions (like “Europe”) or worldwide releases? That is the drive behind my original disagreement with @Nicolas_ANCEAU: I feel that his proposal to use the label country is too narrow. A UK-based label still may have an Europe-wide release, a Japan-based label still may have a worldwide release. How may we define the “release country” to account for this? How could we make the definition practical, that is give a rule to MusicBrainz editors how to set a release country?
Currently there is no clear guideline, so each editor decides for himself, leading to inconsistent decisions. Compare Vivaldi’s “The Masterworks” with Correli’s “Complete Edition”. Label is the same, “Brilliant Classics” located in Netherlands. Currently on MusicBrainz the release country of the first one is set to “Europe”, on the second one to “Netherlands”. I do not see any special indication on release boxes to justify this difference. I suppose both of them were actually released for Europe, if not world-wide; I myself bought both in a large German music shop.
The Europe release event is not really important, but still useful as a fallback. No need to remove it.
It’s the vague release event.
If you got something from Germany, with same package, CD matrix, etc., you should add it to the list of confirmed countries, without removing other confirmed countries.
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Brilliant Classics releases are not always very clearily defined country on the issue.
Voix d’Afrique releases have always the mention address in Cologne and Germany or West Germany and the rights society GEMA indicates Germany.
It depends labels and more it’s a major and less it’s easy to define country.
I just set it based on label location, regardless of what shops stock it where. The exception would be if a label clearly is manufacturing for a bigger area - a budget re-issue label may well be manufacturing for all of Europe. In fact that seems likely.
But as a general rule I find it useful to keep the definition narrow, as I think it’s really used to differentiate releases. If a German label reissues a French label release, and both made it across borders, it’s not useful to me to have ‘Europe’ set for both of them.
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That’s also what I usually do, because I haven’t found a good way to figure out where the music is meant to be released - nowadays all stores sell everything everywhere anyway. Otherwise release country is pretty much useless for modern releases (which, honestly, might be just the truth of the matter).
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I was just reminded that for European releases with an EAN code, the first three digits are a GS1 country code identifying the “country of registration”. This could be another useful data point for releases that don’t list a physical address.
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