[mb-users] Group had to change there name - two artist entries?

[Alexander Kiel]

Hi Lauri
> On Tue, Feb 26, 2008 at 12:48 PM, Alexander Kiel <alexanderkiel at gmx.net> wrote:
>   
>> Hi Chris
>>
>>     
>>> legally forced name changes are usually adopted, with the previous
>>>       
>>  > stored as an alias - see http://wiki.musicbrainz.org/ArtistAlias
>>  > (point 15)
>>  >
>>  Its point 14 but anyway. What is with Walter/Wendy Carlos as mentioned
>>  in point 14? Why there is a Walter Carlos and old releases are filed
>>  under him.
>>     
>
> I think it's one where current practice has gotten away from the
> guideline (yes, yet another one :)
>
> Common thing to do now is add both names, file releases as appropriate
> and relate them with a 'performed as' AR with start and end dates to
> the old name.
>
> Which makes sense to the pragmatist in me, and the ones I've done that
> way have been voted through.
>
> Notably though, they have been cases of the band itself changing it's
> name.  The case of a band being forced to change their name for legal
> reasons often has the additional constraint that they had to withdraw
> their back catalog, and if those albums are re-issued, they are often
> reissued with no changes other than the cover name, and you can't buy
> their old albums under the old name.
>
> So you have precedent either way, but a couple of examples that I can think of:
> Cases where we split and AR'ed them:
> Teddybears
> Panic at the Disco
>
> Ones that aren't split, all the releases are filed under the new name
> (band changed name for legal reasons, not just creative or marketing)
> The Kovenant
>
> I would vote yes to splitting the discography and a performance AR, fwiw.
>
>   
Ok thanks for your help. I'm new here (3 days until now) and I must say 
that its sometimes not easy to get my brain wrapped around the rather 
complicated concepts of MusicBrainz. As I have a degree in computer 
science I can feel the backgrounds of creating such a database driven 
system which carries every technical bit to the outside. But I don't 
think that this helps most people neither the hole approach to tagging 
music appropriately. I don't like to begin a debate on fundamental 
concepts of MusicBrainz, but look at Discogs: they seem to have only one 
concept of an artist alias and I think that would be sufficient.

Regards
Alex