Q: Which Track metadata should I add to my Tracks when pitching for sync?

Here’s an overview of the most essential Track metadata to add to your Tracks when pitching for sync. Providing essential metadata not only streamlines the clearance process but also increases the chances of music supervisors discovering your Tracks while searching in the future.

Rights ownership and clearance contact information

The most important metadata to include with your Tracks when pitching for sync is: Rights ownership and clearance contact information.

Rights ownership

This includes:

• the rights you control for the Track (e.g. 50% publishing / 100% master)
• who to contact about licensing your rights for the Track and how to contact them
• if there are multiple rights holders involved, list all of them and what percentage they control

This information should always be placed in the Comments field.

Example:

Publishing: 50% All Music Co., 50% My Music Co.
Master: 50% Label Inc, 50% Clearance House

Clearance contact information

Always list contact info, including email, for clearing your rights. If you can, it's good to provide contact info for all owning parties, but not essential. The key is to provide full ownership detail in the metadata. If there are different licensing contacts in different regions, you should list the different contacts.

This information should always be placed in the Comments field. You can also add it to the Grouping field if you like.

Example 1 (single owner):

One stop clearance, 100% master and 100% publishing control: My Music Co

For clearance contact: bob@mymusic.co 

Example 2 (split ownership):

Publishing: 50% All Music, 50% My Music Co

For clearance contact: jane@allmusic.xyz (All Music) // bob@mymusic.co (My Music Co)

Master: 50% Label Inc, 50% Clearance House

For clearance contact: joe@labelinc.xyz (Label Inc) // joanna@clearancehouse.net

For cover songs

If your Track is a cover, make sure to include which artist or group popularized the song. Include this in the Title field, with the original artist in parenthesis.

Example:

Yellow Submarine (The Beatles cover)

For the rights metadata, always include the artist who performed the song (likely the artist you represent, or yourself if you’re the artist) and who owns the master copyright to that recorded performance. 

It’s preferred, but not essential, to list who owns the composition copyright (publishing) of the covered track. (They need to receive the royalties they’re entitled to, but they also need to provide a sync license to use their song in the sync.)

Example:

This track is a cover of Purple Rain, originally popularized by Prince.

Master: 100% master control My Music // bob@mymusic.com

Publishing controlled by UMPG and Sony Publishing (enter contact info if you have it)

Writer Splits

Adding Writer Splits to your Tracks can be helpful to easily store and reference that information, but it's not a substitute for putting key rights and contact info in the Comments field.

If you're adding a Writer Split from the Writers tab on the Track Information page, make sure you enable the following Business Settings in your DISCO before sharing your Tracks:

To update your Business Settings:

1. In the top-right corner of your DISCO, open Settings (the person icon) and select Settings and Account.
2. Under Workspace Settings, select Business Settings.
   
3. Check the boxes to: Write native tags to Comments metadata field on downloaded tracks and Include writer split info on Writers tab in Composer field on downloaded tracks.
4. Click the Update Business Settings button.

If you're not using the fields on the Writers tab, enter writer split information in the Composer metadata field in this format:

Example:

Writer 1 name, split %, writer 1 publisher, PRO; Writer 2 name, split %, writer 2 publisher, PRO;

i.e. John Jackson, 50%, Apple Publishing, ASCAP; Jane Johnson, 50%, Pear Publishing, BMI;