Assets
8.1. Quality. Music videos with poor quality (such as glitches, blurriness, incomplete video or audio, no audio, out-of-sync audio and video, and so on) will not be accepted.
8.2. Graphic Overlays and Subtitles. Music videos must not contain chyrons or lower-third graphics.
8.3. Release Dates or Advertisements. Music videos must not contain release dates, logos, QR codes, or advertisements.
8.4. Promotional Still Image Videos. Promotional videos (such as videos displaying only the cover art and audio or slide shows) will not be accepted.
8.5. Non-Standard Music Videos. Non-standard music videos that are not directly related to a song or album will not be accepted.
8.6. Trailers and Partial Videos. Music videos which have been shortened or edited into a trailer or partial version will not be accepted.
8.7. Medleys. Medleys are not accepted. Music videos, including live videos, must contain only one song.
8.8. Burnt-in Ratings. Music videos originated and cleared in South Korea must have burnt-in ratings information at the beginning of the video. Live performance videos are exempt from displaying ratings.
8.9. Ratings for Explicit Music Videos in South Korea. Explicit music videos cleared for South Korea must contain the appropriate rating graphic stamp burnt into the asset.
8.10. Previews. Music video preview playback must be set at a timestamp that excludes any objectionable content, including but not limited to nudity.
Artwork
8.11. Cover Art. Music videos must use a screen capture image from the video for cover art. Other images, such as album cover art, will not be accepted.
8.12. Crop-to-Frame Cover Art. Don’t crop to frame, mask the video, or use black or other color bars in cover art. Music video cover art must not contain inactive pixels, black bars, or letterboxing on the outer portions of the video frames, and must be cropped out. Note, cropping specifications can be included in the metadata XML. Refer to the Music Video Single Crop Dimensions Metadata Annotations section of the Apple Music Specification.