The following article details the possible reasons that may cause an Editorial Hide in Apple Music and iTunes.
Introduction
Types of Editorial Hides
Curated Artist
Repeated Submissions
Misleading
Refusal
Introduction
Unlike other content-related issues, what Apple Music calls “Editorial hides”, cannot be fixed by redelivery or metadata update. Editorial Hides is the most serious type of content rejection from the channel, which is related to potential frauds and copyright issues. It can severely penalize your content distribution to this channel.
Types of Editorial Hides
Curated Artist
Content will be hidden using the reason Curated Artist when:
- Apple Music has curated an artist’s page and decided there are sufficient instances of a song or catalogue available.
- Public domain content: the channel accepts only one version created from the best available source.
Repeated Submissions
Content will be hidden using the reason Repeated Submissions if multiple copies of the same content and/or audio files are submitted with a slightly different title and/or artist.
Do not send duplicate versions of the same content (such as the same album with a rearranged tracklist, or near-identical greatest hits albums).
Misleading
Content will be hidden using the reason Misleading if designed to mislead customers by mimicking popular content or search terms
- This includes but is not limited to the artist name, album, or song titles that are similar or identical to the movie, musical theatre, book, podcast, social media, studio, and TV show titles or characters. This also applies to the imagery, logos, and fonts associated with those pop culture franchises.
- Sound-alikes, cover versions, or tribute songs that sound very similar to the original, aren't accepted. Recordings that include a similar name, title, or image of a popular artist in the content title or cover art may be hidden for editorial reasons. This content may not violate copyright law, but it can cause customer confusion.
Refusal
- Cultural Sensitivities: Content sold must be legal and appropriate for the country or region where the content is cleared.
- Nazi Propaganda: Content must not depict Nazi symbolism as restricted by the Strafgesetzbuch section 86a if the content is cleared for sale in Germany (DE), Austria (AT), Switzerland (CH), or any other country or region that restricts Nazi propaganda.
If content violating this rule is submitted, your entire catalogue may be subject to suspension in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and any other applicable country or region. - Other Content Not Permitted:
- Subliminal content
- Karaoke music videos and ringtones
- Karaoke tracks with lead vocals or vocal versions
- Ringtones delivered as tracks on music albums
- DJ Mix albums delivered as a single audio file
- Snippets and advertisement tracks
As you can see, there can be some content that does not violate copyright law, but it can cause customer confusion and definitely, iTunes doesn’t accept this.
iTunes reviews accurately all the content delivered and takes really good care of its whole catalogue quality and variety, playlists included. Because of this, if iTunes decides to hide content, this is a final and serious decision that can penalize content delivery to the channel. Depending on the volume of hides applied to your content, it can lead to your whole catalogue takedown on this DSP.
Other types of Hides refers to clearly fraudulent content and are already included in our Anti Fraud policy: