Setting Up a Release Deal

We use a combination of Start Date Time, End Date Time, and Territories to understand where and when you'd like your releases to become available. We refer to this as a Deal. Each track in your release will need a complete deal filled out. Leaving all 3 fields blank will result in a takedown. Each track in your spreadsheet should contain a valid deal. If a certain track doesn't have rights for any territories, you should leave these fields empty.

What is a Valid Deal?

Start Date Time + Territories

Start Date Time, End Date Time + Territories

Start Date Time, End Date Time + Territories Fields are all left empty. (TAKEDOWN)

For more information please see Start Dates, Territories, and Takedowns.

Start Date Time

There are two different ways to tell us when to make your music live.

Local Timed Release

To set your release to go live at a local time use this

Format: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS

The first way is a Local Timed Release: This means your release becomes available at that time in each territory. Users in Japan may have access to play your release, but users in the United States will have to wait until the start time in their country or region.

The above example means the product will go live in each territory on October 21 at 5:00:00 AM local time. New Zealand will be able to play this first since it is the easternmost timezone, the US and Canada will have to wait. Please see this section for more information on the time zones we apply for territories that contain multiple time zones.

If you don't have a start time in mind, you can use T00:00:00. We call this "Store Turn" and means the release becomes live at Midnight, the start of the day for each territory.

Global Timed Release

Format: YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SSZ

The second way is a Global Timed Release. A Global Timed Release means your release becomes available at the same moment in time across all time zones. Users in Japan will be able to play your tracks at the same moment in time as users in the United States. Don't worry though—if you didn't select Japan as a territory, they still won't be able to access this release.

Global Timed Releases are set in Universal Coordinated Time (UTC). It's very important to remember this to make sure your release doesn't go live at the wrong time. If you want your Global Timed Release to go live at a certain time in your territory, you'll need to convert it to UTC. There are a few tools you can use, and this is a great one. Once you've converted the time to UTC, you'll need to add "Z" at the end of your Timestamp. The "Z" indicates that this release is a Global Timed Release.

The above example means the product will go live everywhere at the same moment in time. It'll go live at 5:00 AM UTC, which means users in Japan will be able to play this at 2:00 PM local time. It'll be midnight for users in the US and Canada when they can play this back. Daylight savings time can change this. You should always confirm accuracy within Spotify for Music Providers after delivery.

Territories

We also need to know where this release will go live. We use the 2-letter ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 codes separated by ; (without spaces). If you would like to set your availability across all available territories, you should enter the text "Worldwide" or "WW" in this field. The territory field can't be blank IF you have a Start Date Time.

If you'd like to send a takedown, please see the Takedown section later in this article.

Accepted:

Not Accepted:

Takedowns

There are a few ways to remove your release from Spotify with Uplink.

Sending a Takedown

To takedown a release or track, send a full delivery with empty fields for Start Date Time, End Date Time and Territories. Leaving these fields empty will let us know that your music should be removed from Spotify as soon as possible. Please note that this can take up to 2 business days to reflect on Spotify.

Sending a Future Takedown

You can include an End Date Time for any release or track that you would like removed from Spotify at a specific time. To schedule a takedown for a future date, add that End Date Time in your spreadsheet for each track.

Make sure that your End Date Time is a date and time after your Start Date Time or you'll get a validation error. We also require the End Date Time to be at least 2 business days in the future so that we can guarantee it'll be taken down in time.

Removing Territories

To remove certain territories from a previous release, send us a delivery that only includes the territories where this should remain live. It's best if the Start Date Time matches the Start Date Time on previous deliveries.

Sending an Update

Sending an Update is just like sending a new delivery. You can send Updates to previously delivered products by using the same Primary ID and Additional IDs as the original delivery. In the metadata, update all the fields with their new information, and include all of the information that should stay the same. You have to you make all changes to metadata in the spreadsheet, as we are unable to make changes for you. These can take up to 2 business days to reflect on Spotify once delivered.