I’m currently working on this artist’s discography and it appears all their iTunes URLs have changed. Much of the same content is still available (some of it was removed entirely; that’s a different matter), albeit with a new iTunes ID and with a new phonographic copyright holder. My question is this: does the ID and copyright info change necessitate a new release? I left edit #40204381 votable because I wasn’t sure.
And you have the strong suspicion that it’s the same files?
I’d keep the same release then. Someone selling some rights to some other group does not a new release make.
(Sigh. Not only is the “sheet of paper with some artwork and a list of song names” now the norm with digital releases, the lack of a physical artifact makes it easy to change the information on this sheet from under us. Dismal.)
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I dunno, I would lean towards counting it as a new release. Just like we would if they reissued a CD that was identical except for the (P) date.
I concur. But did the ℗ date change, @HibiscusKazeneko? If only the company changed, I’d still stand by my first assertion.
I cannot check the copyright lines myself, because only https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/id1118148754 seems to be active, https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/id727764633 goes into the weeds.
Like I said in the OP, all the old iTunes IDs were expunged and replaced with new ones. I managed to archive the original ℗ holder (but not the date) for this release; its iTunes ID has since been replaced with https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/revolucion/id1118762707 and the date has been updated to 2016 and the holder has changed.
Hmm, the date should indicate the production year of the recording, so my theory that the rights were just sold is disproven. I guess it’s a new release, then.
I don’t know what makes a new recording in the eyes of copyright (does remastering suffice?) – it may necessiate new Recordings in MB, even
I usually create new entities if I’m even a little in doubt. It is easy to merge entities later, but it is hard(/currently impossible) to properly split an entity that should have been multiple ones. So if you think there’s a chance it should be new Recordings, make new Recordings. If it’s later determined they’re the same as the previously existing ones, they can be merged easily.
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℗ data on a MB Recording can differ between releases / release dates / release countries even if the audio isn’t really different.
When you see two releases in the iTunes, first of all of course they have different collection IDs. They probably also have mutually exclusive UPC, although there is no unique UPC constraint from the iTunes store. (Mutually exclusive barcode is by definition a different MB release.)
While I agree with Freso’s post, I wanted to add that merges being easier mostly applies to the technical side (it is easier to enter a merge edit than to add a new entity and fix all existing relationships).
On the conceptional side (determining if two similar looking entities are actually the same) can be very hard, especially for recordings.
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