Glossary

A

A&R (Artists and Repertoire): The team or person responsible for discovering and developing artists. At NotNoise, the A&R team handles playlist pitching.

C

Catalog Mode: A NotNoise distribution state for artists whose paid plan has ended. Eligible releases stay live with no subscription fee, with royalties split 85/15: you receive 85% of net royalties and NotNoise retains 15% as a catalog administration fee. See Cancelling your distribution plan.

CPC (Cost Per Click): How much you pay for each click on your ad.

CPStream (Cost Per Stream): How much you effectively pay for each stream generated by a campaign. A key metric for Ads performance.

Curator: Someone who picks tracks for a playlist. NotNoise's pitching network vets curators before pitching. Editorial curators work for the DSP itself (Spotify, Apple Music). Independent curators run their own playlists outside the DSP.

D

Delivery: The process of NotNoise sending your release to a DSP. Starts after you submit and ends when the DSP marks the release as live. Different DSPs take different amounts of time.

Digest: NotNoise's plain-language summary of your recent performance: where attention is coming from, which tracks are moving, and what changed since the last period. Lives in the Overview tab of Insights.

DSP (Digital Service Provider): Streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, Tidal, etc. NotNoise distributes to 80+ destinations worldwide.

E

Editorial playlist: A playlist curated by the streaming platform's own team (e.g., Spotify's New Music Friday). These are the most valuable playlists for exposure.

Explicit flag: A metadata field that marks a track as containing profanity or adult content. Wrong tagging gets your release demoted in editorial playlists or filtered out of family accounts.

F

Featured Artist: A guest artist on a track. Goes in the Featured Artist field, not in the title. DSPs format it automatically as "feat. [Artist]".

G

Grace period: The 30 days after a distribution plan is cancelled or lapses. Your releases stay live and you can reactivate, request a takedown, or move to Catalog Mode if eligible. See Cancelling your distribution plan.

H

Hall of Fame: NotNoise's view of your top career moments, like chart entries, big playlist placements, milestone stream counts. Lives inside Insights.

I

ISRC (International Standard Recording Code): A unique 12-character identifier for each recording. ISRCs are how royalty data gets tied back to your recording across every DSP. NotNoise auto-generates one if you don't have your own.

K

Keep-Live Fee: A small yearly fee that keeps a limited number of your existing releases live at your full royalty share after your paid plan ends. The current price is shown in your dashboard during the grace period. See Cancelling your distribution plan.

L

Label Copy: The set of metadata, copyright lines, and credits that travels with a release across DSPs. Includes label name, C-line (composition copyright), P-line (recording copyright), and contributor credits.

M

Metadata: All the information that travels with your release except the audio itself. Title, artist, genre, language, release date, ISRC, UPC, copyright, contributor credits. Get it right at submission to avoid headaches later.

Monthly listeners: The number of unique listeners who played your music in the last 28 days. Spotify's primary audience metric.

P

Popularity score: Spotify's 0-100 rating of how popular a track or artist is right now. Based on recent stream velocity, not total streams.

Pre-Release: A release that's been set up in Distribution but isn't live yet. The release date is in the future, fans can pre-save, but the audio isn't streamable until that date arrives.

Pre-save: A feature that lets fans commit to an upcoming release before it drops. On supported platforms (Apple Music, YouTube Music, TIDAL) the release is saved to their library automatically on release day. On other platforms, including Spotify, fans sign up by email and get a release-day link. Helps concentrate fan attention on release day.

Primary Artist: The main artist on a release. For solo work, this is you. For a collaboration, the artist with primary creative billing. Featured artists go in the Featured Artist field, not here.

R

Reach: The total number of unique people who saw your ad or the total followers of playlists your track appears on.

S

Smart Link: A single URL that routes listeners to their preferred streaming platform. NotNoise auto-detects your release across 20+ supported destinations.

Streams: Individual plays of your music. One person listening to your track once = one stream.

T

Takedown: A request to remove a release from DSPs. Once a takedown completes, the music is gone from streaming. If you want the music back, you re-distribute it as a fresh release and lose the original release date, stream counts, and playlist placements.

Tracking pixel: A code snippet that tracks visitor behavior on your Smart Link page. Used to measure ad conversions and build retargeting audiences. NotNoise supports Meta, TikTok, and Google pixels.

U

UGC (User-Generated Content): Content created by fans using your music. Most commonly TikTok videos and YouTube Shorts.

UPC (Universal Product Code): A unique 12 or 13-digit barcode identifying a release as a whole, separate from ISRCs which identify individual tracks. Required by most DSPs and physical retailers. NotNoise auto-generates one if you don't have your own.