From Docs // Creators.RockBand.com
What is the "Release Label" information in Magma?
Record Labels are an optional tag which is attached to each RBN song submitted, and should represent the name of the Record Label which released the song (if any). If the song is approved and published to the RBN store, gamers will be able to search by Record Label in the RBN store.
How does creators.rockband.com handle Labels?
Creators.rockband.com maintains a database of Label names. When someone submits a song with a Label name that's not on the list:
- We add that name to the list and
- We attach that name to the submitter's login; no one else can submit with that label after that.
Why do you do it this way?
We created this system in order to minimize the chances that someone could maliciously (or erroneously) submit a song and attribute it to a label that they do not represent.
Why did my song fail to validate with an error about record labels?
You have probably picked a label name that is already in use. If you feel that this is an error, and that you should have the rights to upload as a label, please email us at creators_support@rockband.com
There is also a bug which causes the validation to fail if the case of the label is not correct. If, for example, your label name is "AWESOME Records", but you put "awesome records" into Magma, it will fail to upload. Recompiling your .rba with the Label name matching exactly should fix the problem.
Can I have more than one label?
A single submitter can have several labels attached.
Can I have more than one person submit for a label?
Nope. Each label may only be attached to a single submitter.
Most big established labels will have a single submitter account that they funnel submissions through. Most small labels will be a person who submits their own stuff. We also pre-loaded the database with very many existing label names, to keep people from pretending to be Sub Pop.
We feel that purchasing a new Gold Xbox Gamertag ($7.95/month) and a $49 XNA membership is a fairly small hurdle if a label is interested in building their name and reputation via RBN (think of it equivalent to a year of website hosting...most labels would pay that without even thinking twice, right?)
What if I don't have a label?
If you are an individual, and you don't have a label, or your label is just a funny name that you tell your friends when you send them mp3s, you should leave the field blank.
Don't enter something like "No Label" or "Independent". First of all, your song will not upload because we have reserved all those words. Second of all, we reserved all those words because when the song is approved and for sale in the RBN store, "Independent" would appear in the list of labels, which would just cause confusion.
What if I'm working on someone elses' music?
For authors/groups who are submitting songs on behalf of artists (for example, if you are submitting a Jonathan Coulton song for Playtest that he is going to submit later for Peer Review), there are two important steps that you need to take to make sure that the song can smoothly move through the process.
- You will need to name your submissions something like "Awesome Songname (playtest) - The Band" or "Awesome Songname - The Band (by AuthorGroup)".
- You will need to make sure your playtest submissions do not have the Label tag set. When you build your final .rba to send to the Peer Review creator set the label then, or have them do it and build the .rba themselves.
We realize that neither of these systems is ideal, as the Playtest history of the song will be lost, and the release version will be and reset to 1 when the final artist uploads it. We are developing a robust submission by proxy system to avoid these problems, but don't have an exact ETA on when it will be ready.
If you are doing a great deal of work for a single label, you could purchase another XNA membership and GamerTag, and submit for them. The side benefit of this is that you can submit the songs, receive the money, and pay out to them, or they can submit themselves under their own login. If necessary you could transfer "ownership" of the songs to them, something that would not be practical if all songs were grouped under a single account.
