Here at Jazz88.3 we have implemented a very nice technology created and provided by Amazon.com - the ability to search and extract the album cover images of every album played on our radio station, so that we could display them on our website. It works great, when it works. Unfortunately, sometimes people make
mistakes. Of course, I'm not talking about us! I'm talking about those people who actually submit those images to Amazon.
The submission process to Amazon is typically done by the recording company, who produces the albums, but lately it has become possible for the musicians to produce their own albums by themselves. Now-days every musician can record his or her music in a rented studio and then print a small batch of CD's keeping all the profit to him/herself, without sharing it with those greedy label companies.
I'd say: "Good for you", but only if you know what you are doing. Unfortunately not being a professional in the recording and publishing industries means you can make mistakes without even knowing about them. And that's what I have started seeing more and more often.
In particular, I just have come across the album
Jazz To The People by Jeff Lofton Quartet.
It appears that Jeff Lofton Quartet name is listed as the label company in the properties of the album on Amazon's database. Since there isn't actually label company name listed there I can only point at them for the mistake they have made. And the mistake seems very insignificant: The Jeff Lofton Quartet name is not listed as the Artist but rather a Contributor on the submission form to the Amazon's database.
If you don't know what the difference is then it's OK. Not everyone is supposed to know that little technical detail. But then don't expect your album to appear properly throughout Amazon's network, because... well... you don't know the difference.
The problem is that because of this small mistake this band name can not be properly found when third party websites such as ours, searches Amazon to get the album cover image. Despite the fact that this album may look OK on Amazon.com, it does not exist in some other hidden places, behind the scene, on Amazon servers.
As a result of their mistake, that album displays incorrect image on our website as well as any other place that uses the same technology. I had to manually update it on our website, so now it's OK, but boy... I wish some people would let the professionals do their work, instead of assuming that everyone can press a couple of buttons on the computer keyboard.
