This is in reference to iTunes references, specifically the different country stores.
I will use this release as an example:
This release was given a reference for the “nz” store and labeled as country “Estonia” in MB. RIght or wrong aside, let’s say for our sake that it is right. Now… I could also add this reference: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/diamond-hard-single/id1135913516
This reference would show for a release country of “United States”.
Rather than adding those, and any of the other country store fronts, I could add this as a reference: https://geo.itunes.apple.com/album/id1135913516
and call it “Worldwide”. The above “geo” reference will tie it to the best local store front for the user clicking on the link. Now this is not 100% perfect, either is a store front link though. Some countries cannot use a country store other than their own and will end up getting a “connecting to iTunes” page instead.
Without going into long paragraphs, why question is this. What is the thought on using the “geo” link with the editors country of use as the primary? What would the release country be if used? An example of what I mean would be this link: https://geo.itunes.apple.com/us/album/id1135913516
Notice that it is similar to the above geo link, but includes a country portion of the URL. This says I am adding the US store, but offers the link generator the ability to change the country store front for each given user, if possible.
So… how can we use this, or do we use this? Add the country stripped geo link and call it worldwide? Add the US geo link and call it US? Or ignore geo all together and add the US link (leaving out the geo) and calling it US?
One of the problems with iTunes in particular is that it isn’t worldwide. There are a number of countries they don’t operate in (and thus sell to), and individual albums/releases may be country/region restricted in some form of other that we don’t know about - thus we have adopted the practice of only added release countries for iTunes releases where we know that that iTunes release is actually available.
Other stores, such as Bandcamp, place no such restrictions what-so-ever and will happily sell to whomever, as long as they’re able to transfer money in some way to them, hence they can be safely marked as “[worldwide]”.
@Freso - that makes sense and I fully agree. So, what is the right approach? Do we use the geo links at all? Do we add a FR, US, BR, etc link for all the stores that are there? I feel as though adding a US link and calling it a US release (for example in my country) is not an appropriate representation of the iTunes release. There are usually at least a handful of store fronts that are there.
About release country, there’s nothing stopping you from adding a dozen release countries per release (except perhaps a desire to keep your sanity ), which would indeed be the proper way to enter iTunes releases - one release country per country it has actually been released to.
Just to be clear… you are saying that for example… under release group “Release A” we have “Release A iTunes”. Now within “Release A iTunes”, we have multiple release events, one for each country. So, we may, for example, have Canada, Brazil, USA, New Zealand, Japan, China and S Korea all listed under the same release. And we have a iTunes reference added for each of the countries listed in the events, all possibly with the same iTunes ID.
Is my understanding of your answer correct? This would be technically correct, but nor necessarily required to do.
@Freso - thanks. Your answer helped perfectly. Cheers!
Waiting to hear more on the geo links and their use. I like them, but do we want to use them? Could their implementation be changed or discontinued and cause us a problem?
I only edit little digital releases.
When I set an iTunes link, I set one that works in my browser, usually links without countries, tell me to install iTunes instead of showing.
When I set a FR link, I set a FR release event. If I also set a JP link, I will also set a JP release event. That is one release event per country link.
I would never set worldwide if I only see some local iTunes links.
For bandcamp, I would set worldwide as it seems to be the case.
I voted yes and stated my reasoning there. One release event per country link seems most appropriate as that is how iTunes considers it. It is the same as a CD being released in different countries where the CD content is the same and the only difference is the ink or the label, etc.
I tend to treat iTunes and other digital releases as “international unless proven provincial”. I think it is safe to err on the side of [Worldwide] when it comes to digital releases. Hunting down the exceptions simply not worth the time. And if it is on iTunes, then there is a very good chance you can find the album on Google Play, Amazon MP3, Spotify, etc.
I don’t think it’s ever safe to err on the side of being too-inclusive. If you add The Breaker - リトル・ビッグ・タウンのアルバム - Apple Music as a JP release, you’re most certainly right - that does not mean it has not also been released elsewhere, but it is 100% correct that it’s been released there. If you add a [Worldwide] release, you’re saying that it was released everywhere, which you might not be correct about, and if so you will have introduced wrong data into the database. It seems clear to me that the safe thing to do is to only do the limited, narrowed release events until it can be shown/proven that the given release was indeed global.
What is the use case of [Worldwide] then at all? I basically could never be sure whether there aren’t any exceptions somewhere on earth. Given the political reality I can even be rather sure there is some restriction somewhere. So the implication would be to never use worldwide at all.
So far I have done as @CyberSkull described above for digital releases. Unless there aren’t any clear signs of regional limitations and the intent seems to be to make a download available everywhere I’d use [Worldwide], fully aware that some country restrictions might apply nonetheless, often for reasons outside of the control of the download provider.
Now what happens when people start posting stuff on The Moon or Mars’ Internet? Are we gonna have the same debate about [Earth], [The Moon], [Mars] and [Solar System Wide]?
I think most editors don’t actually make any attempt at exploring the “regional limitations” of digital releases. And it’s frankly not worth exploring the availability of digital releases because it often requires waiting 24 hours for releases to start existing in countries in different timezones.
The fact is there are absolutely regional limitations on digital releases, especially if the music isn’t from North America and Western Europe.
This is the logic I am currently using. I am not saying it is perfect or even the best, but it seems to follow the country selection process of iTunes…
If the URL for iTunes contains a country code, then it is not worldwide. There are some iTunes URLs that do not use a country code. As long as they remain valid without a country code, that is worldwide. It is the same distinction as CD or records, when iTunes uses a country code, that indicates a release to that country.
Here are 2 examples:
In the case the “worldwide” seems to apply: https://itunes.apple.com/album/id701119756.
In the case removal of the country code results in an invalid URL: https://itunes.apple.com/album/id1197064702, meaning it is not “worldwide”.
To follow jesus2099 statement above, you can use the non country specific URL for iTunes as shown above, if it is valid, for an iTunes reference that is not tied to a country, or worldwide.
I’m starting to see a bunch of iTunes releases just automatically marked as Worldwide again before they even come out and when you try to edit them to not be worldwide I get voted down. Some editors just insist that they are worldwide when they are not. Some examples:
Wanted to add a quick thought on the first link. That is not even released yet, so you cannot really even say where it will be released. What gets filled in is where a product was released. When it is not yet released, there is no data. I often see iTunes not use a country code until it is released. It would be my opinion that a release that is not released (or does not have all the info) should not be entered as though it does. However, the worldwide iTunes link (without specifying a country code) does work. Wonder what others think on that…
On the second one, that one seems to be worldwide as this link works:
It would appear to me that the first one is worldwide (at least for now) and the second is worldwide.
), which would indeed be the proper way to enter iTunes releases - one release country per country it has actually been released to.
