Distribution and metadata for Australian releases

Distribution is a delivery service sitting on top of rights you already have — or already failed to write down. A distributor can put a file in a store. It cannot invent a split sheet, a sample clearance, or a collecting-society registration.

This guide is the packet you assemble before you pick a logo. It will not rank distributors. Fit depends on whether you need a simple upload, a label-services bundle, or a local accounting relationship you already trust.

The packet

1. The work, already registered. Title, writers, splits. See APRA AMCOS registration. If a publisher files the work, get the registered title in writing.

2. The master identity. An ISRC for each sound recording you consider distinct. APRA AMCOS notes that ISRCs help matching and that they do not issue them. In Australia, ARIA is the trade body commonly pointed to for issuance. Follow the issuer you actually use. Never reuse an ISRC on a new master. A remaster, a radio edit, and an instrumental may need distinct codes — your issuer and distributor will have the current operational rule; do not invent one here.

3. The credit sheet. Legal names, performing names, writers, publishers, featured artists, producer, engineers, mixer, mastering engineer, artwork author, sample/interpolation notes or “none”. The Arts Law Centre of Australia is the public briefing on why credits are contract, not decoration.

4. The audio. One finished master per recording identity. Agree sample rate and bit depth with whoever is mastering. Do not upload a bounced “almost” and hope to swap it silently later. Stores can be slow to replace audio; some never quite replace a leaked early file in the wild.

5. The art. Correct aspect, no unlicensed photography, no third-party logo you cannot use, text that remains legible at thumbnail size. If a photographer shot the cover, you need the permission that matches the use.

6. The identifiers around the edges. UPC/EAN for the product if your distributor does not assign one. ISWC if it arrives later from the works registration ecosystem — do not fabricate it. IPI/CAE for writers if you have them.

7. The date and the territory. A date is a coordination tool, not a superstition. Territories are a rights question: do you actually control the world, or only some of it?

Language that must be the same in three places

The registered work title, the distributor track title, and the live rundown title should be the same string unless you have a documented alternative title. “The River (Radio Edit)” and “The River” are different products. They may still be one work.

Writer names should be recognisable as the same humans. If Amelia Jane Clark writes as AJ Clark, pick a legal-name field and a performing-name field and keep them consistent.

Splits on the credit sheet should match the portal. If they do not, you are planning an argument.

Audio hygiene without snake oil

• Leave true peaks in the range your mastering engineer specified. This site will not invent a LUFS law. Platforms document their own normalisation; read the one you are delivering to.
• Do not upload a mastering-note WAV named final_final3_USETHIS. Use isrc_or_catalog_title_version.wav.
• Keep the 24-bit (or agreed) master in two places before you upload.
• If you deliver instrumental, TV track, or clean versions, treat them as recordings with identities, not as afterthoughts in a zip called extras.

Artwork and the other copyrights

A cover is a copyright work. So is a font you do not license. So is a photograph of a person who did not agree to a nationwide campaign. So is a still from someone else’s video.

If the art includes a trademark — a sports club, another band, a government crest — you need permission or you need a different image. We will not host a “just do it, nobody checks” paragraph.

Reading a distribution agreement

Read, at minimum:

• Term. How long they may deliver the recording, and how you end it.
• Exclusivity. Whether you may also upload the same master elsewhere.
• Money. Currency, fees, reserve, payment calendar, how you see statements.
• Rights claimed. Some services stay in delivery. Some try to add publishing administration, neighbouring-rights collection, or content-ID. Those can be useful. They can also collide with a publisher or with PPCA/ARIA neighbouring-rights arrangements you already have. Ask before you tick a box you do not understand.
• Content claims. YouTube and similar fingerprints can generate income and also block legitimate uses (a live clip, a lesson). Decide who owns the claim.
• Takedown and corrections. How a wrong writer is fixed, and how long a store may keep a cached file.
• Warranties. You will be asked to warrant that you own or control what you upload. Do not warrant a sample you did not clear.

If the agreement is unreadable, that is information. Arts Law can help you prepare questions; a solicitor can read the thing.

Neighbouring rights and the recording

PPCA is the Australian society for public performance, communication and broadcast of recordings. Featured Australian artists who register can access the artist share PPCA describes; unregistered artist shares may flow differently. Read their current artist pages. Distribution to Spotify is not a substitute for PPCA registration, because they are different uses and different pipes.

Do not invent a PPCA cheque size. PPCA itself explains why its collections differ from APRA’s, including statutory limits that apply to sound recordings.

Common failure modes

• Uploading before the split is agreed, then “fixing it later”
• One ISRC reused on a re-mix that is a new master
• A featured singer not named in metadata and not paid
• Cover-song composition licensed in your head but not in a document
• Artwork stolen from a search-engine image tab
• A distributor add-on that assigned publishing you already assigned

Each of these is cheaper to prevent than to unwind. None of them requires a statistic. They require a pause.

Education version

Have students build a dummy packet for a public-domain work or a work they entirely wrote: credit sheet, imaginary ISRC formatted correctly as a pattern (do not mint a real one), artwork they photographed, and a one-page agreement checklist. That is a guest-post-ready classroom.

Then send them to the releasing hub and the rights guide so delivery never floats free of ownership.

Version language that stores understand

Be boring on purpose: Original, Radio Edit, Instrumental, Live, Remaster. If you invent Ultimate Night Mix (Real), a store may treat it as a new product you cannot find later.

Put the version in the version field, not only in the title, when the distributor gives you both. Keep the work title stable.

If a live version is a new performance, it is usually a new recording identity even when it is the same work. That is how a live album does not overwrite the studio master in a fingerprint system — when you do the paperwork.

When to delay a Friday

Delay if a writer has not agreed the split. Delay if a sample email is still “we will know next week”. Delay if the cover photographer has not licensed the campaign use. Do not delay because a superstition about weekdays outran the packet. The packet is the release.

Stores, fingerprints, and the quiet after upload

After a distributor accepts a packet, stores still cache, fingerprint, and sometimes reject artwork that was fine yesterday. Keep the exact files you uploaded. If a store shows the wrong writer, use the distributor’s correction path and keep a ticket number. Do not “fix” it by uploading a second album with a tilde in the title.

Fingerprints can collide with a live clip, a lesson, or a rehearsal reel. Decide who owns the claim before release week. If a classroom needs to play the track, have a plan that is not “we will email the internet”.

If you teach metadata, have students break a packet on purpose — mismatched title, missing featured artist, reused dummy ISRC pattern — and write the correction email. That is more useful than a tour of logos.

Territory, take-down, and the long tail

If you do not control a territory, do not tick the world. If a previous distributor still has an exclusive term, do not upload a collision and hope. If you need a take-down, start the ticket before you announce a moral victory on social media; stores are slower than posts.

Keep a folder called release-legal with the agreement PDF, the credit sheet, the registration screenshot, and the artwork licence. Future-you will be asked for one of those on a day you do not remember the Friday.

Guest writers who want to document a specific distributor’s current UI should date the piece and accept that it will stale. Prefer checklists that name fields (title, version, ISRC, writers) over button colours.