Why credit and register your music properly?

Credit and registration get talked about as the same chore. They are not, and confusing them is how producers end up doing one and assuming they have done both.

Registration is a claim on money. Credit is a claim on your career. The first one is why you get paid for the record you already made. The second is why you get asked to make the next one.

The credit half is the one people skip

Metadata travels with a track through every system it touches, and it is written once, usually by whoever delivers the file. If your name is not in it at that moment, it is not in the streaming service, not in the credits page, not in the databases journalists and A&Rs search when they are trying to find out who made a sound they liked.

Getting it wrong is not dramatic. Nothing breaks. You simply become invisible on a record you produced, and the work of proving otherwise falls to you, permanently.

What to actually do

• Ask, in writing, how you are being credited before delivery, not after. Spell out the exact producer name you use.
• Make sure the recording has an ISRC and the composition has an ISWC, and that you know who is responsible for each.
• Check the track on a DSP once it is live. Errors are cheap to fix in week one and a bureaucratic ordeal in year two.

If the money side is what you are worried about, this piece covers registration and the order to do it in.

Karl Fowlkes takes the question in the video at the top of the page.