label End Date

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Revision as of 00:09, 15 February 2008 by Dmppanda (talk | contribs) ((Imported from MoinMoin))
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Description

The end date property of a Label stores the date at which the label ceased to exist. The meaning may depend on the type of label you're dealing with:

  • for companies (holdings, distributors), it's the date at which the company stopped to exist (be it bankrupted or dismantled)
  • for imprints, collection names (when used as labels) and subdivisions (or subsidiaries) for which there is no available (or hard to find) dismantling date, it's the release date of the last ever issued release under that label name
  • for bootlegs company, or otherwise obscure/dubious companies, it's tolerable also to use the release date of the last release, unless one has more accurate informations

Like other dates in MusicBrainz (be it in ReleaseEvents, in AdvancedRelationships, ArtistBeginDate and ArtistEndDate) the begin date of a Label can vary in its accuracy from just a year to the exact day. Note that you cannot enter just a day without specifying a month or just a month without a year though.

The end date of a Label corresponds with the LabelBeginDate.

Additional Informations

Of course, you shouldn't document an end date just because a label hasn't released anything in a while. Companies may go dormant - that doesn't mean they stopped existing. A good example is the label E.S.P., which stayed dormant for nearly thirty years then resurfaced. Furthermore, trademarks may change hand and be unused for several years, before being used again.

You shouldn't, either, consider a label ended just because it was bought by another label, or changed hands: it may very well continue its existence as a subsidiary, and eventually spin-off of its parent company at some point.

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).

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