Early this morning, I was playing the following album:
When I looked at the upcoming tracks, I noticed an error in the song, “The Man That Got Away.”
George Gershwin is credited as the composer even though he had been dead some 15 years when that song was composed. As correctly noted in the linked information, Harold Arlen was the actual composer, and Ira Gershwin indeed was the lyricist.
Has Roon created a process that allows users to notify Roon about credit errors? Thanks.
You asked if there is a formal process to report metadata errors. There is, such errors should be reported in the #support:metadata category. I’ve moved your post there and edited your post title to reflect the error report.
Below is the Metadata Report form for reporting metadata.
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Hello, Geoff and Rugby,
Thank you very much. I will keep your emails for future reference.
Hello, Rugby,
I have NOT edited this content in Roon.
I ripped the album shown in the above screenshot from a 2-disk CD. For years, I have used iTunes for editing my music library. After finding the error on my iPad, I checked my iTunes/Apple Music database to see if I had posted the wrong data there. I hadn’t. By the way, after seeing Harold Arlen’s name on my Mac when taking the first two screenshots, I realized that I hadn’t elected to show “more credits” on the iPad’s display.
For what it’s worth, I’m pleased when Roon displays separate composer/lyricist credits as shown in the following screenshot:
Adding the arranger’s credit makes it even better.
I had to take three screenshots to capture these import settings.
Thanks.
Actually, when in doubt, credit Gershwin. 
Hello, Geoff,
Would you mind describing what Roon does when users report metadata errors? I’ve been using Roon for about a month and have reported three metadata errors. So far, I have heard nothing from Roon and haven’t seen any changes in my library. Do you guys have to contact the company or companies that supplied the erroneous metadata and convince them to fix it? To be honest, the errors I have found (and I have not been hunting for errors) are rather shocking. Virtually every song has a composer and lyricist (sometimes the same person). Why would any supplier of metadata think that a song sung by Frank Sinatra and the same song sung by Dean Martin should have different composers and/or lyricists? While adding lyrics to my iTunes library years ago, I discovered, however, that the lyrics can vary from performance to performance because singers don’t always stick with the original written word. Thanks.
All reports in the #support:metadata category will be read by the Roon staff responsible for metadata. They will contact their metadata suppliers if necessary and ask for corrections to be made. This process can take time, and Roon staff don’t always come back here to acknowledge the report.
The quality of metadata (particularly for Classical releases and boxsets) can be pretty poor, and cleaning up errors is like cleaning up the Aegean stables I’m afraid.
To be frank, that’s the answer I expected. Nonetheless, your quick reply is greatly appreciated. By the way, has anyone at Roon asked the metadata suppliers whether they would welcome potential corrections from Roon users, or would our going directly to the suppliers interfere with Roon’s own metadata efforts? Thanks.
The best route for direct user submissions is to submit your corrections to MusicBrainz - Roon Labs use that source as well.
That might be worth a try. Thanks.
After signing up with MusicBrainz.org, I had a look around their website. What I saw (or think I saw) makes me suggest that Roon form its own metadata department. One of the reasons that justifies the high cost of a Roon subscription for me is the fact that most of the metadata appear on Roon’s iPad app. However, if many of these credits are erroneous, such that I have to fix them myself, it’s harder for me to justify paying that high cost.
Here is a screenshot of page 1 of 3 pages regarding the song “Blue Skies.”
As you can see, the third listing credits Irving Berlin as the lyricist and Rodolphe Burger as the composer of “Blue Skies.” In contrast, the 20th listing credits Irving Berlin as both composer and lyricist. From what I understand, no one may obtain a copyright for the title of a song, book, film, etc. Thus, it is perfectly legal for many songs to have the title “Blue Skies.” Furthermore, a long list of songs with the title “Blue Skies” might be necessary in MusicBrainz.org because different arrangers worked on different recordings of the song or many singers recorded the song. However, as a retired lawyer, I doubt that a musician or singer is entitled to claim a composer credit or lyricist credit for Irving Berlin’s version of “Blue Skies” merely because that musician or singer changed a note or word of Berlin’s song during a recorded performance. To be clear, I was not able to listen via ListenBrainz to the version of “Blue Skies” credited to Mr. Burger, so it’s possible that Mr. Berlin’s credit on the third listing is erroneous. Unfortunately, MusicBrainz.org allows credits to be changed if enough people vote “yes” whenever someone, such as myself, proposes to edit the database to give George Washington a composer credit for “Blue Skies.” I think the number of Yes votes is Five. I found a similar probable error regarding Irving Berlin’s "The Song Is Ended (But the Melody Lingers On).
Here’s a screenshot regarding the song “The Man That Got Away” showing Ira Gershwin as a composer of the song.
Yesterday, I contacted Gershwin.com, which licenses the works of George and Ira Gershwin, to ask whether Ira was a co-composer of that song. If I hear from them, I will contact you again. However, according to the opening credits of Judy Garland’s 1954 production of “A Star Is Born,” Harold Arlen is the composer of the new songs, and Ira Gershwin is the lyricist of those songs.
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