Ever since Ping launched, there has been a bit of confusion and discontent about how indie artists can get their own Artist Profiles on iTunes 10's new social network. Today came the answer. "Those interested in creating Artist Profiles on Ping should contact their label or aggregator," an Apple spokesperson told Hypebot. "iTunes is working directly with labels and aggregators to create Artist Profiles." In other words, whoever put your music on iTunes has to help you get your Ping Artist Profile.

How TuneCore Is Handling Ping:

One client who uses TuneCore to distribute their music asked the indie digital aggregator how to get a Ping profile and got this reply:

“Thanks for writing! Not only will Ping have ‘People’ accounts, but it will also have ‘Artist’ accounts that allow musicians to upload and create their own pages featuring their pictures, videos, tour dates, music recommendations and a lot more. We were fortunate enough to speak with Apple today to begin working on getting the first TuneCore Artists Ping accounts set up. We will be able to get more and more TuneCore Artists set up over the next weeks as Apple works to authenticate and set up Ping Artist accounts for the millions of artists within iTunes.”

According to Mashable, Apple called TuneCore right after Ping launched, asking for a list of artists. Tunecore sent over a list and Apple came back with questions: "1) Artist name? 2) E-mail address of who will be the account holder? 3). Does the artist have a label, a manager etc.? 4). Will they be managing the account or will the artist?". Then Apple sends a URL which allows the user to log in with their Apple ID and set up a Ping Artist Profile.