These are the Requirements That You Must Take Into Account to Release Your Songs on Digital Platforms

Label, licensing, prices, territories and release date

• Editorial or recording label. You must specify the name of the label of your release. If your release  is not linked to any record label, you can specify a custom label name or alias (such as your artist name) of your choice in this field. Make sure that the name provided is not misleading or deceptive, nor violate the laws of intellectual property. Make sure that the name is not too long, since it may cause metadata conflicts in certain DSPs.

• Price categories. You must choose a price category from one of four price categories. This does not ensure an identical price in all channels, since they have the right to determine the final price of a product, depending on the territory and currency of a sale. The categories are indicative of the range of price you desire for each album individually. The price categories given in the platform are:

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1. Budget: equivalent to an economic or the most affordable price.
2. Mid: equivalent to a standard or common prince in each channel.
3. Full: equivalent to a higher or more expensive than the standard price.
4. Premium: equivalent to the more expensive price.

• Release dates. Depending on the date indicated in this section, the album will be published in the channels sooner or later. If the album is distributed previously to the release date, it will not be made public until the date indicated before the distribution. If the album is distributed after the release date, it will be directly published within the 2 to 10 work days, from its distribution.
• License. You can choose between two main types of license: Copyright or Creative Commons. Copyright ensures a full protection of all intellectual rights for each rights’ owner or holder, while Creative Commons has several types of licenses for different types of interests (for more information, please visit http://creativecommons.org/). For publication of an album, it is required to indicate (C) or © (the Copyright owner or holder, who is generally the author of the compositional work); and (P) or ℗ (the sound recording owner or publishing rights holder, who is generally the producer or record label). In the case of groups or bands where rights are shared, the group or band name can be indicated in both cases. Please, keep in mind the License holder should be coincident between the “Licenses” tab and the license holder of each track of the release.
• Territories. If you do not have publishing rights for all territories, or it is not of your interest to publish the content in all territories, you may indicate the desired territories in the “License” section in the platform.

Cover art requirements

• Quality of images. The cover art must not be any of the following: blurry, pixelated, mismatched, cut, misaligned, rotated, incorrect, stretched, mirrored or have any other quality issues. Also, the textual information given must be fairly readable, trying to avoid designs which might difficult its comprehension, like smaller size texts or similar concepts.

• Accuracy. The information shown in the cover image should always match the information of the metadata as accurately as possible and without any class of abbreviation. Any information provided in the cover art must be justified in the metadata, but not strictly vice-versa. Please note that if the release is a single that belongs to an album, the name of the album cannot appear on the cover unless it is coherently justified on the metadata.

• Dimensions and file format. The cover art of all releases must accomplish with all following requirements:

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1. Proportion: exactly squared.
2. Minimum size: 3000 x 3000 px.
3. Maximum size: 5000 x 5000 px.
4. Accepted formats: JPG, TIFF or PNG.
5. Mode: RGB (CMYK is not available).
6. Maximum size of file: 36 MB.

• White covers. Full-white covers are not allowed because channels tend to interpret it as an error.
• Links and web pages. The cover art can not contain website addresses, websites that sell music, mentions to social media, logos of any stores or services related to entertainment, mentions to physical formats, video formats or any external reference of the digital release.
• Telephone or email addresses. The cover art can not contain neither telephone numbers nor email addresses.
• Credits and collaborations. The cover art can include credits or other artists’ names, who are not the primary artists of the release as long as they are justified in the metadata. But at the same time, it is not permitted to show arbitrarily in the cover art only one of these artists and not the others, whichever is their role (producers, featuring artists, composers, lyricists, etc.). If one of them appears, the rest of the artists with the same role must appear too. The name of the primary artist must appear on the cover so that the other roles can appear on it.
• Tracklisting. The cover art can not contain the track listing.
• Descriptions and biographies. The cover art must not include album descriptions or artists biographies.
• Pricing. The cover art can not include references to the pricing, or any information with promotional purposes.
• Digital, physical and video format. The cover art can not include references to it being a digital or physical product (such as “Online”, “CD”, “Compact Disc”, etc.). Mentions to the video or audio format like “Stereo”, “Mono” etc. are neither allowed. Because of the latter, it is necessary to avoid the inclusion of CDs, cassettes and vinyls on the cover. Also, the cover art must not contain references to contents that are missing in the album, such as “Includes DVD” or “Includes Lyrics”. Similar expressions like “All Rights Reserved”, “Registered Product”, “Under Copyright”, etc., can not be used. Not even other redundant or unnecessary information. The release reference number can appear in the cover, but not the UPC or any of the tracks’ ISRC codes.
• Translations and use of special characters. The use of non-occidental or special characters as mere ornaments (like Arabic characters, Chinese characters or Greek letters) must be avoided unless they guard an explicit relation with the content. Also, side-by-side translations or transliterations of the content are not allowed. The information must be written following the same structure and alphabet as in the metadata.
• Misleading information. The cover art must not be misleading. For example, prominently depicting or referencing an artist even though the artist does not perform on the album. Some of these cases might end-up requiring certain licenses or in extreme cases leading to applying our Anti-Fraud Policy.
• Parental Advisory tag. If the cover art is explicit the Parental Advisory tag must be added to it and marked as explicit in the metadata at the album level. Note that in case the lyrics are the only actual explicit content in the release and the cover art does not depict anything particularly explicit, its use will not be mandatory. In case of using this logo, at least one of the tracks in the release must be marked as “explicit”.
• Pornography and violent content. The cover art can not include contents that may be racist, pornographic, or glorify or trivialize violence. As previously mentioned in our “Explicit content” block, this content might require changes in order to be approved. Check the section for further details.
• Offensive symbolism. The cover art must not contain any kind of symbolism that offends a specific group of people or ethnicities, such as Nazi symbolism, restricted by the Strafgesetzbuch section 86a. For more information take a look at the “Explicit content” block.
• Logos, images and registered brands. All the logos (including the involved texts) must be justified in the metadata. The logos can be related to the artists, producers, labels or other information involved with the musical product. It may be necessary to report the corresponding documentation to maintain registered brands, private images or references to companies or institutions in order to demonstrate the user is allowed to use them.
1. Designers, photographers and other mentions to the cover artists are not allowed.
2. Registered brands and private or personal images (from people or companies) can not be included in the cover art. The only exceptions are when they are visually irrelevant (being part of the background), they accomplish a relevant role (i.e.: in a musical) or are justified in the metadata (for example, as the producer or the publisher).

Audio requirements

• Mastering. In order to ensure a good audio quality and meet the standards of today’s music industry, all audio files must have undergone a professional mastering before their distribution.
• Format and file requirements. The audio files must meet the following requirements:
1. Format: FLAC or WAV.
2. Requirements: Minimum of 16 bit, 44.1 Khz, stereo / Recommended 24 bits, 48Khz or 24 bits 96Khz.

Here you can find further information about Audio formats.

• Audio quality. The audio files should not have any sound imperfection. Audio files containing any background noise and other sound imperfections will not be accepted for distribution. Silence, cuts, pauses or extended silences are not allowed. The audio cannot have more than 10 seconds of silence neither in the beginning nor in the end of the track. Other kinds of silences, such as cuts, long pauses or sudden endings, should be avoided too as they can be misunderstood as audio errors.

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1. Hidden tracks and ghost tracks. This content must be included separately in digital releases, indicating the corresponding expression in the version field. The silence rules apply equally to this kind of audio.
2. Silent tracks and white noise tracks. This kind of audio is not allowed. Its use will be interpreted as fraudulent, leading to the application of our Anti-Fraud Policy.

• Audios and titles. Audio files and track titles must always match. Audios uploaded to non-corresponding tracks are not accepted.

• Minimum length. If it is a single, a song has to last more than 30 seconds, otherwise the channels can interpret the release as click fraud. If it is part of an EP or album it can be permitted as long as it has coherence with the whole release or if the song is an intro, interlude or an outro. Generally speaking, unless it is artistically justified, we recommend audios longer than a minute.

• Previews, commercials, snippets and trailers. None of these formats are permitted.

Licensing requirements

• Policy of use of samples. In case your track uses phonographic material from any third party, check the following article to check if you meet the requirements for the distribution of this content. Please, note that our team might ask for licenses to authorize the distribution of the affected material as a mandatory condition for its distribution.

• Covers. In case any of the tracks distributed are a version or cover, please, check this article. Besides the information given there, bear in mind the following:

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1. Composers and lyricists. The use of both roles will be mandatory in all the covers - unless the track is instrumental, in which case only the composer must be filled. The name must be the complete legal name of the authors; avoid artistic names or band names. Remember that, in case the track is covering a popular song whose author is unknown, you can use names such as “Popular”, “Traditional”, “Anonymous” or similar.
2. Transformations. All the tracks that transform any dimension of an original composition (lyrics, translations, structures, substantial arrangements, melody, harmony, medleys, etc.) will require a mandatory license in order to be distributed.
3. Titles. The name of the original composition must be respected, unless the license presented says otherwise.
4. Tributes. The titles included in a cover or tribute album must not make any reference to the original artist. Do not use phrases such as: “Original Performed by”, “In the Style of”, “Tribute to”, “Cover of” or similar.
5. Deceptive or misleading information. Tribute or cover albums must not be deceptive or misleading. Do not use genres, popular song lyrics or the original artist names as the album title, track title or artist name. Content that is considered deceptive or misleading will not be accepted and might lead to the application of our Anti-Fraud Policy.

• Remixes, mashups and related formats. For original work, licenses will not be required. For remixes of other artists, licenses will be mandatory. In order to obtain them, follow the indications given in the “Policy of use of samples”.
1. Continuous mixes and DJ sets. DJ sets (with own or other artists tracks) and continuous mixes (that is, putting all the tracks of an album together in a single track creating a continuous mix) are not allowed.
• Public domain recordings. Distribution of this kind of content is not permitted. Our team reserves the right to remove it in case it is detected.
• Sound-alikes. Sound-alikes (cover songs that sound like copies of the original) or deceptive / misleading audio will not be accepted and might lead to the application of our Anti-Fraud Policy.