For all artists and labels on Bandcamp, maintaining accurate and comprehensive music metadata is an essential part of ensuring you and your collaborators are correctly credited and paid. Good metadata is critical for managing your royalties and ensuring fans can find your music.
What is Music Metadata?
Music metadata is all the text information that describes a track or album. While some of this information is visible to fans on your Bandcamp page (e.g., track, artist, and album names), a significant amount of data remains behind the scenes and is crucial for copyright holders and royalty payments.
Key elements of metadata on Bandcamp include:
Descriptive Information - such as track title, album title, artist name, genre, recording year, and label.
Creative Information - such as songwriter(s), composer(s), lyricist(s), performers, producers, and publisher(s).
Identifiers
ISRC (International Standard Recording Code) for the sound recording
ISWC (International Standard Musical Work Code) for the composition
UPC/EAN (Universal Product Code/European Article Number) for the release
Why is Accurate Metadata Important on Bandcamp?
1. Ensuring Proper Publishing Royalty Collection
Bandcamp collects and allocates publishing royalties from digital sales and certain bundled merchandise sales. This process relies heavily on the information you provide at the track/album editor.
Affiliation Identification: When you enable royalty collection, Bandcamp uses the metadata you provide (including songwriter and publisher information) to identify which works are registered with a collection society.
Accurate Payouts: If you or your co-writers are members of a collection society, accurate metadata allows Bandcamp to correctly allocate the "collection society share" of the sale revenue to the appropriate society.
Collaborator Splits: If you have co-writers or collaborators who are affiliated with a society, providing their information at the track/album editor is essential. As noted in our FAQ: "If your work has a co-writer(s) or publisher(s) who are a member of a collection society, you will need to make sure this information is inputted at the point of upload so Bandcamp can ensure their accurate share of publishing royalties is collected for relevant sales."
2. Maintaining Compliance
Using standardized identifiers like ISRC and ISWC, where applicable, helps ensure your music complies with global music industry standards, which is necessary for accurate and timely reporting to collection societies.
Tips for Maintaining Good Metadata on Bandcamp
To ensure you are properly credited and paid for your music, follow these best practices:
Action | Details |
Confirm Affiliation | Notify us of a track or album’s collection society affiliation. Instructions on how to do this can be found here. |
Input Co-Writer Information | When uploading, include all necessary information for co-writers or publishers who are members of a collection society. |
Ensure Consistent Naming | Use consistent spelling and capitalization for all track, artist, and album names across your entire discography and all platforms. |
Use Standardized Identifiers | Always include the correct ISRC for the sound recording and, if you have one, the ISWC for the underlying composition. |
Review Before Publishing | Double-check all metadata fields before publishing a new track or album. Once a sale is made, the royalty calculation is based on the information provided at that time. |
For Compilations | For compilations, it is especially critical to ensure that the individual Artist field for each track is correct, and the Artist name is not mistakenly entered into the Track Title field. This level of detail is crucial for correct track-specific royalty allocation and accurate reporting to collection societies. |
I’m not affiliated with any societies. Why does good metadata matter?
Even if you are not affiliated with a collection society, accurate metadata is still important for several key reasons:
1. Future-Proofing Your Royalties
While you may not be affiliated now, circumstances can change. If you or any of your collaborators join a society in the future, having correct metadata already in place ensures a smooth transition to proper royalty collection. Bandcamp relies on the data entered by the uploader to ensure all contributors receive their correct share.
2. Discoverability and Fan Experience
Whilst Bandcamp is a direct-to-fan marketplace, metadata still plays a vital role in how fans discover and engage with your music:
Search and Curation: Accurate titles, artist names, and genre tags are important for search engine results on Bandcamp and for music to appear correctly across the site.
Embedded Credits: When a fan downloads your music, the metadata is embedded in the digital file (e.g., MP3, FLAC). This ensures that your music displays correctly in their personal music library, showing the correct track title, artist name, and album art. Poor metadata leads to messy, uncredited, or mislabeled files.
3. Professional Standards and Reporting
Using standardized identifiers (like ISRC for the sound recording, or the ISWC for the composition) is considered standard practice in the music industry. Maintaining this level of detail makes your music ready for any future distribution channels, licensing opportunities, or reporting requirements.
In short, good metadata is an investment in your music's professionalism, discoverability, and future opportunities, regardless of your current or future collection society status.