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I'm releasing a Suno album on Spotify. What do I register first?

2026-11-06 · OpenStela

Register every track on its own, one record per song, before you upload anything to your distributor. Use the exact master files you're about to hand over, not the Suno page links. Do it at least a day before upload, so each record is in the nightly anchoring batch before the album leaves your hands. Then group the tracks into a series so the album has one page with the tracklist in order.

The other half of the job is one we can't do for you. Your distributor will ask you to confirm things about rights and about how the music was made, and those answers depend on Suno's terms for your plan and on the distributor's own policy. Read both on their own sites. This post covers what to register and in what order, where those questions come from, and what a record can and can't back up afterwards.

Why an album is twelve registrations, not one

A fingerprint is a SHA-256 of one file. An album isn't one file. Each track gets its own Spotify listing and can be playlisted, or copied, on its own. If one track turns up somewhere under another name, you'll want a record for that exact track, not for "the album".

So the unit is the song. Here's what's usually on your desk the week before release:

Audio uploads can be mp3, m4a or wav, up to 30 MB each; images can be jpg, png or webp up to 12 MB. A long wav can go over 30 MB. If it does, register the mp3 you export from that exact master, and note that in the record's private note.

Register each master before it goes to the distributor

The file you upload to your distributor is the one to register. Not an earlier bounce, not the version Suno shows on your song page. Spotify and other services will re-encode what they receive, so the stream a listener hears won't be byte-identical to your master. That's fine. The record is tied to your master, and you keep the master.

1. Export or download the final file for track one. If you edited it in a DAW after Suno (a new vocal, a different ending, mastering), export from the DAW. That's the file you'll release.
2. Open the works page, choose Register a work, then Upload a file.
3. Title: the track title as it will appear on Spotify. Attribution: the artist name you're releasing under. A pen name is fine, but use the same spelling you give the distributor.
4. Created on: the date the track was finished. Leave it blank if you're not sure. Don't backdate. It's your statement, and it's frozen into the record.
5. Tick This work was made with AI tools. Under Which tools, write Suno plus anything else you used.
6. Your contribution is required for AI-assisted work. Write what you did on this track, not on the album in general: "Wrote the lyrics; about 25 generations, kept the verse from one and the chorus from another; re-recorded the lead vocal; mastered in Logic."
7. Rights: the form asks about the composition and the recording separately, because a song carries two sets of rights. Tick only what's true under the terms that applied when you made it.
8. Leave it private until release day if you like; it's anchored that night either way. Flip it to public when the album is out.
9. Put the ISRC or the distributor's track ID in the Note field once you have it. The note is only visible to you, and you can edit it later without touching the record.

Repeat for every track. There is a daily cap on how many works one account can register (see pricing), which a normal album won't come near. Registration is free, and each account has 300 MB of upload space. Twelve long wavs can use most of that, so plan which format you register.

Each work then has a public page, a downloadable record and a Proof Pack (a zip with a PDF summary, the record with its Merkle proofs and a README) that can be checked without us. How a registered song is verified shows how that check works.

If you only have the Suno links

Suno is one of the three music sites we read specifically (with StreetVoice and SoundCloud). Paste a Suno song link into Paste a link and we fetch the song page as it's served at that moment, save that snapshot and fingerprint it. Share links are resolved to the song page first. The record notes the title and artist name the page showed, and whether the attribution you typed appears there. That match is recorded, not judged. Your work page also shows Suno's own player.

The snapshot doesn't contain the audio. Suno doesn't let us fetch the audio file, so a link record can't be matched against a master later. For songs you're about to release, it's the weaker of the two. Download the files you're entitled to and register those. If you also want your Suno profile on your OpenStela profile, add it under Settings → Music accounts. It shows as self-declared. If you want it marked verified, paste a one-time code into your Suno bio. That only shows you controlled the account at that moment, and it has to be redone every 90 days.

The rights questions belong to Suno and your distributor

Whether you can release a Suno song commercially at all is set by Suno's terms for your plan, and that question may come down to which plan you were on when each song was made. Suno's Terms of Service showed "Date of Last Revision: August 10, 2026" and "Effective Date: September 3, 2026" when we checked on 6 November 2026. Read the current version yourself, for your account. We won't paraphrase it. Terms change; a summary goes stale.

Your distributor has its own rules for AI-made music, and its upload form is where you make statements about rights and AI use. We tried to read the help centers of DistroKid, TuneCore and CD Baby on 6 November 2026, and all three returned a bot check to our requests. So we're not going to describe what they say. Open your distributor's help center in your own browser and search for "AI" before you upload.

On the Spotify side, Spotify's announcement of 25 September 2025, Spotify Strengthens AI Protections for Artists, Songwriters, and Producers, says AI disclosures in credits come in "through labels, distributors, and music partners", and that the change is "not about punishing artists who use AI responsibly or down-ranking tracks for disclosing information about how they were made". The same post describes a spam filter aimed at "mass uploads, duplicates, SEO hacks, artificially short track abuse". That was the position on that date; check Spotify for Artists for what's current.

One practical point. Whatever you tell the distributor about AI use and about your contribution, write the same thing in your OpenStela records. A record says what you declared on a date. If it says one thing and your distributor submission says another, the record won't help you.

Whether an AI-assisted song is protected by copyright at all is a separate question, decided by the law where you are and by how much of the song is yours. Can AI-generated art or music be copyrighted? and How much do I have to do for an AI work to be protected? cover it with official sources. This is general information, not legal advice.

Make the album a series

Once the tracks are registered, open My works and press New series: give it the album title, a short description, and tick the tracks in tracklist order (you can reorder with the arrows). Turn on Show on my profile and the album gets its own public page and appears under the Series tab on your profile. A track that's private or deleted simply doesn't show to visitors.

Be clear about what a series is. It's a display grouping. It isn't anchored, it doesn't get a number, and it can't be sold as a bundle. The tracks' own records don't change when you add, remove or reorder them. A track can sit in more than one series, so the lead single can be in the album and in a "Singles 2026" series at the same time. The evidence lives in the per-track records.

If the album belongs to a virtual singer, you can also bind each track to that character. That adds a second dated record per track. What does a virtual singer's catalogue look like on a public page? walks through it.

Singles, re-masters and the album version

Many albums come after a single or two. If the single was a different mix from the album version, they're different files with different fingerprints. Register the album version as a new work and link it back to the single instead of deleting the first record. The single's record is the earlier date.

Linking versions works from the character page (Version of:) when both tracks are bound to the same character. For tracks that aren't bound, it's done through the API: PATCH /api/aworks/{id} with derived_from set to the earlier work's id (see developers). The link becomes its own dated record in the nightly batch. It's your declaration of the order the versions came in. We don't compare the audio.

The Udio version of this guide covers remixes in more detail.

What the records show, and what they don't

Each track record shows that a specific file existed on a specific date, under the name you gave, with the tools and contribution you wrote. If a track from the album turns up later under someone else's name, you have a dated, verifiable record for that exact master: evidence if a dispute comes up.

It doesn't decide who owns the song. It doesn't tell you what Suno's terms allow, and it doesn't satisfy a distributor's rules. It doesn't register anything with a government office either. If your jurisdiction offers copyright registration and you want it, that's a separate step. And it doesn't stop Suno, or any other model, from producing something similar for someone else.