Wikidata:Property proposal/release artist
release artist edit
Originally proposed at Wikidata:Property proposal/Creative work
Motivation edit
TLDR:
Currently at WikiProject Music we use performer (P175) to say who performed and released an audio track (Q7302866) or musical release (Q2031291). However, there are many times in which the artist that released the track did not perform it or they did not perform all of the tracks on the release (this is inferred when you put performer (P175) on a release).
This property separates the definition of "performer" with "release artist" and allows users to specify each of them when they are different.
How this property will be used is it will be an option for users who are documenting releases can use. Users can use performer (P175) still if they would like (it should be correct for the majority of cases), but if they need to specify the release artist, they can use that property too.
More context:
To deal with this currently, Wikiproject Music has an undocumented solution of using contributor to the creative work or subject (P767) to say who "actually" performed on a track even though we have a property called "performer". As an example from User:Moebeus:
Yesterday (Q60614852)contributor to the creative work or subject (P767)Paul McCartney (Q2599)
The problem with this is that we are completely discounting the definition and purpose of having a "performer" property and conflating it with "release artist" by saying it "usually" means the same thing. We're also making editing a lot more confusing and harder for editors as they have to know approach described above and use qualifiers instead of simply adding one statement to indicate performers when they are different from the release artist. Because of these problems there are likely thousands of tracks and releases that have different performers than those who released them. This is particularly of concern with ones that are released by "various artists (Q3108914)" and classical/orchestral pieces where the person who released a track is likely the one who wrote the piece and an orchestra performed it otherwise.
By creating a "release artist" property we will make documenting the person who released the track or release (the one usually on music streaming sites) easy and straightforward knowing that both "release artist" and "performer" mean exactly what their property labels are.
We decided to create a new property and move current statements instead of renaming performer (P175) because there are about 60-40 thousand statements we can't account for that aren't part of the standard music data model. Renaming would also require creating a new "performer" property, moving statements, and changing a property's definition - which has a lot more downsides.
Lectrician1 (talk) 18:39, 8 July 2022 (UTC)
Discussion edit
Comment This might be a good idea, but there are not "thousands of tracks and releases that have different performers than those who released them", that is not an argument that can stand without some numbers to back it up. The use of "performer" to indicate release artist is generally well understood, the values overwhelmingly come from various Wikipedias where they know the difference. The majority of errors come down to "Billy Bob and The Bobsters", where only Billy Bob has an an article, so the performer ends up being Billy, and not the group. Moebeus (talk) 15:44, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
- This might be a good idea, but there are not "thousands of tracks and releases that have different performers than those who released them", that is not an argument that can stand without some numbers to back it up.
- This is hard to get numbers for because everyone uses performer! The property is conflated! I could tell you that there's 5741 uses of performer (P175)various artists (Q3108914).
- The use of "performer" to indicate release artist is generally well understood, the values overwhelmingly come from various Wikipedias where they know the difference. The majority of errors come down to "Billy Bob and The Bobsters", where only Billy Bob has an an article, so the performer ends up being Billy, and not the group.
- I agree it's well understood, but don't you want to solve this issue of the property being conflated because contributors don't know what to use otherwise? It's just so weird to have a property whose label means one thing but its actual usage means another. Do you have any problems with the proposed solution? Do you have any alternative solutions? Lectrician1 (talk) 15:46, 14 December 2022 (UTC)
Comment This is missing a lot of necessary context. A "release" artist imbues a lot of things that the general public is often not aware of. "release" traditionally and even today means "releasing artwork to the public for enjoyment, either for free or for compensation with receipt" and from Wikipedia "a creative output from an artist available for sale or distribution". Saying a "release artist" is analogous to saying "Beginning on a certain date and time, I am one of the artists expected to receive credit for my work or contributions and also receiving compensation (often in royalty payments) or waiving compensation (free), while issuing receipts for my artwork". And MO (Music Ontology) has a Release classed I would say more correctly with properties that constitute a "sellable thing" such as catalogue_number, ean, grid, gtin, upc, etc. I fear within Wikidata, we might not be respecting the music industry practices and semantic work already being done by music rights advocacies that help with distribution (radio airplay) and streaming rights for music that has been published. One context that is being skimmed over is that of "credit" which I think is the proper context in this proposal trying to bring up to the surface, but it's more than "credit", it's also about representative rights for all involved, artists, performers, contributors. Happy to join in on further discussion, I have added myself as a participant to the WikiProject Music wiki, but I didn't see a Discussion item that matches this proposal. (Where we can further talk about "receipts" in general, where artists nowadays using online platforms, are expected compensation and in turn give limited distribution rights which only officially begins on a release day; In the USA, it was traditionally Tuesdays, but since with the advent of platforms is now any date/time.) --Thadguidry (talk) 18:36, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
- but I didn't see a Discussion item that matches this proposal
- We mostly talked about this on the Wikiproject Music Telegram group (discussion link). Lectrician1 (talk) 21:15, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
Comment So, as a good first step, we might clarify the description to something like "music artist that released (allowing sale or distribution) this release or track" --Thadguidry (talk) 18:40, 11 July 2022 (UTC)
- Changed the description. Thank you for the suggestion. Lectrician1 (talk) 18:22, 6 December 2022 (UTC)
Oppose. I don't see this suggestion as working and optimal based on the current situation on WD. Right now 99% of the performer (P175) values are used exactly in sense of a releasing artist, and are connected in the same sense for importing into the wikipedias infoboxes. The values in sense of performing artists (like orchestras) are usually filled in contributor to the creative work or subject (P767). E.g. this applies for the case of Hans Zimmer and the orchestra playing his music – streaming services also list it this way. Whereas music by classical composers is often filled in the opposite way, when services specify orchestras as the main releasing artist. There is no consistency here and that is why we have such a combined property. I think adding this property would only add more confusion for users because of such cases and lead to clutter.
- If we decide to split these concepts, then "performing artist" should be a new extra property, as this is more of a niche case than the other way round. And the only challenge here is how to properly update the name of P175. Having said that, I doubt that anyone will engage in a mass transfer of hundreds of thousands of statements with handling all values one by one, as well as engage in modifying the infobox code all over the wikipedias.
- It seems to me that continuing to use p175+p767 is still a better option here. Solidest (talk) 17:23, 18 January 2023 (UTC)
- @Solidest The proposed property is the niche option to use. I'm not proposing this thinking that we should switch the thousands of values of performer (P175) to "release artist". I'm proposing this property so that it's something we can use in addition to performer (P175) in cases where we need it. All the current uses of performer (P175) will remain the way they are. Lectrician1 (talk) 17:21, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
- The choice of titles implies exactly the other option. Such a mismatch between titles and meanings (and that the new property is proposed to be optional in advance, although by name it should be primary) will only lead to more confusion. Solidest (talk) 00:46, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
- @Solidest Mismatch between titles and meanings? Performer means performer and release artist means release artist. If an editor asks "how do I add the release artist to a release", well then I'd respond they should use "release artist". If an editor want to add a performer of the release, well then I'd respond they should use "performer". Yes, the meaning of performer will change with the introduction of this property, but this change shouldn't be confusing or effect our data in any way, since as we know, the vast majority of use cases of performer are already correct.
- If you're concerned that people are going to start using "release artist" instead of "performer" to document the release artist of a release, you shouldn't be. You can still find the release artists of most releases by checking if a "performer" statement exists. If a "release artist" statement exists well than you actually know its the real release artist. And if there's both, well then you know both!
- If you're concerned about how we can performer queries like checking how many releases don't have release artist or performer statements, all you have to do is query for releases that don't have "release artist" or "performer". It's pretty easy to do! Lectrician1 (talk) 00:45, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- I can imagine that when a user transfers release information from Apple Music, they perceive the only listed artist on the site to be exactly "release artist", and under the word "performer" they can start filling in backing singers, conductors and the like. It's just headline-based logic, for someone who sees these two properties existing simultaneously and hasn't dealt with it before. And "performer" will also shrink because its current meaning will be split between the two fields. I'm still convinced that the title "release artist" (and not "performer") looks the main one for the release if have two. Whereas "performer" is the main field automatically displayed in the infoboxes on some wikipedias. So it seems to me that this would only add fragmentation and confusion. Solidest (talk) 01:04, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- @Solidest you're correct! The result of this property existing over time should be that users would start using this to document the release artist and not "performer" and eventually this should become the dominant property. Luckily, we don't have to make this transition right away, but in order to account for it in regards to data consumers like infoboxes, infoboxes should be changed to use "release artist" instead of "performer" if it is present. If it isn't present, well then they should use "performer". Even with the cost of this change I think this property is worth it as it helps clear up already-present confusion as to how we're supposed to document the release artist if it's different than the performer. Lectrician1 (talk) 13:54, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- I can imagine that when a user transfers release information from Apple Music, they perceive the only listed artist on the site to be exactly "release artist", and under the word "performer" they can start filling in backing singers, conductors and the like. It's just headline-based logic, for someone who sees these two properties existing simultaneously and hasn't dealt with it before. And "performer" will also shrink because its current meaning will be split between the two fields. I'm still convinced that the title "release artist" (and not "performer") looks the main one for the release if have two. Whereas "performer" is the main field automatically displayed in the infoboxes on some wikipedias. So it seems to me that this would only add fragmentation and confusion. Solidest (talk) 01:04, 22 January 2023 (UTC)
- The choice of titles implies exactly the other option. Such a mismatch between titles and meanings (and that the new property is proposed to be optional in advance, although by name it should be primary) will only lead to more confusion. Solidest (talk) 00:46, 21 January 2023 (UTC)
- @Solidest The proposed property is the niche option to use. I'm not proposing this thinking that we should switch the thousands of values of performer (P175) to "release artist". I'm proposing this property so that it's something we can use in addition to performer (P175) in cases where we need it. All the current uses of performer (P175) will remain the way they are. Lectrician1 (talk) 17:21, 19 January 2023 (UTC)
Comment The same issue also arises for featured artists, who are performers (as defined by the Rome Convention: "actors, singers, musicians, dancers, and other persons who act, sing, deliver, declaim, play in, or otherwise perform literary or artistic works") but not release artists. This is not rare at all.
As a relatively new editor, I didn't know about contributor to the creative work or subject (P767), but I don't think it's a viable solution. It's not intuitive at all to use another property for performers when there is already one whose label is precisely "performer".
So far, I've dealt with this situation by interpreting performer (P175) as "release artist" for instances of musical release (Q2031291) and as performer according to the definition of the Rome convention for instances of audio track (Q7302866) (as well as musical work/composition (Q105543609), since this is about the performers of the recordings/performances of the work). Therefore, a featured artist would be listed as performer for the track, but not for the release.
It's a pragmatic choice, because "release artist" is an essential information about releases, while "performer" is for tracks, and there is generally no need to repeat the same information on the related items. This approach should also work for the examples listed in the proposal, though it would be necessary to create missing track or release items to provide the full information.
It's still ambiguous for releases, because users might also interpret performer (P175) as the list of all the performers of the tracks of the release. Nonetheless, it's not conceptually wrong. The domain of performer (P175) isn't limited to tracks. Its definition ("actor, musician, band or other performer associated with this role or musical work") is actually broader than the definition of the Rome Convention and allows the use of the property to indicate the artists "associated" with a release, i.e. the release artists.
To put it simply, I don't think a new property is really needed, nor any kind of work around. But it would be very useful to document the way performer (P175) should be used in the context of each class. Currently, Wikidata:WikiProject_Music only references performer (P175) as a property for releases, and the description encourages listing all the performers of the tracks.
DriftingLill (talk) 22:56, 18 May 2023 (UTC)
Not done, no consensus of proposed property at this time based on the above discussion. Regards, ZI Jony (Talk) 10:56, 2 June 2023 (UTC)
