Transferring catalogue is quite doable these days and investing a little time upfront will mean you maintain continuity (of playcounts, streams & playlists) across the major platforms. In this pro-tips article we outline recommendations from the AWAL Catalogue team.
First Tip: Do not issue any takedowns with your previous distributor until the AWAL versions of the products are live and all the steps below have successfully been completed.
Second Tip: Read through this before sitting down to work with the uploader. We’ll list the metadata and assets you’ll need to complete the process without interruption below.
Below are the steps required to get your catalogue live through the AWAL Uploader, complete delivery checks and pull down from your previous distributor.
1. Current Metadata
Gather all of your metadata so that you have it to hand ready to use in the uploader, this should be the metadata that is currently live within the products that are with your previous distributor. Maintaining this is key to allowing platforms to retain current playlist inclusion and playcount. Below shows the importance of the different metadata points;
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Must Not Change
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UPCs / EAN
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ISRCs
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Product & Track Titles
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Primary Artist Names
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Featured Artists / Remixers
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Original Release Dates (ORD)
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Songwriter & Producers
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OK to Change
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Product and track P & C lines
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Label Name (Except with Dance Music)
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Genre(s) (Except with Dance Music)
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Catalogue Number
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Artwork
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Should Change
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Sales Start Date
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2. Audio
The audio assets should be compliant with the AWAL delivery specifications and should be the best quality WAV files that exist for the product. The content must be the same audio that is already live. Audio shouldn’t be remastered (it would require a different ISRC) - unless the catalogue product you are delivering is already a remastered version. NB. We recommend you keep copies of all of your audio as well in case you need access to your assets again down the line.
3. Artwork
The artwork should be compliant with the AWAL delivery specifications and should be the best quality image available.
If the product is more than a few years old then it's likely DSP specifications have been updated since the original version was delivered. For example, if you only have a square jpeg of 1400 x1400 pixels the artwork will need to be rescanned so that it is no 3000 x 3000 pixels. If you only have access to a smaller image and no physical copy to scan there are tools that can help a little like this one Let's Enhance – free online image upscale and enhancement. Try neural networks to increase resolution and quality now!
4. Add Releases to the AWAL Uploader
AWAL’s Uploader Guide will walk you through all the steps to build and upload your catalogue products. When building your products be certain to closely reference steps 1-3 outlined above as well as 8 and 9 below.
5. Set a Live Date
This Guide to Timelines is for individual uploads. In most instances this will be fine even for bigger catalogue but in order to ensure you don’t get caught out we recommend you wait until the releases are flagged as delivered on the portal. You can monitor the delivery of your release on the portal.
6. SoundCloud
SoundCloud is not a default service. If you’re unsure whether we can deliver your releases to this platform, please get in touch with us via the Contact Us page on your Portal and we’ll review your account.
7. Beatport
This platform is a Dance genre-specific DSP, AWAL will not deliver to this service as standard.
In order to deliver your releases to Beatport for the first time you would need to register a label with them, as outlined here. If you’re transferring catalogue already on Beatport, follow the below protocol;
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Select Dance or Electronic as the primary genre for your release on step 4 of the Uploader
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Select a Main Extended Dance Genre. Note: This dropdown will automatically appear in the Uploader once you select Dance or Electronic as your primary genre
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Select the label you already have registered with Beatport must be the label name you use in your metadata (step 4 of the Uploader)
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Finally, you’ll need to transfer ownership of the label from your old distributor to AWAL as outlined here.
Beatport Note 1: Due to the set up time, please be aware that delivery times may be different to other DSPs which could reflect store go live dates.
Beatport Note 2: If you have releases live on your label page before transferring the catalogue that you’re not moving across they will need to be taken down by your old distributor. We won’t be able to account for you on releases that have not been delivered through the AWAL portal.
8. Check for Duplicates
Once your products have been Approved and Delivered, you’ll see them live across platforms from the selected ‘Sales Start date’. We always recommend that you have a crossover period of time where the new version (AWAL) and the old version (Ex-Distributor) of the product are live at the same time. We’d usually suggest a period of around 3 - 5 days (but this is depending on whether the checks detailed in the following points have been met).
Before issuing takedowns with your previous distributor you should check across stores to see that duplicates exist.
On Apple on the product you should see ‘Other Versions’ as shown here...
On Spotify you will see duplicates as shown here with the ‘1 More Release’ button. Alternatively, they can show as duplicate products on the main artist page:
9. Checking Products for Merged Play Counts on Spotify
As well as checking for duplicate products (as mentioned above), it’s important to make sure that play counts have merged on Spotify before issuing takedowns with your previous distributor.
You can do this by cross referencing the playcounts next to the track timing, for both of the uploads (as shown below). Be sure to do this for both versions of the product to make sure the play counts are the same (click on the ‘1 more release button’ to access the duplicate product) and repeat.
If after 7 working days play counts still haven’t matched then get in touch with your AWAL Representative (Contact Us Page) to further investigate. It’s worth noting here that Spotify is unique in showing live streaming numbers so this won’t be doable on Apple, Amazon, Deezer etc.
Likes and Saves should also remain providing the rules are kept when transferring your music.
*When getting in touch to report this, please provide as much information as possible including UPCs of the merging products and URI/URL links. Situations like this one are a reminder of how important it is to be as accurate with the information you’re supplying to us. It’s a long process to correct if not actioned correctly the first time around.
10. Issuing Takedowns
Once confident that your products are live and merged you can issue takedown notices to your previous distributor, either by communicating with them directly or manually issuing instructions through their content management system - depending on your agreement.
Reference: DSP Behaviour During A Catalogue Transition
Apple
Curated playlists should remain and stay intact so long as we deliver the metadata like-for-like as it is set up at Apple currently. Should you spot any discrepancies please get in touch with AWAL. Personal playlists may be retained but it’s not guaranteed unfortunately, which includes reviews and ratings.
YouTube
Unless it is excluded from your client agreement, we will deliver audio to YouTube
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YouTube Content ID (UGC Monetisation)
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For UGC (User Generated Content) purposes with the policy set to ‘monetise’, meaning adverts could be used when your audio is used by a third party.
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Content ID is not available to all content** , if your catalogue contains the likes of cover versions, compilations, samples, DJ Mash Ups, karaoke, remastered versions (amongst others - please check YouTube Content ID Policy), then let us know.
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** This also applies to Facebook / Instagram **
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YouTube Music (Paid Subscription Music Service)
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When a new distributor delivers to YouTube Music play counts should merge
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Curated / editorial playlists should migrate, however personal user playlists and libraries do not.
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YouTube Music (Free Ad-Funded Music Service)
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When a new distributor delivers to YouTube Music it means that the playcounts restart at 0.
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Curated / editorial playlists should migrate, however personal user playlists and libraries do not.
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Amazon
Prime statuses and ratings / reviews will not be retained during catalogue integrations
In addition to the above, there are a number of digital services that behave in a bespoke way and many clients have preferences when it comes to some of these services.
TikTok
We deliver to TikTok so that tracks will be searchable in the TikTok app.
The default preview times on our deliveries are:
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track is less than 85 seconds: preview starts at 00:00
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track is over 85 seconds: preview starts at 00:45
When a catalogue recording is delivered through AWAL, the tracks should merge with the existing tracks if they have been delivered with the same EANs and ISRC, please know that preview times will also match up, however, you can update these with us.
AWAL only delivers 13-digit EANs and we are unable to deliver 12 digit UPCs (if it is a UPC, AWAL’s system automatically adds a ‘0’ to make it a 13 digit EAN).
If the track identifier (ISRC) or product identifier (UPC/EAN) differ, then TikTok will be unable to merge. In this scenario, when the previous distributor pulls their version of the product down those sounds will no longer be available. Creations made using those clips will remain on the platform for users to see, but users will not be able to make new creations out of the old clips.
Once AWAL has delivered the product the sound will appear when searched for and creators can use, they will just not be linked to previous creations of the track.