[MB] Performance / Legal Names Issue when no legal name is known

[Alex Yin-2]

http://musicbrainz.org/doc/Performance_Name_Relationship_Type
http://musicbrainz.org/doc/Same_Artist_With_Different_Names
http://musicbrainz.org/doc/Artist_Alias#When_NOT_to_use_aliases

MB makes clear that Performance Names are to be linked to Legal Names, and aliases are not supposed to be used for performance names.  That's good, but what happens when no one knows an artist's real name?

Disregarding the fact that the debate in http://musicbrainz.org/show/edit/?editid=10881818 is a complete trainwreck, you can be pretty clear, even if you can't read Japanese, that "KOTOKO" and "kotoko" are different artists.  KOTOKO has released all her music and written lyrics for other songs as "KOTOKO" for nearly 10 years, and she specifically announced that "kotoko" would be a side project.  She has releases as KOTOKO scheduled for August, and she wrote lyrics for the "kotoko 1st Single" as "KOTOKO", so it's not a case of inconsistent artist capitalization either.

I am of the opinion that for all intents and purposes, "KOTOKO" is almost like a legal name, and "KOTOKO performs as kotoko" would be an alright edit, even though it bends MB guidelines. Because iff "kotoko" can't be linked to KOTOKO as a performance name, then there is nothing you can do to link the 2 artists together, when they should be linked.

I am hoping we can get some discussion on Performance/Legal Names and see everyone else's opinions on this matter, when no legal name is known but one performance name is used consistently, almost like a legal name.

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[Philip Jägenstedt-3]

On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 19:49, neothe0ne<neothe0ne1@...> wrote:
> http://musicbrainz.org/doc/Performance_Name_Relationship_Type
> http://musicbrainz.org/doc/Same_Artist_With_Different_Names
> http://musicbrainz.org/doc/Artist_Alias#When_NOT_to_use_aliases
>
> MB makes clear that Performance Names are to be linked to Legal Names, and
> aliases are not supposed to be used for performance names.  That's good, but
> what happens when no one knows an artist's real name?

You don't create any AR:s.

> Disregarding the fact that the debate in
> http://musicbrainz.org/show/edit/?editid=10881818 is a complete trainwreck,
> you can be pretty clear, even if you can't read Japanese, that "KOTOKO" and
> "kotoko" are different artists.  KOTOKO has released all her music and
> written lyrics for other songs as "KOTOKO" for nearly 10 years, and she
> specifically announced that "kotoko" would be a side project.  She has
> releases as KOTOKO scheduled for August, and she wrote lyrics for the
> "kotoko 1st Single" as "KOTOKO", so it's not a case of inconsistent artist
> capitalization either.
>
> I am of the opinion that for all intents and purposes, "KOTOKO" is almost
> like a legal name, and "KOTOKO performs as kotoko" would be an alright edit,
> even though it bends MB guidelines. Because iff "kotoko" can't be linked to
> KOTOKO as a performance name, then there is nothing you can do to link the 2
> artists together, when they should be linked.

Write an annotation on both artists. There's lots of semi-interesting
relations that can't be represented properly as AR:s, just live with
it.

> I am hoping we can get some discussion on Performance/Legal Names and see
> everyone else's opinions on this matter, when no legal name is known but one
> performance name is used consistently, almost like a legal name.

--
Philip Jägenstedt

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[Kuno Woudt-2]

On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 01:49:45PM -0400, neothe0ne wrote:
> http://musicbrainz.org/doc/Performance_Name_Relationship_Type
> http://musicbrainz.org/doc/Same_Artist_With_Different_Names
> http://musicbrainz.org/doc/Artist_Alias#When_NOT_to_use_aliases
>
> MB makes clear that Performance Names are to be linked to Legal Names, and
> aliases are not supposed to be used for performance names.  That's good, but
> what happens when no one knows an artist's real name?

No link apparently, looking at all those votes.  I voted in favour, but
as you said, it's technically against the guidelines, so I understand
the no votes.  I fear if you want to link these two artists you will have
to propose changes to the Performs As AR on the musicbrainz-style
mailinglist, or propose an entirely new AR for this purpose (also on
mb-style).

> Disregarding the fact that the debate in
> http://musicbrainz.org/show/edit/?editid=10881818 is a complete trainwreck,
> you can be pretty clear, even if you can't read Japanese, that "KOTOKO" and
> "kotoko" are different artists.  KOTOKO has released all her music and
> written lyrics for other songs as "KOTOKO" for nearly 10 years, and she
> specifically announced that "kotoko" would be a side project.  She has
> releases as KOTOKO scheduled for August, and she wrote lyrics for the
> "kotoko 1st Single" as "KOTOKO", so it's not a case of inconsistent artist
> capitalization either.
>
> I am of the opinion that for all intents and purposes, "KOTOKO" is almost
> like a legal name, and "KOTOKO performs as kotoko" would be an alright edit,
> even though it bends MB guidelines. Because iff "kotoko" can't be linked to
> KOTOKO as a performance name, then there is nothing you can do to link the 2
> artists together, when they should be linked.
>
> I am hoping we can get some discussion on Performance/Legal Names and see
> everyone else's opinions on this matter, when no legal name is known but one
> performance name is used consistently, almost like a legal name.

Again, to me it seems like an entirely reasonable use of that AR.

-- kuno / warp.


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[Brian Schweitzer]

> I am hoping we can get some discussion on Performance/Legal Names and see
> everyone else's opinions on this matter, when no legal name is known but one
> performance name is used consistently, almost like a legal name.

Again, to me it seems like an entirely reasonable use of that AR.

For those who don't want to read pages of notes, the main conversation there deals not actually with the AR, but with the validity of the separation of the two artists.  I'm still far from convinced, but I'm also not putting forward a merge edit.

Regarding the edit itself, it's the vague "almost" above which I guess sums up the problem here.  For the moment, I'll assume that KOTOKO and kotoko really are two different identities.  Both are performance names.  Given that this AR links a performance name (definition from our wiki below) and a real person.

performance name:
"A "performance name" is an alias used by a musician (not to be confused with the MusicBrainz term, "artist alias"), for marketing or other reasons. A particular person may have several performance names, and might also release material under their legal name."

I don't see the AR as being correctly used when used to link two performance names together, as that implies that one is a performance alias and the other not a performance alias, which, in a case like this, de facto isn't true.

I would suggest the annotation route, or, as was (non-seriously, I think) suggested in the notes, that someone who *really* wanted to set such ARs should actually go the route of a temporary [special purpose artist]-style "[unknown person who uses the performance alias KOTOKO]; it's an ugly solution, but as jesus99 reminds in those notes, that [unknown person...] artists can always later be renamed to the real name, once the real name is known, but in the mean time, having such an entry does allow for ARs, birthdates, and other data to be entered that are specific to the person, not the role.  (akin to [unknown], but with additional benefits for recording other person-specific data.)

Brian

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