Most digital releases contain a barcode. Most digital releases contain an imprint label. Not many have cat #, but some do. Every release on iTunes, Spotify & Deezer MUST have barcodes. Almost all on HD Tracks also have barcodes as well. The label that Spotify & Deezer return are the same as the physical imprint most of the time. However, you have to “view source” to find out what it is iTunes or check ISRC.net. You are correct that they aren’t always the same as sometimes they will say things like Capitol Records, Inc. instead of Capitol Records or they’ll actually state a label as “FP” as the imprint in the copyright label info, but than show UMG as the “label”. So, yeah, it’s not 100% as it would be on physical media. However, I will say that digital media information has gotten way easier to find than it was a few years ago.
I am interested to see proof that over 50% (meaning most) of all digital releases contain a barcode in the metadata. I have a large collection of original media files that disagrees.
I do not consider Spotify as a “release”. I consider Spotify as “radio”. Just me, but I consider any place that streams without “purchase” to be radio.
All respect @tigerman325, we had some great convos, I mean no disrespect.
It is required for every release uploaded to iTunes, by their policy to have a barcode. Now, I’m not saying it is necessarily always found in the metadata they provide because it is not. If it is, it’s typically located in the “.jpg” filename for the cover art. I have a file that gives barcodes for every release that was on iTunes back in January that I obtained from a person here in the community boards. Streaming releases, that are found on Spotify & Deezer are no different than any other digital release that can be purchased. They all have barcodes. Spotify & Deezer’s are found in their APIs as it their record labels. Not sure why you totally dismiss what is obviously (unfortunately) how releases are going forward with streaming. It’s more than just a radio playlist. They have full releases there that you have to pay if you don’t want interruptions or ads.
Oh yes. 
If anyone knows a userscript to hide digital releases, I will use it.
Update
OK I did a very rough one, quickly: mb. HIDE DIGITAL RELEASES
I will probably make it better in the future.
But I will already have some rest, thanks to it.
Post gets re-edited next morning
[s]Currently use the “Musicbrainz: Ultimate list destroyer” script to hide this mess of “countries you can buy the track in today” from MB screens. https://github.com/otringal/MB-userscripts[/s]
Thanks to @jesus2099 pointing this out, this feature is now built into MB and probably has been for ages. Script not needed.
Next I need someone to write a Picard script of “if countries > 5, set to Worldwide”.
And thanks @outsidecontext also pointing out that this script exists and I had just forgotten to add it to Picard
All is well 
This is not “release” data, this is “which shops it can be purchased in today” data. Often been shown to not be RELEASE date details. Just misleading noise. (Ignore my rant)
Someone has done that
Ahh thanks,
Just hope “hidding things from the eyes” will not prevent to resolve the different pending topics 
For instance:
- Option to select quality level of Digital media files (as we can select the type of CD or Vinyl)
- Filtering/Ordering Digital releases by default in UI
- Clear definition of what requires a new Digital releases and what not (ex: different barcodes, same files but different shop, release suspended for a time on a store but republished later with same data,…)
- How should be treated release dates & countries to distinguish clearly the shops informations from “proper” release ones (ex: There are differences in countries between the different stores, some stores show the original release data and not the release date,…)
- …
Are you sure this script is still needed?
I think everything (hide big lists) has been coded in MBS now, hasn’t it?
Haha - and looking in that thread someone had said thank you before, then forgot to add it to Picard. Now in place and my Digital releases will stop being set to Afghanistan or whatever came first in the dictionary.
@ulugabi - the “hiding things from the eyes” script is just a case of tidying up the GUI. The Releases page iswas unusable with 100+ countries running down the page. Something that was fixed by MB devs ages ago it seems. 
As to your request about release quality - that will be a long wait. There has been a similar request in to allow us to mark the number of channels on a recording (mono\stereo\quad\5.1\etc) which is lost deep in the Ticket blackhole. There are also a few other long threads about digital quality and how MB is not really interested in those details.
Quick fix scripts like this List Collapser is great to keep the GUI useable for those of us who don’t care where Spotify are trading.
Err… no idea… I’ll go check. Back shortly
Thanks to @ulugabi putting that link below I can check and you are right, that script is not needed as the GUI compresses the lists. I now see your link is more dramticaly totally hiding all digital releases. I assume that means you only have vinyl now as CD also digital? 
Or maybe rename it to Hide Digital Media Releases ?
Looking at something else I end up with a nice example for that thread:
- More than 100 countries credited for an audiobook rode in French with french cover (despite the label edits in French + english covers for other releases)
- Label differs between stores (Spotify & Deezer)
I let you vote on the edits if you dont agree.
Not necessary hiding (I have some digital releases but a more user friendly way to display all release types.
ex:
- As a user you may look for Vinyl release and dont want to see all those CD/Digital ones
- Or you may want to look if your Digital release exists and without sorting format it can be hard to find it in middle of all the other ones
edit: @IvanDobsky
You meant having an option to select format on the recording itself like “Video” tickbox?
On my side I was thinking only to update the Format drop down list in Track list (where you have for instance if its a SACD 2 channels or multichannel) with something like “Lossy”, “CD”, “HD” to limit the options.
That would be easily fixed by just letting us click the column headers on the list and make the list sortable. Personally I’d rather see everything on a page in all mediums. I was editing something yesterday that had been released on a Quadrophonic 8-Track tape.
Or I just use repeated < CTRL >+< F > finds down a page
Bad original edit. It returned a “This is all of them, as of 2020-10-18”, should have been set to worldwide. Not sure why some are changing from Worldwide when it says there are no exempted countries. WIll fix it for you.
Would be cool if there was a script that would sort by or hide media types. Never thought about that.
I would (stupdily) say allowing sorting for all tables in GUI and/or add the filter option (as in recordings) would solve this case and many other ones by the same time…
…but I suppose it has already been suggested and there reasons why it s not done
This is what I thought you meant. And it is an old and long dead debate. MB is not interested in quality. There is a VERY long thread on this a couple of years back where the debate got deep. MB said “no”. You’d need more than “lossy” and “HD”. There will be newer “HD” to come. (Better to find that thread than take this one OT)
As to SACD and multichannel - even that isn’t really enough for what I’d need in Pink Floyd. I have tracks with many different channel layouts. This also overlaps into your digital files and quality as it is easier to encode a mono, stereo, quadrophonic or 5.1 FLAC file than it is to make quad vinyl.
I don’t buy digital, but do agree with you. Especially as now Spotify and co and starting to realise that better quality is needed. (But then I am a weirdo who can tell FLAC and MP3 apart)
For now, we have disambiguration fields.
Maybe check the Tickets black hole. I believe there is some kinda “rebuilding the website” reason to the delay on that one.
It is even one of the oldest ticket, I guess it depends on the ongoing React conversion which is slowly coming to an end (as it seems).
There are so many bad jokes in there about “slow to React” that probably are not needed.
Living in the MB world one learns to have patience.
Sorry I have been unclear, my reference to quality was only in the question of what can define a Digital release. For instance we can have a new barcode for files with different Bit depth and/or Sample Rate. Based on the discussions upper there is no debate about creating a new release but:
- Why not keeping the reason of this new barcode?
- What happen in case there is no difference in releases except the file format, that s where there is no clear definition: in physical medias a difference creates a different release but what happen for digital. Different download links/files on same store create a different release or not?
On my side:
- Compare to SACDs and Vinyls we dont show the cause for the different release despite they are (in most cases) just different medias with same recordings.
- In order to be persistent I tend to think that it should be only one release showing the max quality available as other files, lossy today maybe CD tommorrow, would be considered as transcode from main release.
PS:
In the never ending debates where science is put on the side there is even better, The HiFi cables: Ripley’s Believe It or Not!