Metadata Overview

Metadata is the foundation of every Album, Track, and Release in Reprtoir. Clean and consistent metadata ensures correct delivery to DSPs and distributors, prevents ingestion issues, and guarantees that your catalog appears properly across platforms. While DSPs maintain their own editorial guidelines, most compliance requirements are shared across the industry. This page introduces the core principles that apply to all delivery modes before you explore the detailed rules that follow in the next sections.

Metadata must remain neutral, descriptive, and free of promotional or misleading elements. DSPs expect titles, credits, and descriptors to follow standardized naming conventions that support searchability, indexing, and identification. Reprtoir structures metadata across dedicated fields so that each component is stored separately and exported correctly according to DSP specifications. This prevents issues caused by mixing titles, descriptors, contributors, and marketing terms in the same field.

Capitalization must follow standard editorial practices. Metadata must not appear in all caps, all lowercase, or with inconsistent casing. Avoid decorative typography, unusual symbols, emojis, or formatting designed purely for stylistic effect. Version information must be stored in the Subtitle field so that DSPs can display it as “Title (Subtitle)”. This applies to Live, Acoustic, Instrumental, Radio Edit, Extended Mix, Remastered, and all other version descriptors.

Contributor credits must be entered in their proper fields. Featuring artists must be assigned to the Featured Artist field, not written inside titles. Remixers must be credited in the Remixer field and not appended to the title. Likewise, composers, lyricists, arrangers, conductors, orchestras, soloists, and producers must be assigned to the correct contributor roles so DSPs can interpret and display them accurately.

Metadata must not contain promotional text, URLs, social handles, store names, or marketing language. Phrases such as “Official Video”, “HD Version”, “New Release”, “Exclusive”, or DSP mentions like Spotify or Apple Music are prohibited. Year references, seasons, or release programs must not be included unless they are an inherent part of the artistic title.

Punctuation must remain simple, functional, and linguistically justified. Avoid decorative brackets, repeated symbols, multiple spaces, or disruptive characters. Parentheses should be used only for subtitles or legitimate structural components. Square brackets are acceptable only when they reflect an intentional artistic choice.

Reprtoir Distribution and third-party distributors may perform additional metadata checks before delivery. This ensures compliance with DSP norms and prevents ingestion rejections. In Direct-to-DSP Delivery, DSPs themselves apply automated validation systems that examine metadata consistency, artwork compliance, and audio authenticity.

This overview serves as the foundation for the metadata rules used across Reprtoir. The next pages describe universal formatting principles, language-specific casing rules, DSP-specific requirements, and detailed guidance on titles, contributors, versions, and classical repertoire.