History:Label Future

Label future

Label > Label future

Purpose

This page should be used to collect the various limitations and known bugs of the current label system in MusicBrainz, as well as ideas about how to enhance it and make it evolves toward a better model.

List of outstanding active tickets that should be fixed

• 2565: Add "format/medium" field for release events
• 2564: Barcode data type and barcode verification

List of (easy) enhancements without ticket yet that we should do ASAP

• discuss and rationalize the use of SpecialPurposeLabels (like [autorelease])
• need a small logo for labels for wiki use (just like we have for releases and artists).
• documentation is lacking a lot on label EditTypes, and also EditLabelPage
• once we have the system live, we need to stuff examples in all existing documentation
• have a new interwiki link to directly point to labels on MusicBrainz
• subscriptions preferences wording should be updated in the site as they mention only artists
• remove the card label status link in all LabelCategory linked page once we go live

List of enhancements that may be fixed

• 2344: Multiple labels with identical label codes can be created (without warning)
• 2341: Label creation page should offer (documentation) links
• What about not having release date mandatory on release event? That means we could enter Label/Cat#/EAN even if the release date is not know. This will allow to migrate a lot of information from release annotation to release events. Without this, there will be some Label/Cat#/EAN in release annotation and other in release events. If we do this we should rename "release events" to something else ("release data set"?) -- murdos 11:25, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

• I like that idea. Did you talked with luks to see if it is something short term feasible? If not, please do, and eventually create a ticket. Also note that there currently is a bug on test (no error message is displayed when one enters an event without date on the edit event page). I'm running out of time, please go ahead with both these problems if you got time to. -- dmppanda 14:00, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

List of things we need more informations about

• There have been some discussion lately about concurrent/additional label identification systems in the wild, apparently dependent of the country. At that time, we lack informations about how these relate to the Label Code system, and there is no solution foreseen. Please provide input on that thread if you have more informations. -- dmppanda 19:28, 29 January 2007 (UTC)

Known limitations requiring lots of work and future major enhancements

• Ideally, we could be able to attach multiple release events (release date and country) to a unique catalog number / EAN. -- dmppanda 21:22, 03 November 2006 (UTC)
• Also one release event could use multiple labels. For example Inside Out Music records are always distributed by SPV and they have an SPV catalogue number as well as an IO catalogue number. Therefore I think one "release set" should contain: several <release date, release region> pairs, several <label, catalogue number> pairs and single fields such as the EAN (of which the barcode is just the representation, but could leave the name like that as it's easier to identify for users which don't know that). -- Shepard 13:37, 07 January 2007 (UTC)
• ARs such as the DiscogsRelationshipType and the AmazonRelationshipType would ideally be attached to a release set - but I guess that has to wait until we can separate between releases and albums. :) -- Shepard 13:37, 07 January 2007 (UTC)
  • I'm not sure I understand correctly these last points. How would we allow: on one hand, a single release event (country, date) to be linked to several different label/cat/bar (as in your example), and to single AMZ/Discogs links, and on the other hand, a single release set (single label/cat/bar) to be linked to several different release events and several different AMZ/Discogs links? Though this question is theoretical ;) - Also do you imply that Discogs/AMZ links should be unique to a release set? -- dmppanda 16:15, 07 January 2007 (UTC)
    • Well, one release date could refer to several label releases (ie, different pages on amazon and discogs), and indeed, different release dates could refer to different label releases. Finally, one label release (ie, page on amazon and discogs) could be a release on 2 or more labels (eg http://www.discogs.com/release/374880). I think the best way to to this would be to allow for ARs (specially discogs and amazon ones, perhaps others) specific to release events, but this is probably difficult/impossible. Ultimately I think this will all be easier to deal with when NGS gets here. -- Gecks
    • My initial idea in ReleaseDataSet was to have one set for each unique release (identified by the EAN for example, although sometimes not even they identify a unique release). In this set you would then have a list of <release date, release country> pairs - still for this unique release, because different countries have different days in the week when music is mostly released, so the item with the EAN 1234567890123 could be released on Monday in .de and on Wednesday in the UK for example. Then you would also store a list of <label, cat> pairs, because different labels work on one unique release - as I described in my example above, InsideOut releases are always distributed by SPV and both have their own catalogue system. And then you store other identifiers in this set, like the EAN, Discogs/ASIN stuff (yes, unique to a release set).
      Note though that this page here is about a first step into the right direction. The ideas in ReleaseDataSet are relativised by NGS where the whole tracklisting with titles, tracktimes, DiscIDs and so on would be included in a "release set". So, not everything needs to be coded yet, limitations are implied. One label per release date is a good start. If this was to be extended before labels go live, I would prefer multiple labels per date over multiple dates per label, but that's just a personal preference. -- Shepard 15:22, 09 January 2007 (UTC)

• Labels activities may be very complex (dismantling, dormant labels, reviving), and the concept of a single life between two points in time (begin date and end date) may prove rather inadequate (or at least a raw approximation). At that time there's no way to provide with a better model, though there is hope this issue may be solved later (note that the problem is similar with groups). We need a richer way to describe label activities and period of activities. -- dmppanda 14:21, 22 March 2007 (UTC)
  • A ticket related to that has been filled: 2342 Split LabelType into 5 fields

List of fixed tickets (historical purpose)

• 2563: Label code field shouldn't be a free string
• 2366: automatically filter out "LC" from label codes
• 2348: Suggested AR: {artist} was signed to {label} from {year} to {year}
• 2347: Suggested AR: {label} has a fan page at {url}
• 2345: 'is/was division of' label AR

List of old discussions (historical purpose)

LabelCode:

• I have never encountered a label code with a hyphen before. I suggest we stick to just LCxxxx in MusicBrainz to stay as close to what's printed on covers and discs as possible. -- Prodoc 22:11, 08 November 2006 (UTC) I don't think we should even store the LC(-) part. Storing xxxx in the database IMO is enough, as this is the only relevant part. How it is displayed is another and IMO irrelevant problem. -- dmppanda 01:29, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

LabelSortName:

• At that time, there are no known cases of two or more "collaborating" labels issuing a release, so there should theoretically be no need for rules regarding collaborations.
• The last point (4) of label SortName style may be discussed, and one may argue that some label can use the name of their founder, and that such names may follow the usual artist SortNameStyle. I don't think so, and I would like to see concrete examples before taking decision and add additional sorting rules. -- dmppanda 18:54, 29 January 2007 (UTC)