You record a song with an artist who has a bigger following than you. The mix is done, the master is approved, the release is scheduled. Then it goes live, and your name sits under "appears on" on their page. On your own page, the song is nowhere near the top. Or it goes the other way: you are the bigger name, and a friend shows up as co-primary on your release because someone clicked the wrong option.
Both outcomes start with one setting on the distributor's upload form. Whether an artist is tagged as primary or featured is a business decision, not a data-entry detail. Agree it in writing, along with who fills out the form, before anything is delivered.
One setting decides whose profile the song lives on
People who work in distribution describe two levels of tagging. You can tag an artist on the whole release, or only on the individual track. The way they explain it, an artist tagged as primary on the release gets the song at the top of their page. An artist tagged as featured on the track usually sees it filed under "appears on". Platforms change how they display this, so check current behavior before you promise anything.
The difference matters most when one artist is bigger than the other. If you are tagged as primary on a bigger artist's new release, the song shows up in front of their followers. That can lift your streams. If you are only featured, you may get much less of that.
Fixing a wrong tag after release can mean sending the release to the stores again. That costs time, and the first weeks of a release are the ones that count. So the conversation has to happen before upload.
Ask for primary before the track is finished
If the other artist is bigger, ask to be primary on the release. Ask early, while the song is still a demo and nobody has a stake in the answer. They may say no. A clear no in week one is far better than a surprise on release day.
If you are the bigger artist, think about what you are giving up. A co-primary tag puts their name at the top of your release and sends your listeners to their profile. That can be a fair trade for a partner who brings their own audience. It should still be a choice you made.
Whichever side you are on, a chat message is a weak record. A written collaboration agreement is where the tag, the credit and the money get settled together. That is the gap Musilock fills: it generates the agreement and sends it out for e-signature, so you are not relying on a text thread from three months ago.
A credit is not a share of the royalties
Streaming services are building more of their discovery around credits. Listeners can click a producer, a violinist or a backing vocalist and see what else that person has worked on. Spotify's version of this was reportedly still in beta at the time of this source, but the direction is clear.
That is a reason to credit everyone who was in the room. Take a session where five friends shout gang vocals on a chorus. One of them may be producing records in a few years. Their name on the credits is a free, permanent link between that person and your song.
A credit is still only a credit. It does not give anyone a percentage of the song or the recording. Equally, a primary tag does not mean you own half. Ownership and royalty shares need their own written agreement, such as a split sheet. Keep the two documents separate so nobody assumes a credit means a payout, or the reverse.
Put the tagging details in the agreement, not in your head
Before anyone uploads, the agreement should answer a short list of questions:
- Who is primary and who is featured, on the release and on each track.
- Who uploads the release and holds the distributor account.
- The exact spelling of every artist name and song title.
- Every contributor, with full name and role, including the people on backing vocals.
- Where the royalty shares are written down, and that the credit list does not change them.
- What happens if either of you later wants the tag changed.
The spelling line is not fussy. Distribution staff say that a different capital letter or a typo between a single and the album version can cause real problems with how streams are matched and reported. Small differences look harmless between friends. They are not harmless to the systems that count your plays.
Keep one agreed copy of the details
Once the agreement is signed, both of you should hold the same final list: names, roles, titles and the tags you chose. Most emerging artists do not keep this anywhere. The people who upload for a living say that is the first thing they wish artists had ready.
You can draft all of this yourself in a shared document. Musilock exists because most people never get round to it, and the tag gets decided by whoever happens to be filling out the form. Decide it first, sign it, and the form becomes a copy job.