A Checklist Template for Reviewing Metadata Before Submission

Metadata errors are the single most common reason cover song releases get delayed in moderation or flagged after they go live. This checklist walks through every metadata field a distributor and its licensing partners check, in the order they check it, so you can catch problems before submission rather than after a takedown notice.

Most metadata rejections aren’t about complicated legal issues — they’re about mismatches. A title spelled differently on the release than in the original composer’s registered work, a featured artist listed in the wrong field, a genre tag that doesn’t match the audio. Each one is small. Together they’re the reason turnaround times balloon from a day or two to a week or more.

Why does metadata matter more for covers than original songs?

Metadata matters more for covers because it’s the data that triggers automatic mechanical licensing — get it wrong and the license request itself can fail even if the recording is fine. For an original song, metadata is mostly about discovery and royalty routing. For a cover, it’s also the mechanism that identifies which underlying composition you’re licensing and who gets paid as the songwriter. If the system can’t match your entry to a known musical work, it can’t generate a license, and that’s a hard stop rather than a cosmetic issue.

Title field checklist

The release title should match how listeners actually search for the song, and the version subtitle should disclose that it’s a cover without being cluttered.

Song title spelled exactly as the original, including punctuation («Ain’t» not «Aint»)
Version tag included where relevant — «(Cover)», «(Acoustic Cover)», or «(Originally Performed by Artist Name)»
No promotional text in the title field — no «NEW,» no emojis, no all-caps
Consistent capitalization style across title and version tag
Title matches the audio file’s actual content — no leftover working titles from your project file

Artist and contributor fields checklist

This is where covers most often get miscategorized, because the roles are different from an original release.

Primary artist is you or your band, not the original performer
Original artist is never listed as a primary or featured artist unless they actually performed on your track
Featured vocalists, guest musicians, and producers are credited in the correct role field, not lumped into the main artist name
Songwriter and composer fields list the original song’s writers, not you — unless you’re also crediting a co-arranger where the platform allows it
Artist name spelling matches your existing releases exactly, including spacing and special characters

Work identification checklist

This section is the one most people skip, and it’s the one that actually determines whether your automatic licensing request resolves cleanly.

Original song title entered precisely as registered, not as a nickname or shortened version
Original performing artist correctly identified for song matching
Release format matches your actual recording — single, EP track, or album track
If the song has multiple well-known versions (a standard covered by dozens of artists), the specific version you referenced is noted if the submission form allows it

Technical and catalog fields checklist

ISRCs and catalog data don’t affect licensing, but errors here cause reporting problems that surface months later in royalty statements.

ISRC assigned automatically or entered correctly if you’re using your own
UPC/barcode consistent across all tracks on the same release
Release date set with enough lead time for review — don’t schedule a release date the same day you submit
Genre tag reflects the actual arrangement, not just the original song’s genre (a stripped-down acoustic cover of a pop song may fit better under singer-songwriter)
Explicit content flag matches the lyrics as recorded, not the original’s rating

Artwork and audio file checklist

Metadata review isn’t only text fields — cover art and audio files carry embedded metadata too, and mismatches here trigger the same delays.

Cover art contains no text implying it’s the original artist’s release (no using their name in large text on the artwork)
Cover art meets minimum resolution requirements, typically 3000×3000 pixels
Audio file embedded metadata (ID3 tags) matches what you entered in the submission form
No watermarks, sample tags, or leftover reference vocals in the final audio

How long should a metadata review add to submission time?

A clean metadata submission shouldn’t add any meaningful time at all — the delays come specifically from mismatches that require manual review or resubmission. Globex Music’s moderation is built around fast turnaround for cover songs precisely because most submissions with clean metadata pass through automatically. When something does need a human look, the usual causes are the fields above: a title mismatch, a missing version tag, or a songwriter field left blank. Running this checklist before you hit submit is the fastest way to stay on the automatic-approval side of that line.

A worked example: what a mismatch actually costs you

Say you submit a cover with the title entered as «Yesterday» but list yourself as the songwriter instead of the original composer. The system can’t confirm you’re licensing an existing work, so it either rejects the submission outright or routes it to manual review. If manual review takes three to five extra business days and you had a release date tied to a social media push, that content calendar slips by nearly a week for a fix that would have taken thirty seconds during initial entry. Multiply that across a catalog of twenty or thirty covers released over a year, and metadata review time saved up front compounds into real momentum kept on your release schedule.

Why this matters more when releases cost $1 each

At Globex Music’s per-release pricing, the economics of a rejected submission are different from a subscription model. You’re not losing a slice of an annual fee you already paid — you’re spending a few extra minutes fixing a specific field and resubmitting, with royalty payouts starting from $10 USD once the corrected release is live across 200+ platforms. That’s a much lower-stakes failure mode than realizing months into a $44.99/year DistroKid plan or a $24.99 TuneCore base subscription that a chunk of your catalog has been sitting in review because of an avoidable metadata error. A short checklist run before submission is cheap insurance either way, but it’s especially worth the two minutes when your permanent catalog stability depends on getting the work identification right the first time.