[mb-style] RFC: Works lists (and other related changes then implied)

[Brian Schweitzer]

On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 4:42 AM, Chris B <chris at whenironsattack.com> wrote:
> i think these 'mutations' might still be possible. you just have to
>  use '{additional} lyrics' and '{additionally} arranged by' ARs were
>  appropriate. eg, someone might cover all along the watchtower, but it
>  might be the version that hendrix arranged, so it's it has the cover
>  AR to dylan's 'work listing' of the song, but an AR to hendrix showing
>  that he {additionally} arranged the version being covered?
>
>  but then, the problem is i suppose that you're not showing *what*
>  arrangement your talking about, just who did it.
>
>
>
>  On 06/03/2008, Brian Schweitzer <brian.brianschweitzer at gmail.com> wrote:
>  > On Wed, Mar 5, 2008 at 11:38 PM, David K. Gasaway <dave at gasaway.org> wrote:
>  >  > On 5 Mar 2008 at 17:07, Brian Schweitzer wrote:
>  >  >
>  >  >  > This would mean covers linking from sessions back to the originating
>  >  >  > artist - but not the inclusion of every cover within the works list of
>  >  >  > the covering band.  As we can't actually make that link yet - lacking
>  >  >  > session entities - I would think it makes more sense to still link from
>  >  >  > the instance (and eventually the track masters) back to the originating
>  >  >  > band's work list.  That way, when we do eventually have sessions, we're
>  >  >  > only modifying the AR to add in the session, rather than having to
>  >  >  > actually relocate all the ARs for the cover work.
>  >  >
>  >  >  NGS stuff aside, the point I was making was that if you don't want to
>  >  >  have covers in the work lists, then you have to either:
>  >  >  1) Link all covers back to the original composition (losing any cover-
>  >  >  to-cover provenance in the process).
>  >  >  2) Allow track-to-track cover ARs.
>  >
>  >
>  > I think what I described before, with or without NGS, would fall under
>  >  what you describe as option 1.  But why does this lose "cover-to-cover
>  >  provenance"?  Actually, I'm not sure I know quite what that means.  A
>  >  cover of a work is linked back to the originating artist's work.  But
>  >  what I think you're talking about I also addressed:
>  >
>  >
>  >  "Now, so I'm not misunderstood, if we're dealing with a song like, say,
>  >  In the Pines / Where Did You Sleep Last Night, where the song has
>  >  evolved with every other artist who has recorded it, then yes, that
>  >  quite likely ought to appear in many works lists, each of the two
>  >  branches of development of that song linking together back through
>  >  time."
>  >
>  >
>  > If you're talking about "cover-to-cover provenance", and intending
>  >  situations where a track 'mutates' from one cover to the next, so that
>  >  artist #3 is covering artist #2's version, not the original artist #1
>  >  version - isn't that exactly the In the Pines situation?  I can think
>  >  of other similar situations involving translated lyrics, for example,
>  >  but In the Pines perhaps has the most extreme 'mutation' history like
>  >  this.
>  >
>  >  Otherwise, if artist #3 and artist #2 are both playing the artist #1
>  >  version, there is no chain - and even with track-track, we still do
>  >  now link those back to the originating artist, not artist #2.

Well, in a case like that, I could see making an entry on the Hendrix
list too.  I just can't see making an entry on the works list every
single time anyone covers anything.

A perhaps related side-note...  I guess we could use work annotations
for now, but perhaps eventually, when we add in fields for allowing
tracks to be 'deconstructable', we could also add fields for
associating the relevant work-identification numbers - ie,
ASCAP/BMI/SESAC/ISRC/etc work ID numbers.  If we do have a tricky
case, a good tell-tale as to whether the artist him/her/themselves
thought any given work a true cover, or a modified version, might be
whether or not they re-registered their own version.

Brian