This has existed since iTunes started selling music, and formats like DDEX have existed for a long time to communicate this metadata between labels, distributor

This has existed since iTunes started selling music, and formats like DDEX have existed for a long time to communicate this metadata between labels, distributors, and retailers in a standard way. Sadly the metadata the consumer gets doesn't end up consistent because there's fragmentation between retailers (or if we're talking 10 years ago, p2p uploaders) on how to populate id3 tags etc.