ISRC, UPC and Music Metadata

The four identifiers that matter

Recording identifiers travel with distribution. Composition identifiers travel with publishing registration. Problems usually arise where the two sets are never linked to each other.

• ISRC — twelve characters identifying one sound recording or music video. Unique per recording, permanent, never reused.
• UPC or EAN — the barcode identifying a release product: single, EP or album. One per release, per configuration.
• ISWC — identifies the composition, assigned through collecting societies, shared by every recording of that song.
• IPI or CAE — identifies a songwriter or publisher within the global society network so their share can be routed.

The metadata fields stores actually read

• Release title and version, kept identical across every store and free of promotional wording.
• Primary artist, featured artists and remixers in their dedicated fields, never appended to the title.
• Contributor credits with correct roles: composer, lyricist, producer, mixer, mastering engineer, performer.
• Genre and subgenre, chosen for accuracy rather than for perceived playlist advantage.
• Language of the lyrics and of the title, plus an explicit content flag where applicable.
• Release date, original release date for catalogue material, and the territories where rights are held.
• Copyright (©) and phonographic (℗) lines with the correct year and owning entity.

How bad metadata costs money

Streaming platforms and societies match usage by identifier and by text. When an artist name is spelled three ways across a catalogue, stores create three profiles and the audience is fragmented. When an ISRC is duplicated, two recordings share one reporting line and reconciliation becomes impossible.

When writers are missing from credits, the composition cannot be matched, and the resulting income sits unclaimed until it is redistributed to other rights holders. None of these failures produce an error message — the money simply never arrives.

A metadata standard you can apply today

• Write your artist name once, in one canonical form, and use it on every release forever.
• Keep a catalogue spreadsheet mapping each recording to its ISRC, release UPC, writers, splits and ISWC.
• Assign ISRCs from your own registrant code where possible so the codes stay with you between distributors.
• Use title case consistently and avoid all-caps, emoji and decorative characters in titles.
• Put version information in the version field — "Radio Edit", "Live", "Sped Up" — not inside the track title.
• Audit the catalogue annually, especially after any distributor migration.

Catalogue migration and legacy releases

Moving a catalogue between distributors is where metadata damage is most often introduced. Existing ISRCs and UPCs should be carried over rather than regenerated, otherwise streaming history, playlist placements and Content ID references can be lost.

Dorpon Media's catalogue management service handles migrations with identifier preservation, credit repair and store profile consolidation.