End Rant: "I Have A Credit Problem"

[fossiltooth]

A producer named "Count" contributed the"End Rant" to the most recent issue of the Tape Op magazine.

A lot of you probably read it. Count is out to improve the standards for crediting musicians, producers, engineers and others on digital releases. Unfortunately, it's very hard to click the link to Count's Facebook campaign in the paper version of the article so here it is again so you can click it and like it.

(<i><b>*nudge*</b></i>)

I was also inspired to write an article about this, and detailed a few steps artists and labels can take right now to help ensure that musicians, producers, graphic designers, photographers, writers and engineers of all stripes get properly credited on all releases in the future:

http://trustmeimascientist.com/2012/06/ ... dit-is-due

Ultimately, we're probably going to need wider acceptance of the best available protocols on behalf of digital distributors and streaming services, but this is a good start.

Thanks for reading and happy tracking!

-Justin

[Angie]

You didn't have a comments section on the blog, so I'll leave one here.
You have some novel ideas for including credits in the mp3 tags.
But the artist/label doesn't always have control. In the case of CD Baby, when they receive a CD, they are the ones creating the MP3 for downloads and sending it off to iTunes, Amazon, etc. Meta data is entered by their staff. If there is still a way to make changes to the tags in this instance I'd love to know about it.

[Nick Sevilla]

You didn't have a comments section on the blog, so I'll leave one here.
You have some novel ideas for including credits in the mp3 tags.
But the artist/label doesn't always have control. In the case of CD Baby, when they receive a CD, they are the ones creating the MP3 for downloads and sending it off to iTunes, Amazon, etc. Meta data is entered by their staff. If there is still a way to make changes to the tags in this instance I'd love to know about it.

Then, it follows that the Metadata should include credits, so it gets entered. along with a penalty if it is not entered or not entered correctly. you know, so they actually do it.

Cheers

[Bill Williams]

I am currently shopping a thesis on something very similar to this topic and I thought that some exerts may be applicable here, maybe not...

An edited section from a paper titled "Online Identity Complexes" I wrote in the middle of last year.


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The two distinct facets of an online identity complex are the individual and the organisation, the individual user a person with a name and the organisation which is a collection of numbers. A human with a name and Facebook's machine code...
In history the application of numbers to individuals has led to backlash against the powers which sort to identify humans by numbers, that is to say that tattooing the wrists of imprisoned peoples in the concentration camps and ghettoes of Nazi Germany did nothing for their public image... However today people cannot help themselves but sign up for a number everywhere. This is because of the basic human need for validation socially and the specific and brutal application of online identification requirements by civil organisations and governments.

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Whilst the aim of the paper is to dissuade civil organisations and governments from mandating "honesty on the internet" not to protect current predators but to protect a rather ill-equipped populous from the new age of online predators... The ones who will use future online credibility to access large sums of data to use against people in a form of blackmail...
So, that being said I think this topic is important because receiving credit for work which has been forced online is important and needs to be mandated with global laws and at the same time these laws need to respect the fact that ill-equipped persons need protection from laws which force populations to believe what they read on the internet.





Nothing worries me more than giving more power to those who already write history down with a bent.

[joelpatterson]

Illiteracy on the internet is also a big problem.

[beautyfish]

I read the OP's original article and the original article with much interest. I write a blog that's mostly about the challenges faced by music and audio freelancers, and one of these is the challenge of receiving credit where credit is due. Especially in our (mostly) virtual environment (discogs, wikipedia, IMdB, Allmusic) where almost anyone is able to log on and "edit" your credits, it is incredibly difficult for a professional to maintain any control over how his or her portfolio is represented.