Missing credits on streaming platforms

[Claramusic]

Hi !
First time I post on the forum - I have so many questions ! I hope some of you could help me...

I just started to work in the music industry, and I realize that there is a lot of producers/songwriters/engineers that are not credited on Spotify or on other streaming platforms. This is so frustrating ! Creatives deserves to be recognized, credited and paid for their hard-work.
Some professionals told me it's because there is a lost of metadata between the studio, the label and the streaming platform.

Did you agree ?

[EnochLight]

Hi !
First time I post on the forum - I have so many questions ! I hope some of you could help me...

I just started to work in the music industry, and I realize that there is a lot of producers/songwriters/engineers that are not credited on Spotify or on other streaming platforms. This is so frustrating ! Creatives deserves to be recognized, credited and paid for their hard-work.
Some professionals told me it's because there is a lost of metadata between the studio, the label and the streaming platform.

Did you agree ?

I don't agree, because usually this sort of thing is a lot simpler than they're leading on to. For instance, with TuneCore as a distributor, one single "entity" gets paid - regardless of whether or not it's a band composed of several members, a single "singer/songwriter", a producer, etc. So the problem is the label (entity) is not taking the money they get from the streaming platform and paying the people (studio, singer/songwriter, band members, etc) fairly. Metadata has nothing to do with it.

Does the label have contracts in place to pay a studio 25% for the writer/producer and 75% for the singer/performer? If not, I'd start there. It's all simple math after all.

More often than not, the label is screwing someone over.

[KVRaside]

Now that people reading CD covers is basically extinct, you can pretty much forget getting credited reliably.

Best bet is to ask your clients to mention your name on their socials, and places like YouTube and Bandcamp if they can.

[EnochLight]

Now that people reading CD covers is basically extinct, you can pretty much forget getting credited reliably.

Best bet is to ask your clients to mention your name on their socials, and places like YouTube and Bandcamp if they can.

Being mentioned on social media is not a written contract that would result in revenue. I mean, unless your goal is to not get paid but get talked about instead?

[KVRaside]

Now that people reading CD covers is basically extinct, you can pretty much forget getting credited reliably.

Best bet is to ask your clients to mention your name on their socials, and places like YouTube and Bandcamp if they can.

Being mentioned on social media is not a written contract that would result in revenue. I mean, unless your goal is to not get paid but get talked about instead?

I wasn't addressing the getting paid issue. I get around that by never releasing anything until I'm paid in full. I meant that if you get mentioned here and there online it's better than nothing in terms of 'credits'.

Would be nice if Spotify and Apple Music had a proper setup for this fairly simple and important information.

[mcbpete]

Pretty sure Spotify & Apple Music don't care one bit about the artists they have up on there. As long as they get their click-through pennies, they're happy !

[PeterP_swe]

I can right click any song on Spotify, select "Show Credits" and see "Performed by", "Written by" and "Produced by". This might be limited to the desktop client, I haven't tried on mobile.

Some albums on iTunes include a digital booklet in PDF format.

It's up to the artist and/or record company to make sure this information is given to the streaming platforms.

[EnochLight]

It's up to the artist and/or record company to make sure this information is given to the streaming platforms.

^^ THIS ^^

Honestly, IMHO, how it works NOW is far better than how it used to work since the recording industry began. Now anyone can self-publish and get access to a worldwide market and keep 70% of their sale profits (not to be confused with streaming), for very little money. Prior to the Internet and the fall of the (classic) music industry in the early 2000's, artists had to be found by talent scouts or otherwise "discovered", sign contracts that essentially made them indentured servants, and almost never kept more than a small percentage of total sales (and most went into debt, owing the record label money for years and never seeing a cent of their record sales because it cost hundreds of thousand of dollars that the studio would "loan" to produce an album). The vast majority of artists and talent went undiscovered due to there being no way to, well - discover them.

Sure, streaming platforms like Spotify, etc, pay ridiculously low amounts of a fraction of a percentage of 1 cent for each play, but that's more money than you would get 20 years ago when there was no way to sell your music to someone in Istanbul when you were an indie artist in Chicago.

[MMaarrkk]

It has definitely been getting better over the years. But even now the producer, artist, songwriter trio is the one that gets the limelight, based on how credits work on certain streaming platforms, like Spotify, where these three are the only ones you see.

Which is great, but from a consumer standpoint, I would understand how an engineer might not mean much to the general public and they wouldn't care about the intricacies of the entirety of the process.

And at the end of the day, these platforms allow for credit, so it's up to the label/artist/management, like many have already pointed out.