ISRC: one per recording, forever

An ISRC (International Standard Recording Code) is the fingerprint of a master recording. Once issued, it never changes — even on remasters or re-releases. New recordings get new ISRCs. Reusing an ISRC across recordings is the #1 cause of royalty misallocation.

ISWC: one per composition

An ISWC (International Standard Musical Work Code) identifies the underlying composition — the lyrics and melody. A song with five different recorded versions has five ISRCs and one ISWC. Publishers issue ISWCs through PROs (ASCAP, BMI, PRS, GEMA).

DDEX: the format the industry actually uses

  • ERN (Electronic Release Notification) — delivery from distro to DSP
  • DSR (Digital Sales Reporting) — sales/streams back to rights holders
  • RIN (Recording Information Notification) — studio session metadata
  • MWN (Musical Work Notification) — composition data to publishers

Fix the leakage at ingest, not in disputes

OneKindMedia validates ISRCs and ISWCs at upload, flags missing songwriter splits, and rejects DDEX packages that won't pass DSP intake. The cost of fixing metadata up front is minutes; the cost of fixing it after a year of mispayments is months of dispute filings.

Field note
Most disputes we see come from a missing ISWC on a co-write — one publisher gets paid, the other doesn't, and reconciliation takes 18 months.
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