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Re: ASIN Clarification
by Paul C. Bryan
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Hi Christopher:
As far as I know, an ASIN is valid to link to, as long as it correctly
represents the release in MB. Some are better than others; ASIN w. cover
art is currently preferable (per guidelines) over ASIN without.
Personally, I think all ASINs for a release, be it vinyl, cassette, CD,
SACD, whatever should ideally be linked, but the practice is not to link
to all, so that we get the benefits of Amazon official cover art. In the
future, when MB's ASIN/cover art handling is refined, hopefully we can
do so.
Paul
On Mon, 2009-04-20 at 11:06 +0100, Christopher Key wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm hoping to get some clarification on the exact requirements for
> making an ASIN suitable to link to.
>
> Quite a lot of releases, especially singles, are only available second
> hand through third party sellers, and the data on their Amazon page is
> often quite lacking, with no official cover art, or no art at all, and
> occasionally no tracklisting. I do however feel that linking to such
> releases does provide useful information.
>
> Firstly, if someone is attempting to acquire a specific release, the
> lack of information from Amazon may well make this very difficult. A
> correct tracklisting / Catalog # / barcode from MusicBrainz pointing to
> a specific ASIN would be very useful.
>
> Secondly, whilst no coverart may be available via AWS, end users can
> still acquire coverart directly, or via some suitable scripted method.
> Moreover, Amazon may in the future add official coverart, and this would
> then automatically become available to MusicBrainz.
>
> Finally, it provides a useful replacement for the large number of
> incorrect ASINs currently in the system. There are a lot of cases where
> a set of identically titled albums (with different tracklistings) have
> all been attached to the same ASIN. My concern is that should these
> simply be removed, they will end up getting reattached by users wanting
> coverart.
>
> Obviously some care needs to be taken to ensure correct data. Simply
> having bought a item with a given ASIN from a 3rd party seller perhaps
> isn't sufficient. However, AWS does allow UPC lookups, and I guess that
> this probably is sufficient. The second problem is that MusicBrainz
> assumes that the presence of an ASIN means that cover art is available,
> and ends up displaying an ugly box in cases where it isn't. I guess
> this should however be a relatively easy fix.
>
> Any feedback / clarification would be nuch appreciated.
>
> Regards,
>
> Christopher Key
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> MusicBrainz-users mailing list
> MusicBrainz-users@...
> http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-users
_______________________________________________
MusicBrainz-users mailing list
MusicBrainz-users@...
http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-users
As far as I know, an ASIN is valid to link to, as long as it correctly
represents the release in MB. Some are better than others; ASIN w. cover
art is currently preferable (per guidelines) over ASIN without.
Personally, I think all ASINs for a release, be it vinyl, cassette, CD,
SACD, whatever should ideally be linked, but the practice is not to link
to all, so that we get the benefits of Amazon official cover art. In the
future, when MB's ASIN/cover art handling is refined, hopefully we can
do so.
Paul
On Mon, 2009-04-20 at 11:06 +0100, Christopher Key wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I'm hoping to get some clarification on the exact requirements for
> making an ASIN suitable to link to.
>
> Quite a lot of releases, especially singles, are only available second
> hand through third party sellers, and the data on their Amazon page is
> often quite lacking, with no official cover art, or no art at all, and
> occasionally no tracklisting. I do however feel that linking to such
> releases does provide useful information.
>
> Firstly, if someone is attempting to acquire a specific release, the
> lack of information from Amazon may well make this very difficult. A
> correct tracklisting / Catalog # / barcode from MusicBrainz pointing to
> a specific ASIN would be very useful.
>
> Secondly, whilst no coverart may be available via AWS, end users can
> still acquire coverart directly, or via some suitable scripted method.
> Moreover, Amazon may in the future add official coverart, and this would
> then automatically become available to MusicBrainz.
>
> Finally, it provides a useful replacement for the large number of
> incorrect ASINs currently in the system. There are a lot of cases where
> a set of identically titled albums (with different tracklistings) have
> all been attached to the same ASIN. My concern is that should these
> simply be removed, they will end up getting reattached by users wanting
> coverart.
>
> Obviously some care needs to be taken to ensure correct data. Simply
> having bought a item with a given ASIN from a 3rd party seller perhaps
> isn't sufficient. However, AWS does allow UPC lookups, and I guess that
> this probably is sufficient. The second problem is that MusicBrainz
> assumes that the presence of an ASIN means that cover art is available,
> and ends up displaying an ugly box in cases where it isn't. I guess
> this should however be a relatively easy fix.
>
> Any feedback / clarification would be nuch appreciated.
>
> Regards,
>
> Christopher Key
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> MusicBrainz-users mailing list
> MusicBrainz-users@...
> http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-users
_______________________________________________
MusicBrainz-users mailing list
MusicBrainz-users@...
http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-users
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