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action="/search" method="get"><input name="type" type="hidden" value="doc"/><input name="query" placeholder="Search the documentation..." type="text"/> <span class="buttons inline"><button type="submit">Search</button></span></form></div><h1 class="hierarchy-links"><a href="/doc/Style">Style</a> / <a href="/doc/Style/Unknown_and_untitled">Unknown and untitled</a> / <a href="/doc/Style/Unknown_and_untitled/Special_purpose_label" style="font-weight:bold">Special purpose label</a></h1><div><html><head></head><body><div class="mw-parser-output"><table class="wikitable " style="text-align:center; background:#FFFDDF; width:100%; margin-top:0.5em; margin-bottom:0.5em;"><tbody><tr><td style="border:1px solid #ffcc00;"><b>Status:</b> This is an <a href="/doc/Style">official style guideline</a>. </td></tr></tbody></table><p>In a number of situations, it was convenient to create "phony" <a class="mw-redirect" href="/doc/label">label</a> entries in the database, to deal with some special cases. <p>Special purpose labels are similar in intent and functioning to <a class="mw-redirect" href="/doc/Special_Purpose_Artist">special purpose artists</a>. <p>Please note that you <b>shouldn't create new special purpose labels all by yourself</b> without prior discussion about it with other editors in the <a class="external text" href="https://community.metabrainz.org/" rel="nofollow">forums</a>. <div aria-labelledby="mw-toc-heading" class="toc" id="toc" role="navigation"><input class="toctogglecheckbox" id="toctogglecheckbox" role="button" style="display:none" type="checkbox" /><div class="toctitle" dir="ltr" lang="en"><h2 id="mw-toc-heading">Contents</h2><span class="toctogglespan"><label class="toctogglelabel" for="toctogglecheckbox"></label></span></div><ul><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-1"><a href="#Special_cases"><span class="tocnumber">1</span> <span class="toctext">Special cases</span></a><li class="toclevel-1 tocsection-2"><a href="#Advanced_information"><span class="tocnumber">2</span> <span class="toctext">Advanced information</span></a><ul><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-3"><a href="#About_white-labels"><span class="tocnumber">2.1</span> <span class="toctext">About white-labels</span></a><li class="toclevel-2 tocsection-4"><a href="#About_auto-releases_(or_self-releases)"><span class="tocnumber">2.2</span> <span class="toctext">About auto-releases (or self-releases)</span></a></ul></ul></div><h2><span class="mw-headline" id="Special_cases">Special cases</span></h2><ul><li><a class="extiw" href="https://musicbrainz.org/label/157afde4-4bf5-4039-8ad2-5a15acc85176">[no label]</a>: <a class="extiw" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_label">White labels</a>, self-published releases and other "no label" releases (usually bootlegs) should all be stored under this entry in the database.<li><a class="extiw" href="https://musicbrainz.org/label/46caaa9e-3e26-49b5-827c-64ccc73c1b07">[unknown]</a>: This label is one that we can't prevent from appearing in the database, at least acknowledging its existence helps us steer it (via <a class="mw-redirect" href="/doc/Label_Subscription">label subscriptions</a>). Please note that you <b>mustn't</b> use this label. If you don't know what the label is for a given release, just leave the label entry blank in the release event.<li><a class="extiw" href="https://musicbrainz.org/label/02442aba-cf00-445c-877e-f0eaa504d8c2">MusicBrainz Test Label</a>: This test label is for internal use only and should never be used. Please do not attempt to "clean up" this label.</ul><h2><span class="mw-headline" id="Advanced_information">Advanced information</span></h2><h3><span class="mw-headline" id="About_white-labels">About white-labels</span></h3><p>Note that in a number of cases white labels releases are actually possible to track down to a proper label (either from information engraved in the vinyl, or from third party sources). While such research is not expected from casual editors, and while it's perfectly legit to add such releases to [no label], editors willing to go further can certainly use the proper label instead, if any. <h3><span id="About_auto-releases_.28or_self-releases.29"></span><span class="mw-headline" id="About_auto-releases_(or_self-releases)">About auto-releases (or self-releases)</span></h3><p>In some (somewhat rare) cases there is an imprint on the release (possibly the artist wants to give his "label" an identity). You may use that instead of [no label]. <p>For digital releases a label field is sometimes required by stores, and as such self-releases sometimes get assigned the artist name, or a code assigned by the distributor (such as "123456 Records DK"), as the designed "label". These are still self-releases and should generally be added as [no label]. <p><br /><center><table border="1" class="wikitable "><tbody><tr><th class="mbwiki-navbox-header" colspan="2"><a href="/doc/Style">Style</a></th></tr><tr class="mbwiki-navbox-row"><td class="mbwiki-navbox-rowtitle"><b>Overview</b></td><td class="mbwiki-navbox-rowlinks"><a href="/doc/Style/Principle">Style Principle</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Principle/Error_correction_and_artist_intent">Error correction & Artist intent</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Old_style_practices">Old and/or outdated style practices</a> · <a href="/doc/Communication#Forums">Forums</a> · <a href="/doc/Proposals">How to propose style changes</a></td></tr><tr class="mbwiki-navbox-row"><td class="mbwiki-navbox-rowtitle"><b>Title Style</b></td><td class="mbwiki-navbox-rowlinks"><a href="/doc/Style/Titles">Titles</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Titles/OC_ReMix_series">OC ReMix series</a></td></tr><tr class="mbwiki-navbox-row"><td class="mbwiki-navbox-rowtitle"><b>Entities</b></td><td class="mbwiki-navbox-rowlinks"><a href="/doc/Style/Artist">Artist</a> (<a href="/doc/Style/Artist/Sort_Name">Sort name</a>) · <a href="/doc/Style/Release_Group">Release Group</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Release">Release</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Recording">Recording</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Work">Work</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Series">Series</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Place">Place</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Event">Event</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Aliases">Aliases</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Artist_Credits">Artist credits</a></td></tr><tr class="mbwiki-navbox-row"><td class="mbwiki-navbox-rowtitle"><b>Relationships</b></td><td class="mbwiki-navbox-rowlinks"><a href="/doc/Style/Relationships">Relationships</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Relationships/URLs">URLs</a> (<a href="/doc/Style/Relationships/URLs/Lyrics_whitelist">Lyrics Whitelist</a>) </td></tr><tr class="mbwiki-navbox-row"><td class="mbwiki-navbox-rowtitle"><b>Classical</b></td><td class="mbwiki-navbox-rowlinks"><a href="/doc/Style/Classical">Classical portal</a> · <a class="mw-redirect" href="/doc/Style/Classical/Release/Title">Release title</a> · <a class="mw-redirect" href="/doc/Style/Classical/Release/Artist">Release artist</a> · <a class="mw-redirect" href="/doc/Style/Classical/Track/Title">Track titles</a> · <a class="mw-redirect" href="/doc/Style/Classical/Track/Artist">Track artist</a> · <a class="mw-redirect" href="/doc/Style/Classical/Recording/Artist">Recording artist</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Classical/Works">Works</a></td></tr><tr class="mbwiki-navbox-row"><td class="mbwiki-navbox-rowtitle"><b>Special Cases/Misc.</b></td><td class="mbwiki-navbox-rowlinks"><a href="/doc/Style/Unknown_and_untitled">Unknown and untitled entities</a> (<a href="/doc/Style/Unknown_and_untitled/Special_purpose_artist">Special Purpose Artist</a>, <a class="mw-selflink selflink">Special Purpose Label</a>, <a href="/doc/Style/Unknown_and_untitled/Special_purpose_track_title">Special Purpose Track Title</a>) · <a href="/doc/Style/Specific_types_of_releases">Specific types of releases</a> (<a href="/doc/Style/Specific_types_of_releases/Pseudo-Releases">Pseudo-Releases</a>, <a href="/doc/Style/Specific_types_of_releases/Soundtrack">Soundtracks</a>, <a href="/doc/Style/Specific_types_of_releases/Theatre">Theatre</a>, <a href="/doc/Style/Specific_types_of_releases/Live_bootlegs">Live bootleg</a>, <a href="/doc/Style/Specific_types_of_releases/Broadcast_programs">Broadcast</a>, <a href="/doc/Style/Specific_types_of_releases/Audiobook">Audiobooks</a>, <a href="/doc/Style/Specific_types_of_releases/Remixes_and_mashups">Remixes and mashups</a>) · <a href="/doc/Style/Miscellaneous">Miscellaneous</a></td></tr><tr class="mbwiki-navbox-row"><td class="mbwiki-navbox-rowtitle"><b>Languages</b></td><td class="mbwiki-navbox-rowlinks"><a href="/doc/Style/Language/English">English</a> (<a href="/doc/Style/Classical/Language/English">Classical</a>) · <a href="/doc/Style/Language/Catalan">Catalan</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Language/Chinese">Chinese</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Language/Czech">Czech</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Language/Danish">Danish</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Language/Dutch">Dutch and Frisian</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Language/Estonian">Estonian</a> (<a href="/doc/Style/Classical/Language/Estonian">Classical</a>) · <a href="/doc/Style/Language/Finnish">Finnish</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Language/French">French</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Language/German">German</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Language/Greek">Greek</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Language/Hebrew">Hebrew</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Language/Hungarian">Hungarian</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Language/Italian">Italian</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Language/Japanese">Japanese</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Language/Latin">Latin</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Language/Latvian">Latvian</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Language/Lithuanian">Lithuanian</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Language/Norwegian">Norwegian</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Language/Polish">Polish</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Language/Portuguese">Portuguese</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Language/Romanian">Romanian</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Language/Russian">Russian</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Language/Slovak">Slovak</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Language/Spanish">Spanish</a> (<a href="/doc/Style/Classical/Language/Spanish">Classical</a>) · <a href="/doc/Style/Language/Swedish">Swedish</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Language/Turkish">Turkish</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Language/Vietnamese">Vietnamese</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Language/Yiddish">Yiddish</a> · <a href="/doc/Style/Language/Transliterations">Transliterations</a></td></tr></tbody></table></center></div></body></html></div><div class="wikidocs-footer">This page is <a href="/doc/WikiDocs">transcluded</a> from revision <a class="internal" 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