International Standard Recording Code

The International Standard Recording Code (ISRC) 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.

ISRC is cost effective it can be put into operation without requiring special investment in equipment or technologies. The ISRC consists of twelve characters representing country (2 characters), registrant (3 characters), year of reference (2 digits) and designation (5 digits). It is divided into four elements separated by hyphens and the letters ISRC should always precede the entire code.

The elements appear in the following order:

Country Code: identifies the country of residence of the registrant, i.e. producer or owner of the recording at the time of ISRC allocation.

Registrant Code: identifies the producer of the recording at the time the ISRC is allocated.

Year of Reference: identifies the year in which the ISRC is allocated to the recording which will usually be the year in which the full mastering process for the recording is finalized.

Designation Code: five digits assigned by the producer/owner.

The structure of the ISRC is shown in the following example (final code does not include hyphens: