Metadata is every piece of text that travels with your audio: artist name, title, credits, dates, codes. Stores and collecting societies read that text, not the music, to decide who gets paid. A single wrong letter can send your streams to a stranger or leave your royalties sitting unmatched.
One name, spelled one way, everywhere
Stores match each delivery to an artist profile by the exact artist name. If one release says Mohammed and the next says Mohamed, the store usually creates two profiles, or attaches your release to someone else who already uses that spelling. Your audience, monthly listeners and follower count are then split or misdirected.
Decide your artist name once, including capital letters, spaces and any diacritics, and use it identically on every release, every channel and every society registration. With each new release, give your distributor the links or identifiers of your existing store profiles so it is attached to the right one.
Arabic and Latin: pick a primary script and a fixed transliteration
Gulf artists face a choice no other market faces so often: the same name can be written in Arabic and in several Latin spellings. Choose one primary display name, usually the script your audience searches most, and one fixed transliteration for the other script. Write both down and never vary them between releases.
Some stores support a second, localised spelling of the artist name and the title that is linked to the same profile; ask your distributor to use that field rather than mixing scripts in one title. Store style rules usually reject extra information inside titles, so avoid brackets containing a translation, the word official, a year or a social-media handle.
- Primary name: one script, one spelling, used on every release
- Localised name: the other script, delivered in the dedicated field where a store supports it
- Titles: written in the language the song is sung in, with no added words
Credits are not decoration
Every track should carry its lyricist and composer, its producer, the performers and the role of each, and the featured artists in the featured-artist field rather than only in the title. Many stores now require a songwriter credit before they accept a release, and most display credits publicly, so missing names also mean missing visibility for your collaborators.
Credits also feed money. Performing-rights organisations match song registrations to store data using writer names, and neighbouring-rights societies use performer names and roles. When those names are missing or spelled differently from your society registrations, the money stays unmatched and is eventually redistributed to others under each society's rules.
Dates, labels and the fields people skip
There are two dates. The original release date is the day the recording first came out anywhere; the digital release date is the day this delivery goes live. When you re-deliver or move a catalogue, keep the original date, so the release stays in its place in your discography and is not presented as new. Set the digital date far enough ahead for stores to ingest it.
The label name, the copyright and phonogram lines with their years, the lyric language, the genre and the explicit flag are read by stores for search, filtering and legal display. Fill them deliberately. A wrong lyric language hides a song from the listeners most likely to want it; a missing explicit flag can lead to a takedown later.
How bad data loses money
Bad metadata rarely produces an error message; it produces silence. Streams accumulate on a duplicate profile nobody promotes. Royalties for the song wait at a society because the writer name on the store side does not match the registration. A rejected release misses its planned date because the title contained a word the store does not allow. None of this is visible on the day it happens.
The fix is boring and effective: keep one master sheet for your catalogue with the agreed spelling of every name, every credit, every code and both dates, and copy from it every time. At Mazufa Records a person checks each release against store rules before delivery and writes to you if something would be rejected.
Three practical steps
- Fix your artist name in both scripts today and record it in one catalogue sheet.
- Add lyricist, composer, producer and performer credits to every track before delivery.
- Keep the original release date on every re-delivery or transfer.
Questions people ask
My name already appears on a store with a different spelling. What now?
Ask your distributor to request a profile merge or correction with the store, providing the links to both profiles. It usually takes some days. Meanwhile, deliver new releases only under the spelling you want to keep.
Should my song title be in Arabic or in Latin letters?
In the language and script in which it is sung and known. If you want a Latin version for search, deliver it as a localised title where the store supports one, not inside the main title.
Do I need credits for a solo track I wrote and produced myself?
Yes. Your own name goes in each role: lyricist, composer, producer, performer. Societies and stores match by role, and an empty field is treated as unknown, not as you.