Artist profiles and store mapping

This is the highest-stakes step in a release, and the easiest to rush. Getting it wrong puts your music on a stranger's artist page, and fixing that afterwards means going through both SpaceMedia and the store.

An artist profile is the reusable identity attached to your releases and tracks. Store mapping tells each store whether this release belongs on an artist page that already exists, or needs a new one.

Before you create a profile

• Enter the artist name exactly as it should appear publicly, including capitalization and spacing.
• Search your account first. Two profiles for the same artist split your catalog.
• Have the public Spotify or Apple Music artist link ready if the artist is already on those stores.
• Never map on the strength of a matching name. Open the profile and confirm the catalog is actually yours.

Mapping to an existing profile

Search for the artist or paste the public artist link, then read the result before saving.

Paste the artist page link. Not a label page, not an album page, not a track page, and not a personal listening account. Those all look like valid links and none of them map correctly.

If the artist has no page on a store yet, choose the new-artist option in the release flow. Do not attach the release to someone else's page as a shortcut. Store profiles are created automatically on first delivery.

Verified profiles and control

Mapping a release to an artist page is not the same as owning or controlling that page. Claiming a profile, editing its images and biography, and getting verified are done through the store's own artist tools, such as Spotify for Artists and Apple Music for Artists. SpaceMedia delivers your music to the right page; the store decides who administers it.

For YouTube specifically, see YouTube Artist Channel.

My music is on the wrong artist page

Act quickly. The longer it sits, the more listening data attaches to the wrong profile.

Collect all of this before contacting support:

• The SpaceMedia artist name as entered.
• The incorrect public store link where the music appeared.
• The correct public store link, if the right page already exists.
• The affected release title and its UPC.
• The affected track ISRCs, if only some tracks are wrong.

Do not send store-account passwords. Support never needs them.

Common questions

Two artists have the same name. How do stores tell them apart? By the store profile identifier, not the name. That is exactly why mapping matters, and why a name match alone is not evidence.

Can I rename an artist profile after releasing? A name change affects everything already delivered under it and does not always propagate cleanly at stores. Treat it as a support request, not a self-service edit.

Do featured artists need profiles too? Yes, if you want the release to appear on their artist page. Credit them in the featured field with their own mapping, not in the release title.

I have releases from a previous distributor. Will they merge? They will, if the new release is mapped to the same store artist profile. That is the reason to map rather than create.