[mb-style] Composition/Performer/Production ARs at Release or Track level? - PROPOSAL

[Chris B]

On 02/01/2008, Brian Schweitzer <brian.brianschweitzer at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ok, we just had a lengthy debate on this in IRC, which has, I think, helped
> to clarify the issue.
> ( starts around
> http://chatlogs.musicbrainz.org/2008/2008-01/2008-01-02.html#T00-42-16-600403
> )
>
> Essentially, I think this whole thing falls into one of two views.  Problem
> is, those two views are 100% incompatible.  I think we REALLY do need to
> decide that one or the other is the viewpoint we're using, however, as this
> is causing more and move confusion as to which ARs people should be adding,
> which ARs are correct or wrong, etc.
>
> Viewpoint 1:
>    A release is the sum of its tracks.
>    An AR added at the release level is valid if and only if it applies to
> all tracks.
>    ---------------------------------------------------
>    Thus: ARs can therefore not be "vague" or "fuzzy" - they either are
> factually correct for the entire release, or they should be in annotations
> until someone else can update them.
>
>
> Viewpoint 2:
>     A release and its tracks are two entirely separate considerations.
>     An AR added at the release level is valid if is says something about at
> least one of the tracks on the release.
>     ---------------------------------------------------
>     Thus: ARs at the release level can be "fuzzy" - if you know someone
> played alto sax on some track, but you don't know which track(s), then it
> can be added at the release level for someone later (who has better info) to
> move to the proper track(s).
>
>
> Now I personally have always thought akin to #1.  A release is, to me,
> essentially a collection of specific versions of tracks in some particular
> order on various forms of media.  Thus having release level ARs be those
> which applied to all tracks made sense, especially before we had batch AR
> ability, when actually adding the same AR to every single track took
> forever.
>
> However, perhaps it is time to use the 2nd viewpoint instead, now that we
> can do ARs in batch.  It was argued to me in IRC that this at least gets the
> release to show under the artist, rather than trapping the data in an
> annotation, when the editor does only have fuzzy info.  This kind of makes
> sense to me.
>
> HOWEVER!  If we're really going to interpret release level ARs this way,
> allowing for people to add release level ARs for "I know John played on some
> tracks on this album, but I don't know which particular tracks", let's say
> so!
>
> Right now, half of us are voting against such ARs, while the other half of
> us are adding them.  Right now, many of us are adding release level ARs,
> rather than adding those same ARs to every single track, when they DO have
> the info to be able to say that AR does apply to every single track.
>
> So, if one person is adding "fuzzy" release level ARs, and another person is
> adding non-fuzzy ARs at the release level, but could add them at the track
> level, we're left with any given release level AR being of rather low DQ -
> it *could* apply to the entire release...  or it *could* just be that
> someone didn't know which tracks to apply it to.
>
> =========================
>
> So I've been somewhat convinced, and I suggest, let's use viewpoint 2 as the
> official guidance for how to handle ARs:
>
> Proposal:
>
>   Release level ARs are not now or ever to be inherited to tracks.
>   Release level ARs are allowed to be, and always ought to be viewed as
> "fuzzy".
>   However, track level (and for later, track master ARs) are *never* to be
> fuzzy.
>   Finally, apply ARs to every track you can, if you have the info - ie: from
> this point on, if an AR applies to all tracks, it ought to be applied to all
> tracks, and not just to the release.

what info could prove that an AR applies to all tracks? if an artist
is given composer credits on a whole release, it's fairly certain they
wrote all the tracks, as that credit has legal implications. however,
any other release-wide credit may be fuzzy or it may not :)

i think what i'm saying is that almost no release wide credits should
be taken to be ARs to be applied to all tracks, if we are saying track
level ARs are 'non fuzzy'. instead we should use inheritance to
display release-specific ARs at a track level, but not duplicate them
down - http://bugs.musicbrainz.org/ticket/3029

that is, if a track is on Release Y which has a release-wide credit of
'produced by X', then the track should have a AR shown at the track
level (but not applied to) that it was on a release that has this AR.
"Produced By X (Release Y)" or something like that.

i'm not sure if that is possible to enforce, though. i think in
practice people will take (for example) a release credit of 'produced
by X' as an AR to be applied to all tracks, which is likely not to be
the case.