History:Release Status

Description

The Release Status is a ReleaseAttribute that describes how 'official' a Release is.

List of possible Release Status

Official

• Any release officially sanctioned by the artist and/or their record company. (Most releases will fit into this category.)

Promotion

• A give-away release or a release intended to promote an upcoming official release. (e.g. pre-release versions or releases included with a magazine, versions supplied to radio DJs for air-play, etc).

Bootleg

• An unofficial/underground release that was not sanctioned by the artist and/or the record company. This includes unofficial live recordings, pirated releases, and custom burnt compilations. In the latter case, we do not sanction entering custom compilation CDs (homebrews) into MusicBrainz, as this information has little relevance to anyone besides the creator. One of the challenges in this system is to identify the "real" bootlegs from the homebrews.

Pseudo-Release

• A pseudo-release is used at one end of a TranslationTransliterationRelationshipType. It allows us to retain and link to useful translation/transliteration info until NextGenerationSchema allows us to display the info in a better way.

On a transl*ation the "Pseudo-Release" ReleaseStatus should be used for all transl*ations of titles that do not appear on an actual release (even if they appear on an official site). These releases are otherwise identical and implicitly share the same relationships and non-language/script attributes as the original language version. It is possible for the transl*ation to also be an official release, such as if a release also has an identical release overseas but the back of the CD case is transl*ated by the label for overseas sale. In this case there will be two "official releases" and no pseudo-release in the relationship. As for the direction of the AR and which should be the "original", the original should default to the native language of the artist; any odd circumstances can be handeled on a case by case basis. Luckily the addition of bonus tracks on releases from different countries makes this issue less common than at first glance.

If the album has tracks listed in duplicate languages, both languages will be tagged and the ReleaseStatus will be set to "Official". All other versions that don't reflect the album itself will be classified as "Pseudo-Release" even if the track listing on these pseudo-releases are identical to one of languages on the "official" album it is still not THE "official" release that had both languages.

In situations where the physical release can not be obtained and the artists official site lists either one language or the other, default to the native release language of the artist as the "official" version and the other as the "Pseudo-Release".

Guidelines for Release Status

The type should apply to most of the tracks on the release. It's OK to have a couple of tracks that do not fit the release type, as long as the type applies to the release overall.

• Status: This is an OfficialStyleGuideline. (This is also a work in progress and there is a ReleaseTypeRestructuringProposal).