If you don’t provide the right at the point of creation of your or , you may not get paid correctly, if at all. This is why a significant amount of money belonging to goes unclaimed every year.
For example, if a video using your musical work or sound recording is uploaded to a without accurate and metadata, it’s very unlikely that you will be paid for its use since it won’t be accurately identified and tracked. Now imagine this millions of times over all over the world. That can amount to a lot of money not coming your way.
When should a creator collect metadata?
Even if you have a , a , or a , there is no one other than you, the creator, who better knows the truth about who contributed to the creation of a musical work or sound recording. Therefore, when you create a musical work or sound recording, you should always make sure to collect the names of all contributors, , , and any other , and include their , and identifiers, in the metadata during or right after the songwriting or recording process.
This sounds easy enough to manage. But remember writing and recording a musical work can happen over long periods of time, sometimes years, and across many countries and studios, with many people involved. So, it’s easy to lose track of the information. You are the best source of information, so capture it any way possible, paper and pen, email, or use special apps or the system that can do the job for you, as long as it is done accurately and as quickly as possible.
When it comes to responsibility for metadata, creators need to ensure their musical works and sound recordings are fully and accurately documented, whether they’re doing that themselves or have a music publisher, manager, or record label doing it for them. This information includes but is not limited to:
Title and alternative titles
and numbers
Duration
Category, if applicable, for example, TV, radio, cinema, library)
Songwriter and performer names
IPI and IPN numbers
Roles, for example, composer/author, arranger
Music publisher and record label names
All other contributor names
Video credit: Tiffany Orvet, Dilun Riad Edmon, Pontus Norberg, Tobias Leo Nordquist, Ponny Höijer, William Engström, Parapix