What are ISRC Codes?
November 17th, 2009
One of the things we are required to do as a mastering studio is encode CD production masters (PMCD) or DDPi files with ISRC codes. This stands for International Standard Recording Code, and is the international identification system for sound recordings and music video recordings.
Each ISRC is a unique and permanent identifier for a specific recording which can be permanently encoded into a product as its digital fingerprint. Encoded ISRC provide the means to automatically identify recordings for royalty payments.
So, in other words, if you don’t have any ISRC encoded into your recordings once they’re released, you aren’t going to get any money when they’re played on radio or TV. A lot of people ask me about these codes when we’re doing a mastering job, so I thought I’d put a couple of links on a blog and turn people towards it from now on.
First off, here’s how to register to get codes – it’s free and pretty easy!
Second up, the IFPI’s page with lots of FAQs
There, now you know all you need to about ISRC!
