Editing PickiPedia:Release Types

For the purposes of the PickiPedia ecosystem, including [[Rabbithole]], [[Revealer]], and [[Chartifacts]], we recognize a few different stages of release for a recording, whether a studio or live recording.

==Leaks==
A leak is a release with no public announcement or acknowledgement of intent to release the recording.  Discussion and encyclopedia information, including source links, are appropriate.  Direct upload of leaks is off-topic and not allowed, though embeds of third-party [[DRM-free]] sources is allowed.

==Pending Releases==
Pending releases are those that are released to centralized streaming services, but which have not yet been directly released by the artist or their representative in a [[DRM-free]] format.

We view pending releases identically to releases that are direct-to-radio with no media release available.  

The term "Pending Release" was coined by [[Skyler Golden]]; we also sometimes use the phrase "partial release" or "impaired release".

Pending releases are not eligible for [[Rabbithole]] or [[Chartifacts]], but may be used with [[Revealer]], under the condition that a successful reveal results in a Full Release.


==Full Releases==
Full releases are those released directly by an artist or their representative in a DRM-free format with reasonable license and terms.  For example, a DRM-free release where the only official source is gatekept by a 1000USD payment is still a Pending Release per our guidelines.  

Full Releases may also be accompanied by a DRM-impaired streaming release; this does not preclude the record from being regarded as fully released.

Full Releases are eligible for [[Revealer]], and can be eligible for [[Rabbithole]] and [[Chartifacts]] if an appropriate DRM-free format is provided and maintained in an unlimited embeddable medium by the artist or their representative.

==Permanent Releases==
Permanent Releases are releases licensed by the recording artist or their representative with any Creative Commons-compatible license.  The release doesn't need to be paired with a specific CC license; a plain-english description of the license such as the one used by [[Sam Grisman Project]] is acceptable.

Permanent Releases are eligible for, and permissionlessly compatible with, [[Rabbithole]], [[Revealer]], and [[Chartifacts]].  We suggest that Chartifacts releases meet one of the following criteria:

* A release compatible with CC0, CC-BY, or CC-BY-SA, '''or'''
* A DRM-free embeddable format is provided directly and cryptographically signed by the artist or their representative

We also suggest that all permanent releases be uploaded to long-standing archives in the bluegrass tradition, such as archive.org, and distributed in a high-quality lossless audio format such as [[FLAC]] via decentralized services such as [[Bit Torrent]] and [[IPFS]].