When you walk into a movie theatre you will see rolling credits listing the most important members of the production as well as the cast and crew involved in the project. Music services like Pandora, iTunes, Spotify, and Amazon along with others do not list credits of those who were involved.

“That’s the basis for a metadata movement being spearheaded by producer, mixer and engineer Count (aka Mikael Eldridge), whose ‘credits’ include artists like DJ Shadow, Radiohead, The Rolling Stones, Frank Sinatra, New Order, No Doubt, Galactic, Zoe Keating, and Tycho. ”
(Digital Music News)

Count wants his name included in these artists’ digital works – just like physical formats – which is why he’s pushing to properly credit performers, producers, and engineers on all online music services. He offers a solid case as well.

“If Led Zeppelin had only sold albums digitally when they started, it’s very unlikely that many people would know who Jimmy Page or Robert Plant are because the digital music files you purchase for download or streaming can’t show you who played on them.”

(1) Better credits make better user experiences. For example, if I like Radiohead or the Roots, I would want to know who produced them, what other albums they’ve done, and who’s performing on the recordings. Chances are I might like their other work.

(2) This is Marketing 101. It’s an opportunity for these companies to share and sell more music.

(3) Hollywood does it, so why don’t we? The Screen Actors Guild, Directors Guild, and Writers Guild along with the studios would sue if the credits were not there.

(4) This is not about egos. It’s about survival. Producers, engineers, and musicians need these credits in order to survive in this business. Nobody knows the producers work without credit.

(5) It’s an easy fix. Internet distributors to simply require the following info for all releases: list all performers, producers, engineers, mixers, and mastering engineers for each song and provide their preferred web link. Without this data, the release simply shouldn’t be accepted by distributors.

Click here to ‘Like’ the campaign to credit performers, producers, and engineers on all online music services.

“It’s absolutely unbelievable that I can go online and instantly have access to Roger Federer’s obscure tennis stats but I can’t even see who is singing a song on iTunes or Pandora.” – Count