Cover Art

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Revision as of 16:35, 15 August 2022 by Sound.and.vision (talk | contribs) (Add line about fan art, that doesn't seem to be covered anywhere else... https://community.metabrainz.org/t/cover-art-uploads-when-proof-is-impossible/597228/12)
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Cover art, also known as "album art" or "album artwork", is artwork that provides a visual representation of a release. Normally it refers to the front of the release packaging, but the Cover Art Archive can store images of the back of the release packing, of the media itself, and of many other pieces — right down to the sticker on the shrinkwrap.

Fan Art

Any fan-made artwork is not to be uploaded to any release, with the exception of bootleg releases where said artwork was released with the unofficial release.

In MusicBrainz website display

As cover art has legal licensing and copyright issues associated, MusicBrainz can display cover art only from the Cover Art Archive, approved cover art sites, linked to by a cover art relationship or ASIN relationship.

In media files

Media players that support cover art display do so in several ways, often supporting more than one mechanism. Images can be:

  • stored within the media player's own internal library/database
  • stored as a separate file in the same folder/directory as the release, using a naming convention (e.g. folder.jpg)
  • embedded within each track's metadata info (e.g. ID3).

Picard supports the 2nd and 3rd option out of the box via the Cover Art Archive or from various 3rd-party providers.

Usage

We welcome your contribution of cover art images. See How to Add Cover Art for instructions. See Cover Art Types for a list of pieces of the release (e.g. Front, Back, Medium, Obi, etc.) with which images can be labelled.