The importance of ISRCs

The ISRC is a global industry identifier for sound recordings and music videos enabling the unique and permanent identification of those resources. If correctly allocated as per the ISO standard it “helps to avoid ambiguity among recordings and simplifies the management of rights when recordings are used across different formats, distribution channels or products.

The ISRC for a recording remains a fixed point of reference when the recording is used across different services, across borders or under different licensing deals.”

Impact on RDR-R

In the RD01.01 Record of the RevenueReport and in the SRD1 Record of the RevenueDetails message the provision of an ISRC is nevertheless optional.

The provision of a ProprietaryResourceId is, on the other hand, mandatory if there is no ISRC provided.

The proprietary identifier to be specified is the identifier to the resource that has been allocated by the music licensing company that is the sender of the message to which the relevant revenue has been allocated.

While the standard offers the flexibility to only send a ProprietaryResourceId DDEX strongly recommends that an ISRC is provided when available.

The ISRC sent to the music licensing company by a rights controller to claim their rights to a sound recording and/or music video should be sent back as part of the RevenueReport and/or RevenueDetails message. This will support the ingestion of the data on the recipients’ side and also flag any data mismatches and discrepancies.