The license might disappear/end over time. What then?
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I was discussing with one artist, who released on Bandcamp, and later started distributing to the streaming sites.
He has only released singles on Bandcamp as tracks. He said Bandcamp tracks cannot have UPCs.
His opinion is that they are same release and should be merged.
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Should artist intent actually matter here? Artist intent definitely matters in a lot of places, but how many artists think about two physical releases that are identical except for âdistributed by âŚâ text in small print as the same release? Iâm guessing a lot of artists would think of those as the same release too (if they thought of it at all), but that doesnât really matter.
To make a (probably bad) attempt at generalizing, maybe artist intent should only matter for creative decisions and artistic credit? E.g.:
- Track titles can involve creativity, so artist intent should matter.
- âAlice feat. Bobâ vs âAlice & Bobâ is about artistic credit, so artist intent should matter.
But:
- MBIDs are randomly generated (I think?) without any creativity, so whether something should have 1 MBID or 2 if all the creative parts are the same probably shouldnât consider artist intent.
- âdistributed byâ, âmanufactured byâ, etc. are non-artistic credits, so even if the artist thinks their release is manufactured by âSome Labelâ, we should still use âSome Label (Germany) GmbHâ instead if thatâs whatâs printed.
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My post was more on the technical limitations of the different services, and that there is a forced constraints on the services. The current database scheme and way of tracking all the data is not suited to all of this.
- Nowadays you need to have a distributor for Spotify and will get a GTIN always.
- Bandcamp does not support UPC for tracks/singles, so you cannot have that (unless using the info/description free text, that the other sites are missing).
I even gave an example of a physical release with multiple barcodes, labels and 20 distributors mentioned on the cover.
In my opinion the discussion should end up in a schema change, as all of this nitpicking on some barcode is not fruitful.
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Last time I checked you can choose whether to create a âtrackâ release or 1-track âalbumâ release in Bandcamp.
I also often notice that waterfall releases are uploaded as âtrackâ releases on Bandcamp instead of using the same strategy.
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Tangentially related, but you guys consider this situation as normal? This is nothing but spam, and user repellent.
Yes, absolutely normal, and very relevant for collectors. Well, normal in the sense that they should be documented because they exist - my opinion on the capitalist too-muchness of it is different, but thatâs irrelevant to us documenting it 
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What are we exactly documenting here, especially as many releases look 100% identical. Different stores that sell a product?
EDIT: OK, disamb. + barcode is probably unique but still, this kind of thing looks more like release attribute than separate release. If I have seen this kind of thing initially, I would close the site and never come back.
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in that case, donât visit Discogs (or do, Iâm not your dad)
but yeah, that is fairly standard for K-pop releases, since many groups have several special editions, editions with each of the members on the cover, likely store exclusives, and at least one digital release, almost all of which have unique cover art (either front cover or sometimes exclusive collectable cards or whatnot)
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Hm⌠ok, I see. And I thought I am a hoarderâŚ
This is obviously bad where all releases share the same release info associations as they then need to be copied all the time. Imagine in above case I want to add master relationship, that would require some skills even with userscript.
Thanks for the explanation.
Appears on a Releaseâ Edit Relationships page. The script lets you clone Recording relationships to Recording relationships , and Release relationships to Release relationships.
Needs to be doubled checked as will always copy everything \ too much. But quicker to delete what you donât want than add it all each time.
I know, I use it. However, this specific case would require 60+ times to use that script after manually adding mbids 1 by 1 which is not something anybody will do.
For sure that script needs some love, but if spam is de-facto way to do those things perhaps MB should have some features to help with propagation of certain editsâŚ
Some of us do add extra data. Does not mean everyone needs to. Just add it to the releases you are interested in. I kinda agree with the dislike of having to add a release per shop⌠but some people like to document shops. Personally I like CDs.
Just looked at that release. Laughed. Yeah, thatâs a mess. What is funnier is this is multiple CDs. Capitalism is the mess here - not MB. The labels expecting âfansâ to go any buy all those different versions is awful.
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Be that as it is, I still think there are solutions to this that do not require spam. For example, introducing âvariationâ section on the release that would require one to enter just different fields from the main release. User could then specify variant it has or simply ignore it, and editors will just input different data. Changes to the release would naturally be visible in all variations since that does not affect them.
Yeah, one can dreamâŚ
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just calling something you donât need âspamâ doesnât seem very helpful to me.
i also think you might be using the phenomenon wrongly here Spamming - Wikipedia
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i donât see how this would be meaningfully different from what we already do (release groups) in terms of âspamâ and user effort
@XonE, I use broader term. Spam is set of messages that hijack expected message flow. Its not related to how useful set is to consumer. It may be usable but it is still a spam. For example, imagine OS notifying you every 10s that you have low memory, that is spam in most contexts yet info is valuable.
@teethfairy, it differs as it allows way less repetition during management of common attributes (most of them are common).
But I dont want to continue this discussion as probability of it getting attention it deserves is 0.
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Am I doing this right? Had to add 4 releases for this single because all differ in some way:
1Ă Soundcloud
1Ă Beatport
1Ă Bandcamp
1Ă for other services
Actually I think another is necessary for Spotify since it has a background video.
I canât accept that such minor differences are cause for different release and I personally wonât do it. I would and will put stuff like that as single release.
Background video as a cause of differentiation is just nuts - whats next, color of the page ?
We are conflating here different release and the fact that not all platforms require the same data as mandatory. Even minor differences like few days or months up/down in dates are not legit reason to me (as in the case of bandcamp here).
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I forgot to mention the recordings differ too. So maybe also different release groups?