Metadata is the information attached to your recording — the data that tells streaming platforms, royalty systems, and listeners what your music is, who made it, and who owns it. It's invisible to most listeners and absolutely critical to everything else.
Get it right and your music is discoverable, correctly credited, and generating royalties from the moment it goes live. Get it wrong and you're looking at delayed releases, duplicate artist profiles, missing royalties, and corrections that can take weeks to propagate across platforms.
Most distribution problems are metadata problems. This guide covers everything you need to know before you submit a release.
What metadata actually is
Every release you submit travels with a set of structured data fields describing the recording and the release. Platforms use that data to:
- Display your artist name, track title, and credits correctly
- Index your music in search results
- Route royalty payments to the right rights holders
- Connect your recording to your registered artist profile
- Track your music across platforms through unique identifiers
None of this happens automatically based on what's inside the audio file. It happens based on what you fill in when you submit. Leave a field blank or fill it in wrong, and the platform works with what it has — which means wrong credits, missing royalties, and profiles that don't match.
Put bluntly: streaming platforms don't know your music. They know your metadata.
The core metadata fields
Track title
Exactly as it should appear on every platform. Capitalization matters. Punctuation matters. A track titled Falling Apart and one titled falling apart are indexed differently. Decide the exact form before you submit and don't change it.
Common mistakes:
- Adding "Official Audio" or "Official Video" to the title — that belongs on YouTube, not in distribution metadata
- Putting the featured artist in the track title instead of the featured artist field
- Inconsistent capitalization across releases
- Promotional text, URLs, hashtags, or emoji — these get releases rejected or auto-corrected in ways you don't control
What breaks: rejected deliveries, or a catalog where nobody can tell your acoustic version from the original because the version info never made it in.
Primary artist
The name your release appears under. It must match your registered artist profile on Spotify, Apple Music, and elsewhere exactly. One extra space, one different capitalization, and you risk creating a duplicate profile that splits your streaming history across two artist pages.
If you haven't claimed your Spotify for Artists profile yet, do it before your first release. Your artist name in metadata should match the name on the profile.
What breaks: a new spelling reads as a different artist. Your catalog splits, your follower count and stats fragment, and listeners who found you on one page never see the other.
Artist profile IDs — the field most artists skip
Your artist name is a terrible unique identifier. Dozens of performers share names like Luna, Atlas, or Saint. That's why platforms increasingly rely on artist IDs supplied by your distributor:
- Spotify artist URL and URI (
open.spotify.com/artist/...andspotify:artist:...) - Apple Music artist page link or ID
- Amazon Music artist page link
- YouTube Official Artist Channel URL, where relevant
Think of your artist name as the name on an envelope and the platform ID as the street address. Give a service only the name and it has to guess which "Luna" you meant.
What breaks: without IDs, a release can land on a completely different artist's profile — with your pre-save links pointing at someone else's catalog on release morning. Repairing it means a mapping correction through your distributor, and each platform has to be fixed separately. Full repair process: why your music lands on the wrong artist profile.
Do this once: keep a permanent file with your exact artist name spelling and every platform ID, and paste from it for every release.
Featured artists
Artists who appear on the recording but aren't the primary release artist. These go in the featured artist field — not in the track title. Platforms generate the Primary Artist feat. Featured Artist display automatically from the separate fields.
Featured artist names should match their registered platform profiles, for the same reason primary names do — and supply their artist IDs too, if you have them.
What breaks: put the feature only in the title and the collaborator's audience never gets notified — you've thrown away half the reason for doing the feature. Put it in both places and you get the double-render: "Song Title (feat. Nadia) (feat. Nadia)".
Songwriter credits
The full legal names of everyone who wrote the lyrics or composed the music. Not stage names. This is the information that connects your release to publishing royalty systems.
What breaks: this is the most expensive metadata error in independent music, and it's completely silent. Publishing royalties get matched to compositions using songwriter names and registration data. If your credit says "Zayn" but your PRO registration says "Zayn Ibrahim Malik", the match may never happen — and unmatched royalties sit in a pool instead of reaching you. Nobody emails you about it. The money just never arrives, and it's very difficult to reclaim after the fact.
Make your songwriter credits match your PRO and publishing registrations character for character.
Producer credits
The producer of the recording. Some distributors make this optional. Fill it in anyway — it's part of the permanent record of the release and matters for credit and, in some territories, neighboring rights.
ISRC code
A unique identifier for the specific sound recording. One per track, per version. Your distributor assigns these if you don't have them. More in the ISRC guide.
What breaks — in both directions:
- Assign a new ISRC to an existing recording (common when moving to a new distributor that mints fresh codes) and the system reads it as a brand-new track. Your streams, saves, and playlist placements don't follow, and you can end up with a duplicate next to the original.
- Reuse an old ISRC on a genuinely new recording — a remaster, a re-record — and the two get conflated in reporting.
When switching distributors, carry over the original ISRCs, UPC, and original release date. This is the single most common way catalogs get mangled during a transfer.
UPC/EAN
A unique identifier for the release as a whole — the album or single. One per release. Your distributor assigns this. More in the UPC guide.
Genre and subgenre
Used by platforms to categorize your music and route it to genre-specific editorial and algorithmic playlists. Choose the most accurate genre — not the most aspirational one.
What breaks: a hip-hop track submitted as pop because pop feels bigger doesn't perform better in pop algorithms; it performs worse in both. It also sends your editorial pitch to a pop editor who listens for twelve seconds and moves on. You didn't get more reach — you got the wrong reader.
Release date
The date the release goes live across platforms. Keep it consistent across every store — don't stagger release dates by platform, it confuses listeners and complicates promotion.
Leave enough runway. Metadata corrections travel back through your distributor to every platform, which takes days, not minutes. Pushing a date later is usually possible; pulling it earlier usually isn't.
One trap for re-releases: entering today's date as the original release date rewrites your own catalog history. Most systems have a separate "original release date" field for exactly this. (Timeline detail: how far in advance to upload.)
Label name
The name of the label releasing the music. If you're self-releasing, this is typically your own name, a self-created label name, or whatever your distributor uses as a default. Many artists create a simple label name for self-releases — it looks more professional and gives you a consistent entity for rights purposes.
Copyright and publishing information
The year and rights holder for the sound recording (℗) and the composition (©). For most independent artists releasing their own music, these are the same person and the same year. Fill them in properly — they appear on streaming platform pages and in royalty documentation.
What breaks: less than the other fields, honestly — but empty, mismatched, or copy-pasted-from-someone-else lines look amateur to exactly the people who check them: labels, sync agents, journalists, potential partners.
Explicit content flag
If your track contains explicit language or content, mark it explicit. Platforms use this flag for age restrictions and filter settings.
What breaks — in both directions:
- An unmarked explicit track can be flagged and taken down after release, and repeat problems strain your distributor relationship.
- Marking a clean track explicit "just in case" quietly excludes it from a lot of playlists and family accounts. You're filtering yourself out of the placements you want.
- If you deliver a clean version, make sure it's actually clean. A "Clean" edit that still contains the profanity is a straightforward compliance failure.
Language
The primary language of the lyrics, used for localization and regional editorial consideration. Add accurate lyrics where the platform supports it.
What breaks: mislabeled language routes your track into the wrong editorial pipelines. For non-English releases this is one of the cheapest wins available and one of the most commonly skipped fields. If you work across scripts, decide your transliteration convention once and never change it mid-catalog — an alternate spelling is a fresh chance for platforms to treat you as a different artist.
Artwork
Not strictly metadata, but it travels with the release and fails the same way: 3000×3000 px, square, JPG or PNG, RGB (not CMYK).
What breaks: CMYK shifts color unpredictably. Social logos, URLs, "available on Spotify" text, or third-party trademarks trigger automatic rejection. And artwork designed at poster size turns into an unreadable smudge at the 60-pixel thumbnail where most people actually see it.
Metadata consistency across releases
Every release should use your artist name in exactly the same form. If your first release is credited to James Wright and your second to James wright, you now have two artist entities on Spotify. That fragments your follower count, your monthly listeners, and your streaming history.
Before submitting anything new, check how your previous releases appear on Spotify and Apple Music, and match that exact form.
What breaks, at a glance
| Field | Common mistake | What it actually costs you |
|---|---|---|
| Primary artist | Inconsistent spelling | Duplicate profile, split stats and followers |
| Artist profile IDs | Not supplied | Release lands on a stranger's page |
| Featured artist | Only in the title | Collaborator's audience never notified |
| Songwriter credits | Stage name instead of legal name | Publishing royalties never matched to you |
| ISRC | New code on an existing recording | Streams and placements don't carry over |
| UPC | Regenerated during a transfer | Duplicate release entries |
| Genre | Inflated to a bigger bucket | Pitch reaches the wrong editor |
| Release date | Too close, or rewritten history | No repair window; catalog order broken |
| Explicit flag | Missing — or over-applied | Takedown risk; or self-exclusion from playlists |
| Language | Left at default | Wrong regional editorial pipelines |
| Artwork | CMYK, logos, tiny text | Rejection, or an invisible thumbnail |
Common mistakes
- Using a stage name instead of a legal name in songwriter credits
- Not matching the artist name exactly to the registered platform profile
- Not supplying artist profile IDs, especially with a common artist name
- Including the featured artist in the track title instead of the correct field
- Leaving songwriter or producer credits blank on collaborative tracks
- Letting a new distributor generate fresh ISRCs for existing recordings
- Submitting placeholder metadata intending to fix it later — corrections after submission are slow and sometimes incomplete
Pre-delivery metadata checklist
Run this before you submit, with your agreements open:
- Artist name matches previous releases character for character
- Artist profile IDs supplied for every primary and featured artist
- Featured artists in the feature field, not the title
- Title in consistent case, version info in parentheses, no promo text
- Every contributor listed with legal name and correct role
- Songwriter names match your PRO / publishing registrations exactly
- ISRCs carried over if these are existing recordings
- Explicit flag set honestly; any clean version actually clean
- Genre chosen for accuracy, not size
- Language set correctly; lyrics added where supported
- Release date leaves room for corrections; original date preserved for re-releases
- Label name, ℗ and © lines complete
- Artwork 3000×3000, RGB, no logos or URLs
- UPC, ISRCs, delivered metadata, and artwork file saved in one release folder
CREWPORT workflow tip
Before you submit, read every metadata field out loud and check it against your registered Spotify profile. It sounds tedious. It takes four minutes. It's the single most effective way to catch the errors that cause the most damage — a wrong capitalization, a space that shouldn't be there, a legal name your phone autocorrected into something else.
CREWPORT flags inconsistencies automatically and validates artwork specs and explicit flags before delivery, so mechanical errors surface while they're still cheap to fix. But the metadata only you know — legal names, correct credits, rights information — still needs your attention.
FAQ
Can I update metadata after a release is live?
Yes, but it's slow. Most corrections take 1–3 weeks to propagate across all platforms after your distributor submits the change. Some fields — artist name especially — are harder to correct because they affect how the platform indexes the release. Fix metadata before submission.
Do I need to register my songs with a PRO before distributing?
You don't need PRO registration to distribute. But you should register with a Performing Rights Organization in your territory — ASCAP, BMI, SOCAN, PRS, and so on — to collect performance royalties. Distribution handles your master recording royalties. PRO registration handles your composition royalties. They're separate systems.
What's the difference between ℗ and ©?
℗ (the P in a circle) is the sound recording copyright — it covers the specific recorded performance. © covers the underlying composition: the melody and lyrics. For most independent artists both are owned by the same person, but they represent different rights and are tracked separately in royalty systems.
Can I use a different artist name for different genres?
Yes — many artists release under different names for different projects. Each name functions as a separate artist entity with its own profile, follower count, and streaming history. Just make sure each project's metadata consistently uses the correct name for that project.
What is a "release version" and when do I need one?
A release version specifies a particular edition of the recording — Deluxe Edition, Acoustic Version, Live Version, Remaster. If your release is a standard version, leave the field blank. Adding a version label unnecessarily creates confusion and can affect how the release is categorized.
How do I credit a producer who also co-wrote the track?
A producer who contributed to the songwriting gets credited in both the producer field and the songwriter field — with their legal name in both. These are separate credits feeding separate royalty systems.
What happens to my ISRCs if I switch distributors?
Carry them over. If your new distributor generates fresh ISRCs for recordings that already exist, platforms treat those as brand-new tracks and your streaming history, saves, and playlist placements don't follow. Supply the original ISRCs, UPC, and original release date during the transfer.
Get your metadata right before it reaches a platform
Every problem in this guide is cheap to prevent and expensive to fix — and almost always silent. Nobody tells you your publishing didn't match, or that your pitch went to the wrong genre desk. You just get a worse outcome with no explanation.
CREWPORT validates metadata, artwork, and explicit flags before delivery and keeps your artist profile IDs attached to every release, so the errors that cost the most surface while they're still free to fix.