User GuideThings to Know

Things to Know

How ONCE and music distribution actually behave. Understanding these details will help you avoid surprises.

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Release Dates

Original Release Date Behavior

When you edit or redistribute a release, the release date shown on streaming platforms may change to today’s date. To preserve your original release date history, ONCE automatically sets the Original Release Date to the earliest successful distribution date on record.

This is important because:

  • Editing metadata (like fixing a typo) triggers a redistribution
  • Streaming platforms may interpret redistributions as “new” releases
  • The Original Release Date field preserves when your music first went live

What this means for you:

  • Your music will still show its historical release date where platforms support it
  • Spotify and Apple Music use Original Release Date for sorting and discovery
  • You don’t need to manually track this, ONCE handles it automatically

Scheduling Releases

For best results:

  • Schedule ahead: This gives time for platform processing
  • Avoid weekends: Most platform processing happens on business days
  • Consider time zones: Release times are typically in UTC

Release Date Changes

  • Changes to release dates before distribution are usually possible
  • Changes after distribution require a redistribution and may affect metrics
  • Contact support quickly if you need to change a date

Making Edits After Distribution

When you update a distributed release:

  1. The update is sent to all platforms
  2. Platforms reflect the changes after processing
  3. The release date may be affected (see above)
  4. Stream counts and playlist placements are not affected

What you can edit: release and track titles, artist names, localized artist names where a store supports them, role credits (producer, engineer, mixing, mastering), album artwork, genre, copyright and other metadata, lyrics, track audio, UPCs, and ISRCs.

What you cannot edit: adding or removing tracks (that needs a new release), and reordering tracks in the edit modal.

Audio, UPC, and ISRC changes on a live release go through an automatic takedown-then-redistribute sequence, because stores will not accept them on a release that is already out. Everything else goes out directly with your music still live. Changing a Release walks through each case, including how to take a release down and whether an alternate version should replace the original or go out on its own.

DSPs and release metadata

Digital service providers (DSPs), streaming and download stores such as Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and YouTube Music, run their own catalogs, policies, and display systems. ONCE submits the metadata you approve, but each store ultimately controls what appears on its service and may change how your release is shown over time.

That means ONCE cannot guarantee that every field will look identical everywhere, or that a store will never adjust presentation after delivery. Common reasons stores intervene include:

  • Formatting and style rules: Many DSPs normalize titles, featured-artist wording, or version tags (for example, requiring certain punctuation or casing) so listings stay consistent on their platform.
  • Catalog matching: Some services match audio or metadata to an existing catalog entry. That process can replace or override what you embedded locally. Users have reported on Apple’s forums that Apple Music / iTunes Match–style matching sometimes swapped in different artwork or track/album information than they had set when Apple associated a file with another item in the catalog.
  • Editorial and policy enforcement: Stores may hide, reject, or relabel metadata they consider misleading, promotional in the wrong fields, or non-compliant with their rules (even when a distributor initially accepted the delivery).
  • Fraud and duplicate detection: Large platforms use automated systems to flag inconsistent or abusive metadata. Press coverage (for example, The Verge in 2024) described cases where unauthorized or spam releases briefly appeared on real Spotify artist pages while artists worked with platforms to remove them, illustrating that storefronts, not distributors alone, control what stays live and how profiles are protected.
  • Platform-specific features: YouTube Music delivery usually creates an auto-generated Art Track on an artist Topic channel. Content ID and Official Artist Channels are separate YouTube services, so a release can stay live on YouTube Music without either one. Amazon Music and others each publish their own metadata requirements and may display genres, labels, or dates differently.

What you should do: Send accurate metadata and artwork from ONCE, then spot-check your live pages on the stores you care about. If something looks wrong on one DSP, contact ONCE support. We can often help with a metadata update or next steps, but the store has final say on its user-facing data.

Platform-Specific Behaviors

Spotify

  • Requires separate pitching for editorial playlists
  • Shows release date prominently on album pages

Apple Music

  • Has stricter cover art requirements
  • Pre-add feature helps build anticipation

YouTube Music

  • ONCE continues to deliver new releases to this streaming service
  • Delivery usually generates an Art Track automatically on an artist Topic channel
  • YouTube Content ID is a separate matching and claims service; new enrollment through ONCE is limited to approved distribution partners
  • Official Artist Channels are a separate channel feature; they are not required for YouTube Music delivery

TikTok / Instagram

  • Distribution enables music in their sound libraries
  • Artists can claim their sound page
  • Great for viral potential
  • TikTok does not display featured artists: featured artist credits are submitted but will not appear on TikTok

Best Practices

  1. Triple-check before submitting: errors are harder to fix once your music is out
  2. Save your original files: keep your source audio and artwork backed up
  3. Keep a note of your ISRCs and UPC: these are permanent identifiers, useful for royalty tracking and for finding your release on a store
  4. Monitor your release: check status on the Releases page regularly
  5. Fix problems before they go out: while a release is a draft or still submitted, changes are quick and free
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