They have different barcodes on the Sony vs. Warner distributed releases. Sometimes slightly different artwork even. Pink Floyd has some of the most complex digital releases as they sometimes even have the same barcode, but different track lengths on the releases due to remasters, etc.
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I disagree with this dogmatic approach.
Releases such as https://mariadieruhe.bandcamp.com/track/rejection are clearly meant to be the same across other platforms
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As I mentioned above, a difference in barcode is typically for a reason. Just because Amazon doesn’t expose barcodes doesn’t mean that we can’t reasonably decide that the Amazon release is one of these and not the other.
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I’d never use a link page to determine if it’s the same release. Many times the Apple Music release linked on them are different than the Spotify release linked on them. If NO Bandcamp releases had barcodes that were known, i.e. Amazon, maybe, than I can see this. But many Bandcamp releases have barcodes and are easily identifiable. So, I see no harm in adding a Bandcamp release as a different release, especially if the Apple Music & Spotify releases have different barcodes. I think if someone wants to add a separate release for a Bandcamp release without a barcode that’s ok. However, I agree, I’d probably not add a different release if the barcode was the same on all other platforms.
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Spotify/Deezer/Apple Music hide it in their interface as well, so I don’t see why it’s different. From this help article, it seems like they use the UPC to report sales for both digital and physical releases, so it should be seeded all the time I think?
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The database schema, and the intentional inability to manually define recording original dates and/or track release dates, requires this, but it’d be good to answer the question this leads to:
Should the pre-evolution release be marked Withdrawn? Does it matter whether it was a streaming-only release that people couldn’t officially download a copy of? For example, if a streaming-only release with a certain level of DRM (e.g., a proprietary app is required) is no longer available because it was replaced with a different tracklist, a reasonable person could conclude it should go from Official to Withdrawn.
I’ve seen such extreme examples where similarities can even include having the same barcode (digit-by-digit) yet due to differences in labels (distributors, rightholders, licenced from/to, etc.) we have multiple instances of otherwise the same release on one same digital platform, each with their own URL and geographic restrictions.
Take this single released by the Swedish artist Fever Ray for example:
All three seem the same, even having a barcode in common (5060236638540), if you enter the editing history, you can see that each one of them was added or edited using information from a-tisket and similar companions. From the RG view, the first difference one can spot are the different release areas (the first one is for the artist’s home country of Sweden, the other released for US+CA and the third one has all the rest of the world covered). The US+CA one even has a different ‘main’ label set from the other two (Mute vs. Rabid Records).
Entering each of the releases, you can see some of the subtler differences in label info (distributors, licences) and make sure that each one has it’s own distinct release ID on the 3 big vendors (Spotify, Apple, Deezer). If it wasn’t for the different labels and distributors, I could have easily merged the 3 into one single worldwide release.
There’s a similar case with Icelandic singer Björk’s digital releases (at least I kept an eye on her most recent album “Fossora” and the accompanying singles). Unlike with Fever Ray, all of these releases are credited to One Little Independent Records with no further info, which caused most editors to assume they are the same and merge them after they were being added separately.
You can see this one having two different Apple Music links, each one with it’s own ID number. Yet both of them have the same Barcode, the API returns no additional label info other than One Little Independent, they only differ by the countries where they are available (US+CA vs. the rest of the world).
Similar case with her singles. A-tisket treated them as distinct releases, yet on MB we have just one instance of it with all links covered.
https://atisket.pulsewidth.org.uk/?cached=5016958102098-d_0-s_4gsVIuKRUMJCdNhHTx5GrI-i_0
https://atisket.pulsewidth.org.uk/?cached=5016958102098-d_347331777-s_5OXgQKo4eciKADPZPlkdF1-i_0
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The album that chaban linked could be a good example. To me it is not clear that we should (necessarily) combine the bandcamp release and the other platforms.
Because the other platforms have a label (‘REDUCED TO THE ROOT’), and Bandcamp doesn’t (“Published by Copyright Control. With friendly permission of REDUCED TO THE ROOT 2021.”). I usually assume more money goes to the artist if you buy from a [no label] source. This doesn’t matter to everyone ofc, but it is a notable difference to me 
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Reduced to the Root is Maria’s own label.
(BTW, English version doesn’t mention the year)
It’s a common pitfall to assume “Bandcamp artist account” = “no label”
While Bandcamp has a concept of label accounts with all kinds of features similar to usual platforms (DDEX), it costs extra among others.
So some just create a normal artist account for label activities. E.g. Alfa Matrix or ProNoize
You’ll also often find separate listings on the real artist and “label as artist account”, whereas the label was responsible for the physical release. It having a digital version too is rather a side-effect.
Another question about whether to make multiple or one release: labels can change the title of digital releases. Should we create a new release (with the date of title change as the release date for the new release) in such case?
Also, since the unofficial guidelines in the original post says we should ignore minor differences in release title and follow artist intent, when the cover art shows a different title to the name listed in the online music store, should we follow the cover art title?
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I don’t particularly know why Maria hasn’t just put ‘Released by REDUCED TO THE ROOT’ into the Bandcamp text, but with your additional label info I probably wouldn’t bother adding a new release
Care definitely needs to be taken, but also it’s often it’s not the case when it comes to Bandcamp.
Bandcamp is much easier to self-publish, and particularly non-physical labels often don’t care about publishing there (as it’s not a huge money-maker, and it’s not included in the all-in-one systems that usually get used to distribute to all the other channels - and collect stats and collect royalties).
When I release physical media on my label I (usually) insist on having all a release page with all the tracks. If you purchase there the money goes into my hungry little bank account (and then to the artist - but I can’t speak for other labels…). I make separate releases in MB for my releases of this type, also because I have a cat no. for it, and maybe other minor differences.
Similarly, I’ve distributed a few releases to ‘the big streaming sites’ and I would find it weird to have the bands self-release retroactively credited to my label and with the barcode etc I generated. Which is what usually happens in MB when people group digital releases together (someone adds the Spotify link to the bands own Bandcamp release… then later someone adds the barcode and label from Spotify… and we have transformed the self release into something else).
I suspect that text was auto-generated by the distributor “The Orchard”.
Here is another example where it should be even more obvious:
https://uysr.bandcamp.com/album/nuances-ep
Uploaded on the Bandcamp label account of “Underyourskin Records” (artist has his own account) yet says:
Published by Copyright Control. With friendly permission of Underyourskin Records 2021.
Maybe the legalese of other services sheds some light on this?
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mcD2NFyAl-PK9nKuUSmXYeNANZOFBvFCU (originally YouTube Music)
Provided to YouTube by The Orchard Enterprises
℗ 2021 Underyourskin Records
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLl9PeJUCtE_W0GvzEdFwfTuPnDeNLtS-0
LICENSES
The Orchard Music (on behalf of Underyourskin Records)
(seen on the videos pages)
Re: Release date
Some releases, coincidentally this very EP, are available in advance exclusively, e.g. at a specific service or other means like a code/invite/subscription. Should the date be the regular release date or the earlier one? I’d opt for the regular (“official”) date.
Re. Tracks grouped in virtual “discs”
I’ll let @Eincrou speak: https://musicbrainz.org/edit/97965039
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Oh wow, I didn’t realise there was a distro doing Bandcamp! Good on them. Maybe there’s a few others too.
But these seem like exceptions to the rule. In the more common situation of a band doing their own Bandcamp, and the label doing other platforms, it’s incorrect to mark the bandcamp release as being a label release and having the new barcode, imo.
The current proposal on top of the thread looks pretty good to me. What issues are still left to improve, in other people’s opinions?
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I’m not a fan of needing to list 230 countries on a release because one country has a separate version. When I run across this, I prefer creating one as “[Worldwide]” and the other as “Japan”.
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This is my preference too; “all countries except X” is basically impossible to enter in the current UI without using third-party tools.
It’s completely possible that I misinterpreted @reosarevok’s comment when adding this sentence to the release countries section:
Marking one as [worldwide] when it’s explicitly and intentionally not available in Japan seems problematic. I’d probably rather leave it empty than set that.
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I don’t think this is the position of most editors. Perhaps you should open a poll about that.
There seem indeed different interpretations regarding the country list issue specifically regarding this proposal and causes voting/editing conflicts:
https://musicbrainz.org/edit/98160301
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Does this account for most labels explicitly not releasing on Russia and sometimes Belarus? Seems confusing…
China is also a problematic case when you include Apple Music because I’ve seen it many times where a release isn’t immediately released there but after a few weeks or months they are.