The biggest problem for me with more auto edits is the auto edited all relationship edits.
I have just spotted an editor adding all arrange credits at work level instead of recording level.
I have just fixed the one for my watched artist but other than that, I can just tell them to please move those relationships with no guaranty that it will be eventually done.
There are too many relationships : I won’t fix even if I spotted them.
In old times I could have also voted down those then open edits.
Thus no mistakes would have been in.
I remember there was discussion about dissuading editors from attaching ARRANGE relationships at work level but I can’t find it any more, it must have been on the old (inaccessible) forums, then.
I wish we would eventually dissuade people from linking “arrange” artists at work level with some red text.
Those are only good for some classical works as I was once told.
The work even has it’s own ISWC, so it makes sense to add it there. Therefore I wouldn’t generally eliminate this relationship, although I agree that it should be mainly used at the recording level.
It’s rare they have any, but, as @chirlu says, I generally not take the arrange relationship from JASRAC / SACEM / etc.
Those only rarely credit arrange (公編), it’s a minority.
Isn’t it a minority in GEMA as well ?
I mean outside of classical works.
I am not against all work arrange relationships, I just mean it’s a minority, it’s usually more related to recording and attaching them to work is usually a mistake.
Oh but OK for your speciifc example, according to JASRAC it’s a Scottish traditional/folklore.
In those cases, arrangements can have their importance, like additional composition in a way.
My experience with “arrangements” of traditional music (as a listener, player, and dancer for over 15 years) is that artists will usually add “arranged by [artist]” to any tune composed by [traditional]—mostly so that they can collect some “composition” royalty when performing the tune live or when recordings of it is played on the air. They should be Recording relationships in far most cases IMO.
This would be great. Currently, I think that the guideline is not visible enough; I’ve been adding arrangers to works in all of my edits. I didn’t know that they should generally be added to recordings before someone told me about it in edit #54982206. The guideline is mentioned on the Artist-Work / Arranger relationship page, but I feel like there should be a warning of some kind when trying to add an arranger to a work.
Sorry to up this discussion but I just saw this edit #67225768, I pretty agree with @jesus2099 here and I think it would be good to get some other opinions.
I have a diverging opinion. First of all, I do agree that the mere mention on a release that someone did some arrangements on a given track is not enough to be reflected to the associated work. So, all in all, I think I agree most of the time with jesus2099 and Fabe56.
But, if someone is credited as an arranger in one of those ISWC databases, (GEMA, SACEM, etc), I reckon this should be treated specially and reflected here in MB. This is why I’m downvoting edit #67225768 because, among his fellow musicians, Hubert-Félix Thiéfaine chose to add one (and only one) as an arranger in the SACEM database.
Such a case has much much more weight than a mere mention on a CD booklet. In the SACEM database, “arranger” has a stronger meaning than in common language: it has the same weight for music as “adaptor” for the lyrics. If you want to omit arrangers, then think about omitting adaptors too (good bye translators).
Some technical details: for someone to be credited as an arranger in a right-society DB like SACEM, GEMA, etc, the original composer must give their explicit agreement because they will then lose part of their revenue (the one that will go to the arranger) and this part can be really significant (10 to 50%!, depending on the country).
Therefore, if you find someone credited as an arranger in those DB, it means that the original composer has acknowledged that the arranger’s work is substantial enough, i.e. that the final song is different enough from their original version, and that it deserves that part of royalties.
This is not by any means a light decision from the original composer and this should be reflected here in MB.
To make it short: in the SACEM system, an arranger should be considered roughly the same as a co-composer (and an adaptor is the same as a co-lyricist). I guess this would apply to all ISWC databases.
As an afterthought, a consequence to what I have said above is that the composer of a cover will always be credited as an arranger in the SACEM DB. If we are omitting artists credited as arrangers there, then not only we are missing an essential part of the work but some entries may end up being irrelevant here (e.g. without their arrangers, those twoworks would make no sense).
We really ought not to remove artists credited as arrangers/adaptors in the ISWC dbs. In their jargon, this is not a minor role.
We shouldn’t follow what SACEM does or we will have wrong arrangers on many recordings.
SACEM follows another purpose, thus their info is not necessarily appropriate for us.
For instance, they want to know who to send royalties to, so they will expand group credits to members, in contradiction with the booklets.
Likewise they will change credits to public domain at some point, which is also irrelevant for us who wants to keep actual credits.
You are right that we should not follow blindly what is written in the SACEM record. This is actually what I’m saying: an arranger there has not the same meaning as an arranger here. BUT we should not omit people that are credited there; we should use the relevant AR instead (e.g. OK, let’s not use “arranger” but use “co-composer”).
The same goes for the adaptation of folklore songs. There is nothing irrelevant in using “public domain” for them, this is irrelevant for us and we use “traditional” instead. What is irrelevant is to omit the arranger who is the composer of the modern adaptation.
Just for my understanding, for the specific edit/work/song:
This song was written by Hubert-Félix Thiéfaine on, for instance, a guitar. Tony Carbonare listened to this song and said “I can make this better for you” and he arranged this song for the complete band with extra music etc.
In that case Tony Carbonare is an important part of this work, shouldn’t be deleted and belongs to the work as co-writer.
If unclear what Tony Carbonare did for this song and the rest of the album he should be at recording level. And on a personal level I think that’s the place for an arranger.
I don’t know what the relationship is between Hubert and Tony, friends, bandmates?
This doesn’t seem relevant. There are plenty of works written for groups that are recorded by single or fewer performers. That doesn’t make those partial recordings, it’s just another (recording level) arrangement.
This is why arrangements are better on recordings because we have credits available in these album booklets but forcing global arrangement to all recordings is wrong IMO.
Since @xhienne seems to be arguing that this is more accurately an additional composition credit, I think you should address that and not a blanket objection to arrangement credits. I don’t have a strong opinion, I just feel like your arguments are missing the mark.
Note that arrangement is more than just instrumentation. It is also things such as “artistic pauses”, where to take breaths in the lyrics, how to do dynamics (e.g., make the sound more or less powerful in certain parts), and other things that can be replicated by a single instrumentalist as well as a full symphonic orchestra (even if they’d go about it in different ways).
(Note that I’m not saying the arrangers should or should not be dissuaded from going on Works, just trying to inform about the breadth of what “arrangement” includes.)
Just for the record, I was not referring to works with unknown writers.
I have already seen works with known writers which credits have been changed to public domain by JASRAC or SACEM, once royalties are no longer due (delay depends of laws, can be after 50 years).
This, with split band member credits, is why I am not trusting royalty managers more than they should be regarding work credits.
Because they are not about correct artistic credits, they are about who to send royalties to.
