Outcome. Complete a metadata record for a release that will not lose you money.

Metadata is the information carried with a music file. Every streaming search, every royalty calculation and every algorithmic recommendation runs on it. It is the lubricant of the whole industry and it is usually filled in last, by whoever is least interested.

It comes in three kinds. Descriptive metadata is title, release date, track number, performing artist, artwork and genre. Ownership and performing rights metadata is the contractual information royalty distribution depends on. Recommendation metadata is the subjective tagging that drives discovery.

Descriptive errors are the visible ones: wrong artist page, misspelled titles, wrong release dates. Ownership errors are the expensive ones, because they send your money somewhere else or nowhere at all.

The full field list runs from artist, song and album title through composers and lyricists, producers, engineers, performers with roles, whether the recording contains samples, country, date and location of recording, source and mix formats, label, publisher and administrator, the writers PRO, and the identifiers.

What you will produce

A completed metadata record for one release, every field filled, ready to hand to a distributor.