Why does the information I provided in my account need to match my artwork?

It's crucial that the information shown on your front cover art matches the information your provided when you signed up your submission, and vice versa.

For example, if your artist name appears on your front cover art as "Chris Robley & the Fear of Heights," the exact same artist name must appear in the information provided (and not just "Chris Robley"). Such discrepancies could cause confusion for customers, and as a result, our digital partners have requested we only deliver content that is a match.

If you received an email from us about a mismatch you should find information about the issue below.

Artist Name:

• The spelling and formatting of an artist name on the front cover art must match with the artist name entered in your submission.

• Additional performing artists listed on the artwork must be credited and added as a primary or featured artist on the album or on the specific tracks they perform on.
• All artists listed as “featuring” or “with” on the front cover artwork must be credited as a featured artist on at least one track.

• If the front cover art contains the phrase “& Friends,” the "friends" must be credited as featured performers on the tracks they perform on, unless the “John Doe & Friends” artist name is an established group. In this case, please see the section in this article about Compound Artists, for information about the kinds of web presence can accept to demonstrate this.

Album/Single Title:

• The spelling and formatting of an album/single title on the cover art must match the album/single title entered in your submission.
• Version info (Remix, Radio Version, etc.) used on cover art must also be included in the album/single title of your submission.

Language:

• The information on the front cover art must only be presented in one language.
• The language and or characters used on the front cover art must match with the album language presented in your submission. For example, if the info on your cover art is in Greek characters, your submission must also be entered in Greek characters, and vice versa. Or, if you selected “Spanish” as the album language, the information on your cover art must be presented in Spanish.

Some rare exceptions:

• Front cover art CAN list both the band name AND each individual band member but only have the band name listed in the metadata.
• Front cover art CAN have abbreviations and acronyms for artist names and album titles. For example, if the artist name on the cover art is ICP, then it's OK for the metadata to list the artist as Insane Clown Posse (& vice versa). HOWEVER, front cover art cannot have an abbreviation of a "legal name artist name" (ie, artist name is Jeter Jones, cover art may not say "J. Jones").
• Front cover art CAN list artist names that are not included in the metadata IF those artist names meet the following criteria (similar to a band that lists the members on the cover):

• Artist names do not have “feat.” (or some variation) or “with” preceding them
• Primary artist name(s) appear bigger than the other unlisted artist names (suggesting they are session musicians or something similar)
• Artist names have “produced by” or “mixed by” preceding them
• Albums are NOT Classical genre (where rules are stricter)
• Cover art must be in the same language as the metadata. Meaning, if the metadata text is in English characters, the artwork cannot be in Japanese or Greek Characters only, for example.