Digital releases: Merging? / Long country list? / Just [Worldwide]?

Missing territory information. Normally that means it has been taken down. But not that one, I can stream it just fine.

BTW, distributor is Ditto. They distribute globally by default.

@chaban so that means what in regard to the data is it worth keeping or not even im getting confused now lol

I don’t think that word means what you think it means.

I’m tired of getting over the same argument again and again. You guys are splitting hairs over the imperfection of a method of entering data (using the official Spotify and iTunes API) as if this were introducing inaccuracies otherwise not present in the DB.

Any digital release have a problem with dates; the bast majority of them lists only the first release date (not the digital one), even claiming sometimes that it was released in the 60s, 70s, now, those are easy to spot as they’re impossible, but many albums released, say, in the first half of the 2000s were not released digitally then, but now they are, and the date they use is the date of the CD release. Are we going to ban all such entries because we don’t have any evidence of the album being available digitally in that date, but only proof that it is available now?

If someone have evidence of a case where the Spotify or iTunes API is inaccurate, they can explain their reasoning and change the data: that’s how a collaborative database works. I think the policy for entries in the DB is that an official source is to be believed until proven otherwise. It is simply absurd to pretend discrediting a whole source of data just because there’s a risk of inaccuracies.

Mention any way of entering a release and I will have a list of problematic issues with it, just as long as you have with this.

Now, if you allow me, I will voice my personal opinion:


You (a general you) are searching for any and all flaws in this method, and then treating them as absolutely unacceptable, to justify that the reality is that you think is ugly and unnecessary.

Furthermore, you may think, “Andorra?, Liechtenstein? Why is this editor throwing this unheard-of countries at my face? What’s wrong with my normal, North-American, Europeans and other selected countries that dominate the internet? Or, if you wanna be super multi-cultural, why not just say worldwide and be done with it; just as any music exotic enough is ‘world music’, period?”.

You are projecting a cultural upset as a concern-for-the-integrity-of-the-data.

So, suppose an Andorran is the first to enter an album by a British band, and they use an importer for the iTunes Andorra store, so Andorra is the only country listed: Are you going to remove that country and replace it with the UK. Are you going to school him for not doing “enough research” and add the UK themselves (a thing that has happened to me in the case of Mexico)? Probably you are just going to add UK and move on, right? Suppose now that a Liechtensteinian add their country with their local iTunes store as reference; and then a Paraguayan, and then a Malaysian, and so on until the release looks exactly as it does using the APIs. At which point are you going to override those entries and just use worldwide or any other label that isn’t as confusing to you?

This posture has no solid stand.


If someone wants to really discuss this seriously (i.e., defining basic concepts, breaking the issue in its main points, keep focused in the topic and not tip-toeing towards the detail that are more favorable to them, etc.) I’m open to it. Otherwise, life is too short.

I’m just gonna keep using official sources to add entries to the DB, if someone have evidence of some of it being erroneous, I would gladly change it or vote for their edit.

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@marlonob: Discussion about Release countries is one thing; but your adding every existing iTunes store Edit #63621568 on this release https://musicbrainz.org/release/128fea20-85f5-4604-9c07-6792bf5a369f (and maybe more) is absurd and clearly against our guidelines: https://musicbrainz.org/doc/Style/Relationships/URLs (see multiple relationships).

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I think we need to assume that world just means as many counties as humanly possible without overpopulating the list at this point and i dont think dates should accompany digital releases

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Typically albums in Australia are released on a Friday.
I believe in the UK and USA albums are typically released on the Sunday.
So what date would you record?

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There is also the global release day:

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This is a really bad idea, there are plenty of digital releases with perfectly valid and concrete release dates. For instance Bandcamp or self hosted releases.

Do you use digital releases at all? Do you add them or tag with them?

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Thanks. I will not do that anymore.

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@ aerozol
also a good point but im at a loss then for how to handle digital because to me a release date is not the same thing as a license date which is always in flux depending on content

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Use better sources. Amazon Digital Music, for example, has two dates on digital releases, only one of which is supposed to be the release date of the digital release. Or, sometimes, the label runs social media accounts where they announce availability.
There’s no reason to blank out release dates that are reliably sourced.

If you only use iTunes and Spotify, you don’t have reliable dates. If you don’t know, then leave it blank. (If you know iTunes Music Store didn’t exist in 1979, then definitely leave it blank.)

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My problem with that is that this is not any more accurate then using a generic thing like “worldwide”. But it does make the data look as if it would be very accurate because it lists specific countries.

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Ok guys so I need one of us to help organize and compile some of the best ideas we have here then we as contributors should adhere to the agreed upon standard even if management wont take notice until it becomes the accepted norm right now we are all over the map and thats why past threads on the subject have failed
@Llama_lover @jesus2099 @aerozol @outsidecontext I would personally love if we formed the main team for this effort ?

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I’m trying to wrap my head around the importance of the country of release comparing digital [streaming] and physical. With physical, the country of release is important especially if the engineering and or pressing takes place in different countries. Sound quality can be different and the monetary value for a certain release may vary. With physical you can identify many attributes down to a variable such as who replaced the pressing operator when John Doe was on vacation and Mary Jones took his place etc… You can also sell what you hold in your hand.

Digital [streaming] from what I understand, can’t legally be resold. Yes I guess arrangements could be made to become a reseller. Yet unless it was purchased on a “stick” you can’t put it in your pocket. It only exists on your device or in a cloud. How can you definitively identify (discern) one from another? I guess you must just take the computers word of 0’s and 1’s that everything you read and cannot hold is the truth.

Now, is the legal seller such as iTunes, Amazon, Spotify considered the label, manufacturer, or just a retailer? In the case of Amazon for example, do they [in house] convert a release to an entity they can resell as a stream? [Once they have paid for the rights.] If they don’t do their own conversion, do they get it from the current copyright holder? If that is so, do the other “stores” buy from the same copyright holder? If that is true, does that mean all the digital stores are selling the same thing? Not counting the exactitude of the lengths.

It would seem that when these retail online stores put a release out for sale, their intention would be for it to be sold worldwide and as such it would not matter if North Korea allowed it to enter its country. The stores goal would be sales worldwide through the internet. Permissions to do so are strictly hoops through which they must jump. Is it important to me to know when “The Magical Mystery Tour” was first streamed in Venezuela and by Amazon and or Spotify? That information is useless to me, however I can understand there may be someone who for some reason might want to know why.
Now, I can see the need to document in MB which online store from which country first made a particular release available. But, having to add the individual release countries makes no sense to me. It adds nothing to the worth of the release IMHO. The “sellers’ intent” would be worldwide. As far as entering it (release country) into MB I would lean toward ambiguity. No official stance, if you wish to add it, knock yourself out, just don’t criticize those who don’t.

Please don’t tongue lash me, I am sincere in trying to think this one out. Comments that would help to educate me are welcome.

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This is one area that trips up a lot of people, because there is actually no technical difference between streaming and “regular” downloading. In a streaming context, the software that is used will download the music files, play them, and then delete them again, instead of keeping them around.

Streaming might use certain codecs to keep bandwidth use to a minimum (such as low bitrate MP3 or Opus), but there is nothing stopping a conventional download to also use those (and e.g. Bandcamp offers them).

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Steaming music is no different then streaming on Netflix with downloads same exact principle and when choosing a digital platform I always assume the artists intent is as global as possible. aka worldwide.

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The record company and/or artist decides on release availability. This includes release date, release countries, and formats (download and/or streaming).

I’ve already provided real examples showing digital releases that aren’t worldwide.

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I don’t understand how this line of thought is any different from physical CD’s. Every store/publisher who produces a CD would love to be able to sell it in all countries. But licensing and publishing rights stops them from doing so. And we track these hoops they have to jump, even when the content on the disc is exactly the same.

That said, I’m not necessarily saying we need to track all country information.

I think one of the problems that has led us here is that digital releases are often being merged into one catch-all release. A Spotify ‘release(s)’ and a Bandcamp release have many large and measurable differences. If it was made clear that these should be separated, and how, you’d have an easier time suggested down rules like ‘we don’t store release date and country data for d̶i̶g̶i̶t̶a̶l̶ Spotify releases’. As it stands I would emphatically argue against any step to remove information from digital releases on a blanket scale.

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