each music company supplies both data (track and product metadata, territorial rights, pricing, etc.) and media to the service provider (e.g. Spotify). The pro

each music company supplies both data (track and product metadata, territorial rights, pricing, etc.) and media to the service provider (e.g. Spotify). The process is to sign the contract with the music company, then the company ships all of the data to the provider to ingest into their systems. In the beginning, each music company sent metadata in a different format.. before electronic distribution, they would send hard drives that contained the media and metadata. The distribution formats are now driven by a standards-body.. but iTunes still has its own format.