Soundrop Content Policy and Style Guide

© 2018 Soundrop. Soundrop® is a registered trademark in the US and other countries. All Rights Reserved.
Last Updated on: 1/18/18

Contents
PART I: OVERVIEW AND CONTENT POLICY ................................................................................................... 2
1. Overview ............................................................................................................................................... 2
2. Content Policy ....................................................................................................................................... 3
2.1. When Mistakes Happen ................................................................................................................. 3
2.2. Two Strike Policy ............................................................................................................................ 3
2.3. Be True To Yourself ........................................................................................................................ 4
2.4. That Wise Adage About Biting The Hand That Feeds You ............................................................. 4
2.5. When In Doubt, Be Nice ................................................................................................................. 5
PART II: STYLE AND FORMATTING ................................................................................................................ 5
3. Artist and Contributor Names............................................................................................................... 5
3.1. Overview ........................................................................................................................................ 5
3.2. Be Consistent ................................................................................................................................. 5
3.3. Contributing Artist Name No-No’s ................................................................................................. 5
3.4. Featured Artists.............................................................................................................................. 6
3.5. Artist Names and Best Practices .................................................................................................... 6
3.6. Soundtracks and Classical Music.................................................................................................... 6
3.7. Various Artists and Multi-Artist Collaborations ............................................................................. 6
4. Album Titles .......................................................................................................................................... 7
4.1. What to Include in the Album Title ................................................................................................ 7
4.2. What NOT To Include In The Album Title ...................................................................................... 7
4.3. Soundtracks.................................................................................................................................... 8
5. Track Titles ............................................................................................................................................ 8
 5.1. What To Include In The Track Title ................................................................................................ 8
5.2. What NOT To Include In The Track Title ........................................................................................ 8
5.3. Medleys .......................................................................................................................................... 9
5.4. Remixes .......................................................................................................................................... 9
6. Genres ................................................................................................................................................... 9
6.1. Karaoke / Tribute ........................................................................................................................... 9
7. Classical Music .................................................................................................................................... 10
7.1. Genre............................................................................................................................................ 10
7.2. Artist and Contributor Names ...................................................................................................... 10
7.3. Album Titles ................................................................................................................................. 10
7.4. Track Titles ................................................................................................................................... 10
8. Cover Songs ......................................................................................................................................... 11
8.1. How To Fill Out The Composition Field ........................................................................................ 11
8.2. Where To List The Original Artist's Name Or The Songwriter's Name......................................... 11
8.3. Covers Of Public Domain Songs ................................................................................................... 12
9. Artwork ............................................................................................................................................... 12
10. Audio File Formats ............................................................................................................................ 12
11. Miscellaneous Tips ............................................................................................................................ 12

PART I: OVERVIEW AND CONTENT POLICY

1. Overview
Digital music distribution is a collaborative process that brings together content providers and content
retailers before the music goes live in stores. Soundrop works with a variety of music platforms,
retailers, and services to get your content into the stores of your choosing. Each of our distribution
partners has its own policies regarding content, and we are committed to providing them content that is
free of technical issues, formatting errors, and rights problems. We’ve put together this style guide to
help you format your releases so they can go live quickly.
As always, if you have any questions about these rules or about how a particular release should be
formatted, feel free to email us at [email protected].
2. Content Policy
2.1. When Mistakes Happen
As our Usage Guidelines state, rights are incredibly important to us and to our community, which
includes songwriters, performers, and other content creators. We expect our community to respect the
ownership of the content that is shared, to give credit where it is due, and to take responsibility for what
is shared.
Most of the time, mistakes are minor and don’t call for the removal of content. Our systems can detect
formatting errors, typos, and other small issues, and we may fix them before distributing. Our Support
Team may also ping you about making your album distribution friendly.
However, some mistakes, like those that involve infringement of the rights of others, the impersonation
of others, or the misuse of our platform, are less minor and will trigger our Two Strike Policy.
TIP:
Make sure you have all necessary rights and permissions to distribute the content you’re sending to us.
That includes rights to use the artist names, people’s (including artists and/or celebrities) likeness if they
appear on the album art, and, of course, the rights to all of the recordings. Keep in mind that Soundrop
can obtain licenses for you to distribute cover songs (when you mark a track as a cover
song), but cannot help you to obtain licenses to use samples of recordings or licenses to remix the
recordings of others. This means that if you have use any portion of the original recording in your
“cover”, that we will be unable to license your content.

2.2. Two Strike Policy

First Strike
If you distribute content that is identified as infringing or abusive, you’ll receive an email notification
with information about why your content was removed, and you’ll have the opportunity to respond to
the notification within two days. We reserve the right to remove the content based on your response
and the information we have, and if the complaint is deemed valid, we will apply a strike to your
account. (Please note that some of our distribution partners enforce a one-strike policy regarding certain
types of infringing or abusive content, and may block your content after only one strike.)
Second Strike
If you distribute content that is identified as infringing or abusive a second time, you’ll receive another
email notification and again have the opportunity to respond. If the second complaint is deemed valid,
another strike will be applied to your account and all of your content will be removed from Soundrop
and all other stores to which we have distributed your content. Your ability to upload content will be
suspended, and your access to the platform will be restricted from that point forward.
If a claim against you and/or your content is made, Soundrop reserves the right to withhold payment of
any royalties to defray the cost of handling these issue(s). We want to keep a good thing going, so
please keep these guidelines in mind when you use Soundrop. Contact our Support Team at
[email protected] with any questions you may have about our policies.

Other Strikes
We may apply a copyright strike prior to the distribution an album if we determine that the uploaded
content would likely result in the application of a copyright strike were it to be distributed. We reserve
this right for any content that obviously and intentionally infringes upon the original artist and/or any
other potentially trademarked material.
2.3. Be True To Yourself
Impersonating someone else is a violation of our policies, as well as those of our digital partners.
Soundrop accounts used to release music from another artist, or portray another artists’ work in a
confusing or deceptive manner, will be permanently suspended.

Do not submit misleading account information or release music under a misleading artist name, such as
a name that is associated with another artist or a brand owned by someone else, even if you consider
yourself to be their biggest fan or your work to be a “tribute” to theirs. Our distribution partners can
and will remove trademarked artist names or logos used without the permission of the trademark
owner, as well as reserve the right to remove your content if you misrepresent a track as originating
from an artist in a misleading way. Intentionally misleading track and album titles also fall into this
category. If you are clearly These rules protect consumers from being deceived into buying music they
didn’t mean to buy.

You may not create multiple accounts for disruptive or abusive purposes, or for the purpose of
circumventing these rules. One account per person, please.

2.4. That Wise Adage About Biting The Hand That Feeds You

Our distribution partners reserve the right to remove any content they believe to be harmful
to their platform, brand, or users. This is a subjective judgment call, so it’s hard to quantify
what such content looks like. As a general rule of thumb, your album is probably safe if
you’re not negatively referencing the platform distributing it.
Here are a few examples of song titles that may rub our partners the wrong way:

• “Ten Reasons Why Spotify Is Worse Than Rdio”

• “How to Steal Credit Card Information from iTunes Users for Lulz and Profit”
• “Google Play User MatildaInTheForest1996 Is The World’s Biggest Loser”

Some of our distribution partners also reserve the right to remove content on grounds of
suspicious activity, including potential artificial manipulation of streams. There is no black
and white answer as to what constitutes suspicious activity, but you should be aware that if
content is removed on these grounds, Soundrop has limited, or in some instances no recourse,
for restoring the track. As a general rule, asking your fans to stream your album on Spotify
is fine (and encouraged). However, you may want to think twice if you’re hiring a bot farm
to stream your album on mute. This is the type of activity that will result in your content removed not
only from partner sites, but potentially blocked from further distribution with Soundrop if those claims
do prove to be valid.

Abnormal streaming activity may be evaluated using these factors:

• Number of streams the album received in the past week
• Number of users who stream the album
• Total number of streams versus total number of users who stream the track
• Number of tracks on the album
• Number of “short length” tracks on the album (less than 60 seconds)
• Number of “short length” streams on the album (less than 60 seconds)
• Territorial activity
2.5. When In Doubt, Be Nice

Please keep in mind that Soundrop’s partners distribute your music worldwide and must comply
with global standards and rules regarding content. Therefore, Soundrop and its distribution
partners reserve the right to remove content that is likely to incite hatred or discrimination
of any kind, whether related to race, religion, sexuality, or otherwise; or content that is
deemed offensive, abusive, defamatory, illegal, pornographic, or obscene in any way.
For example, Soundrop and its distribution partners may remove Nazi-related content and content
recognized as harmful by the BPjM (Bundesprüfstelle ür jugendgeährdende Medien), listed as found
prohibited in the Strafgesetzbuch or by German authorities or as otherwise recognized by anti-Nazi laws
in any applicable
jurisdiction.

PART II: STYLE AND FORMATTING

3. Artist and Contributor Names
3.1. Overview
Soundrop lets you provide detailed information about who contributed to each track. You can
identify artists and add contributors on a track by track basis by specifying each person’s
role as arranger, composer, conductor, performer, etc.
You’ll need to mark at least one contributor as a “Track Artist”. This means that when you
pull up the track on services like iTunes or Spotify, all names marked Track Artist will display
in the Artist field. On the Soundrop Store, any contributors marked as Track Artists will display
alongside the track title AND be listed as an album artist under the album title.
For most artists, we recommend selecting only the name of one main artist as the Track
Artist for all tracks and not checking the Track Artist box for other instrumentalists and
collaborators, who will still get credit and appear as contributors within the metadata of
your music files.
In cases where a track artist has not been specified, we will automatically assign the artist
account that uploaded the album as the track artist. We encourage you to assign a single
track artist to each track.

3.2. Be Consistent
We can’t tell you what to name your band. Only you can find what bits you best. We can suggest,
however, that you should use the name that you’ve published on your website, dropped into your social
media profiles, printed on your CDs, and advertised at your shows. It should be spelled and capitalized
as you would spell and capitalize it elsewhere. Our digital partners rely on consistent web presence if we
need to create a new page on your behalf, so make sure to include that information on the artist pag

Your fans will appreciate the consistency, and so will our distribution partners, who rely on
your adherence to these rules to do things like link the correct albums to a particular artist. It’s much
easier to get that right the first time.

3.3. Contributing Artist Name No-No’s

• Aliases. For example: The Kim Jong Illness, AKA John “The Illest Brother” Kim. AKA’s are currently not
accepted by our digital partners, so feel free to use either the “Also”, or the “Known As”, but only one
may be distributed.
• Translations. For example: you should list the Japanese artist name - as it appears,
rather than listing it along with the English translation:
Correct: ガールフレソドパーティー
Incorrect: ガールフレソドパーティー(Girlfriend Party)
• Dates. For example: Jim Morrison (1943-1971), Nelly (2009)
• Instruments. For example: Frank N. Furter [Vuvuzela, Kazoo, Bagpipes]
• Generic or descriptive names. For example: Singer, Actor, Christmas Hits, Karaoke or
Various Composers. “Various Artists” albums will automatically be listed as such when there are 4 or
primary contributing artists listed on a track.
• The name of any artist that did not participate in creating YOUR version of the track.
This particularly relates to using original artists’ names, including:
Names of bands you used to be in. Even if you used to be a member of Nirvana.
(If you used to be a member of Nirvana, please email us ASAP so we can get your autog
raph.)
Names of bands you’d like to be in, or artists you’d like to be, but who actually
don’t appear in your recordings. For example: if Jane Smith covers the Katy Perry song
“Roar”, the artist name should be Jane Smith, not Jane Smith feat. Katy Perry, Jane
Smith & Katy Perry or Jane Smith with Katy Perry, unless Katy Perry actually dropped
by the studio to lay down some tracks with Jane Smith.
TIP:
Check out the Cover Songs Section below for more guidelines on how to upload cover song
tracks with the correct information.

3.4. Featured Artists

The inclusion of a featured artist can help a track gain exposure. If you are featuring an
artist, please add them artist field by hitting the “+Add Another” button under the Artist field and
entering in the featured artists’ name.

3.5. Artist Names and Best Practices

• If you’re listing a name in English, list your given name first and family name last. For
example: David Lin.
• If you’re listing a name in Chinese or Japanese ONLY, list your family name first and your first
name last.

For example, the following reads “Lin, David” in Chinese:

林大衛

3.6. Soundtracks and Classical Music

• Listing a composer as an artist is suggested if you have them listed on your cover artwork – our digital
partners prefer to have content submitted to them this way. This is different than other genres; for
example, you would NOT list a Producer of a track as an artist for a Rock album.

3.7. Various Artists and Multi-Artist Collaborations

• You may not name an artist “Various Artists”. If you are releasing a compilation, our
system will do this automatically. List the artist or artists that appear on each track
as you normally would. If your album or track is
performed by enough artists to merit Various Artists as the artist name, our system
will automatically mark the artist for the album or track as “Various Artists”.
• Our system will automatically translate “Various Artists” to the language of the album
that you’ve selected. For example, a French-language album would automatically appear
as “Multi-Interprètes” and a Spanish-language album would be “Varios Artistas”.
• If several artists perform together as a group under a name that uses individual artist
names, you should list the names as they appear together.
For example, each of these should be listed as a single artist:
Peter, Bjorn & John, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Simon & Garfunkel.
But if David Bowie and Queen get together and make an album, they should each
be listed separately as a Track Artist. Please avoid listing all of your artists together in one line, a la
“Wisin y Yandel featuring Pitbull & The Lumineers”. List each artist name separately, i.e. Wisin y Yandel
would be one artist, Pitbull listed as a featured artist, as well as The Lumineers.

4. Album Titles
4.1. What to Include in the Album Title
• The same album title displayed on your album cover. The album title needs to match
the cover art EXACTLY. No partial phrases, etc.
• “Live”, if most of the tracks are recorded live or if your cover art says so. (Please do not put “Live” in
your album title or on your cover artwork if you are referring to “Live In Studio”; our digital partners do
not accept that as a type of “Live” recording.)
For example: “The Underdogs EP (Live)”
• “Remixes”, if most of the tracks are remixes of the same track/tracks.
• Classical albums have specific rules for album titles. Please see the Classical section
for more information.

4.2. What NOT To Include In The Album Title

• The abbreviation “O.S.T.” for soundtrack albums. See the Soundtracks section below
for more information.
• Deceptive or misleading information, especially for tribute and cover albums. Do not
reference genres, popular song lyrics, or the original artist names in album titles.
The sole exception to this rule is the Karaoke Exception.
• Do not add “LP” or “Single” to your album title. These tags are added directly on a
store-by-store basis.
• You may include “EP” in your album title ONLY if the album title itself includes “EP”, and if it meets EP
guidelines for our digital partners. An EP must be either 1-3 tracks (with one track running time
exceeding 10 minutes and on overall length under 30 minutes), or 4-6 tracks with a running time less
than 30 minutes. Any title with 7 songs or more is automatically submitted as an album.
For example: “Awesome Songs EP”
• Album titles should not contain artist names unless the title of the album is the exact
same as the artist. Album titles must be unique, so this typically limits each artist to
one self-titled album (for example, “Black Sabbath” by Black Sabbath), though you may also include
additional volumes if you wish to keep that format (For example: Led Zeppelin II, etc.)
4.3. Soundtracks
• If all the recordings on an album are from the same soundtrack, you should specify
that the album is a soundtrack by marking the Primary Genre as “Soundtrack” and
by adding a soundtrack specification in parentheses. Be detailed and include explicit
source information.
• Some examples of acceptable soundtrack album titles:
“The Godfather (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)”
“The Spirit Engine 2 (Original Game Soundtrack)”
“Breaking Bad (Music from the Original TV Series)”
• Only use “Original” or “Official” Soundtrack information if your soundtrack actually fits that
description.
• Do not use “OST”, “OSV”, “O.S.T.” or similar abbreviations in your album title.

5. Track Titles
5.1. What To Include In The Track Title
• For singles, the album title, track title, and album cover must all match. You are welcome
to add the word “Single”, if you wish to designate the track as a single, even if
it doesn’t appear on the album artwork.
For example: “Anaconda - Single”
• Decorators, or title version, such as “Live”, “Radio Edit”, “Extended Version”, “Single
Version”, or others are permitted, if you wish to label your tracks with these.
• Add any version information to the Title Version field below the Track/Album Titles. These will
automatically have parentheticals added to them within our system, as long as you include that
information in the Title Version field.
• Please do not include the phrase (Original Mix) - only include version information
for alternate mixes. Original Mix is inherently implied by the title not including any other version
information, ergo it is unnecessary to include in the Title Version field.
For example: “Awesome Song (Flute and Guitar Cover)”
• All track titles performed by the same artist on an album must be unique. If multiple
versions of the same track exist on the album, please specify each version in the track
title.

5.2. What NOT To Include In The Track Title

• Audio files that don’t match the track titles. Double check before you submit!
• Generic track titles, such as Track 1 and Track 2.
• Words and phrases that apply only for a limited period of time, like “Exclusive” or “Limited
Edition”, since titles are a permanent part of the content and there is no exclusivity or limited
distribution available via digital distribution within Soundrop.
• “Cover”; please do not use the word “cover” in your track title of Title Version information, as this is
prohibited by our digital partners.
• Reference to digital content, physical content, or to content that is not included.
Some examples include “E-Release”, “Digital Download”, or “Digital Single” (fans who
are buying your music online probably already know that this is a digital release) and
“Two CD Set” “With Digital Booklet” or “With Sheet Music” (if fans don’t get the extra
CD, booklet or sheet music with purchases across all platforms you’ve selected, leave
this part out).
• Deceptive or misleading information, especially for tribute and cover albums. Avoid
referencing genres, popular song lyrics, or the original artist names in album titles.
The sole exception to this rule is for karaoke tracks - please see the Karaoke Exception.
Some examples of track titles that will be flagged and cannot be distributed unless changed:
“Made famous by Foo Fighters”
“Originally performed by Pearl Jam”
“Cover of Call Me Maybe”.
• If you are uploading an explicit (or a corresponding clean) track, you do not need to
add the words “Clean” or “Explicit” to the track title, simply mark them as such in the Explicit
checkbox/column during sign up.
• Do not censor words in your track title; our system will automatically do that. Please
note that censored content may vary from platform to platform and territory to territory.

5.3. Medleys
• All songs in a medley should be listed in the track title with forward slashes separating
each song. For example:
“Boom Clap / All of Me / Happy”
“Jingle Bells / Frosty The Snowman / The Chipmunks Holiday Song”
“The Great Deku Tree / Kokiri Forest / Ocarina of Time”

5.4. Remixes
• If “vs.” or “Meets” is used to describe your album that is a collection of different songs
remixed by a single DJ, you should list the mixing DJ as a Track Artist and include supplemental
information about the DJ’s remixer role. The original artists whose songs
are being remixed must also be listed as Track Artists (and you must obtain separate permissions from
the original artist, as a remix is not covered under standard cover song license).
• In order to avoid identical track titles, the track titles should include remix information
to differentiate them. If an album is a collection of remixes of the same song, the
album subtitle should indicate that they are remixes.

6. Genres
• Certain types of albums require a particular primary genre. Typically these albums fall
into ”Karaoke”, ”Soundtrack”, or ”Classical”.
• Instrumental albums comprised of covers must be marked with the primary genre of ”Karaoke” in
order to take advantage of the Karaoke Exception to our artists-in-titles rules.
• Soundtracks (whether to video games or films) must be marked as primary genre ”Soundtrack”.
• Only Classical albums may be marked as ”Classical” - do not mark non-classical albums
(including rock or hip-hop albums that feature classical elements) as classical.

6.1. Karaoke / Tribute

• The Karaoke Exception: If you are releasing a karaoke track, you can use the original
artist name in the title if it’s accompanied by the phrase “Originally Performed By
(original artist name)”.
• Searchability: Karaoke and Tribute albums may be hidden from search on some stores
unless a customer specifically types ”Karaoke” or ”Tribute” along with their search
terms. We recommend that artists avoid the Karaoke genre or including the word
”Tribute” in their album titles if they wish to remain generally searchable across all
stores.
• The titles of karaoke tracks must indicate that they are an instrumental or karaoke
version.
• Karaoke album titles may NOT begin with the name of the original artist. “Metallica:
the Polka Tribute” is not allowed, but “The Polka Tribute to Metallica” is acceptable.

7. Classical Music
Some of our distribution partners have specific guidelines for Classical music. This
only applies to Western Classical Composers. We may reject releases that are improperly
formatted.
7.1. Genre
• Albums containing primarily classical music must have a primary genre of “Classical.”
• Please do not mark non-classical Instrumental albums as “Classical.”
7.2. Artist and Contributor Names
• All performers must be marked as Track Artists with a role of “Performer”.
• Artists or contributors having a “featured” contributor role is not permitted for Classical
Music in any case.
• The standard artist name and spelling must be used for composers. Composers must
be supplied for all classical music, as well as marked as track and album artists.
• See the Artist and Contributor section for more information on how to format artist
names.
7.3. Album Titles
• Formatting: The album title of Classical albums should include the last name of the
composer.
• Formatting: Compilation albums of music from multiple classical composers don’t
need a composer in the album title.
• Use the work titles in their original languages. Do not include extraneous translations.
• Casing: Album titles in English must be in title case. For example: “Glass: Glassworks”
• Casing: Album titles in French, Italian, or Swedish must be in sentence case. For example:
“Debussy: Préludes deuxième livre & Six épigraphes antiques”

7.4. Track Titles

• Provide as much information about a work as is available.
• Song titles must be formatted as
[Name of Work] in [Key], [Catalog Number]: [Movement Number]. [Movement Title]
For example:
Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67: I. Allegro con brio
Keyboard Concerto No. 5 in F Minor, BWV 1056: III. Presto
Three Lyric Pieces, Op. 47: No. 1, Summer Song
Die Winterreise, D. 911: No. 24, Der Leiermann
Partita for Solo Flute in A Minor, BWV 1013: I. Allemande
Piano Sonata No. 11 in A Major, K. 311: II. Minuet - Trio
Piano Sonata No. 13 in E-Flat Major, Op. 27, No. 1: III. Adagio con espressione
• For movements or sections, roman numerals or standard notation (“No. 1,” “No. 2,”
etc.) may be used.
8. Cover Songs
We love cover songs and love helping you legally license and sell them. Soundrop’s knowledge
of musical compositions is part of what makes us (and our artists) so special. Because of this,
we’ve built our track upload page to include a section dedicated to collecting information
that helps us license cover songs for you.
Each musical track actually contains two separate works - the underlying notes, lyrics, and
structure (called the composition), and the specific recording of that work (called the sound
recording). The information you need to include with your track depends on whether you’re
doing an original song (i.e., you own the sound recording and composition) or a cover (i.e.,
you own the sound recording, but not the composition).
If you’re doing a Public Domain song, please list the composer as (Traditional) if the composer is not
known.
8.1. How To Fill Out The Composition Field
If your song is original:
• List the track title as your composition title.
• List yourself as the original artist.
• List your real name as the composer, as well as the names of other composers, songwriters,
or lyricists who contributed to the composition.
If your song is a cover:
• List the original song title as the title, even if it differs from your track title.
• List the artist you’re covering as the original artist.
• If the song you’re covering is from a soundtrack, list the composer of the soundtrack
as the original artist. List the name of the original game/movie/television series/etc.
in the Composition Title field. For example:
“Main Theme (The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past)”
• If you’re the original artist, then your song is not a cover and you should mark the
track as an original. If you identify yourself as the original artist, our system will mark
the track as an original song, not a cover, and your cover song might go unlicensed.
This means it could be pulled from iTunes and other stores at any time, and a strike
may be placed on your account.
• If you’ve already paid for your own cover song licenses and want to continue keeping
track and paying royalties on your own, list the song as a cover and then shoot our
Support Team an email so that we can change your settings accordingly.
• Karaoke tracks are a type of cover song. Please do not list yourself as the original
artist, even if you’ve created your own karaoke version of a popular song.

8.2. Where To List The Original Artist's Name Or The Songwriter's Name
Please note that our cover song licenses don’t give you the right to use the original performing
artist’s name in your track or album titles. If you’ve covered a song and are having
Soundrop license it for you, you should list the name of the original artist or songwriters in the
compositions section of your track, and not within the track title or album title fields.
For example, if the a cappella group On The Rocks were to record a heart-wrenching version
of Beyoncé’s “Irreplaceable”, they would release it like this:
• Artist name: “On The Rocks”, not “On The Rocks in the style of Beyoncé”, “On The
Rocks with Beyoncé”, or “Beyoncé vs. On The Rocks”
• Track title: “Irreplaceable”, not “Irreplaceable, feat. Beyoncé”, “Irreplaceable in the
style of Beyoncé”, or “Beyoncé’s Irreplaceable”.

8.3. Covers Of Public Domain Songs

• A cover of a public domain song is a special type of cover song. We do not obtain
licenses or pay royalties on public domain works, so it is very important that you only
flag a work as public domain when you’re absolutely sure the work is no longer under
copyright in the United States.
• In the compositions section of the track, list the original artist in the original artist
field and the composer in the composer field, if known. Otherwise, name the original
artist as “Traditional”.
• If you’re not sure whether or not your song is in the public domain, please contact our customer
service team and we can investigate further before submitting as either public domain or a cover song.

9. Artwork
Many of the rules for album artwork mirror the rules in the Album Title and Track Title sections
above. When in doubt, create something original from scratch, rather than altering
someone else’s image.
• Your album art should include the album title and your artist name. Compilation albums
(albums with more than 4 artists) do not need to display the artist name on the art. Please do not use
other text on your artwork that will be more prominent than the album title and artist name, as that can
create a confusion and is prohibited by our digital partners. That information should be clearly
identifiable on your cover art.
• Album art should not include extra or incorrect text.
• Album art should not be pixelated or blown up to bad quality.
• Artwork must be centered and must fill the entire canvas from corner-to-corner. Album art
needs to be a full 3000px by 3000px square image. Do not fill blank space to make the album
art the correct size.
• Album art should not be stretched.
• Album art may NOT use third party trademarks without permission - (including digital partners’ or
social media logos).
• Album art may NOT use celebrity or character likenesses or images without permission.
• Album art may NOT include social media icons. Including social media links is acceptable
provided that the sites you link to do not also sell your music in a way that would compete
with any of our stores.
• If there is nothing between your line-of-sight and the subject’s nethers or nipples, it is considered
sexually explicit imagery and we cannot approve your artwork.

10. Audio File Formats

We currently accept audio in WAV, AIF, or FLAC format. All files must have 2 channels with
a sampling rate of 44.1Khz and 16-bit resolution. Audio length must be
longer than 2 seconds, and shorter than 60 minutes.

11. Miscellaneous Tips

• Do not use ALL-CAPS, all lower case, or rAndOm casing. We will correct this if you choose to do so
anyway, as our partners all prefer title casing when it comes to English or specialized casing for certain
languages.
• “The” should be capitalized when it is the start of an Artist’s name.
• Instrumental tracks cannot be marked explicit unless the track title contains explicit
language.