MeridianMERIDIAN

ISRC

identity.commerce.isrc

International Standard Recording Code — 12-character identifier for sound recordings and music videos. Format: CC-XXX-YY-NNNNN where CC is country code, XXX is registrant, YY is year, NNNNN is designation.

Worked samples

DuckDB 1.5.5 · finetype 0.6.64

ValueAs VARCHARcountry_codedesignationregistrantyear
USUAN1400011USUAN1400011US00011UAN14
GBAYE7700223GBAYE7700223GB00223AYE77
FRUM71200001FRUM71200001FR00001UM712
DEAB51300001DEAB51300001DE00001AB513
Standard

Shape

Pattern
^[A-Z]{2}[A-Z0-9]{3}\d{7}$
ValueLengthShape
USUAN140001112matches
GBAYE770022312matches
FRUM7120000112matches
DEAB5130000112matches
USUAN14000111rejected: one character short

Background

Origin

The ISRC was developed at the initiative of the international recording industry, through ISO, to identify sound and music video recordings.[1] ISO first published the ISRC standard in 1986.[1] The standard was codified as ISO 3901 by ISO technical committee 46, subcommittee 9.[2] IFPI recommended the use of ISRC by record companies in 1988.[1] In 1989 ISO appointed IFPI as the Registration Authority for ISRC.[1] The 2021 edition of the ISRC Handbook says IFPI has appointed 58 ISRC Registration Agencies covering 60 territories.[1]

The current edition of the standard is ISO 3901:2019, its third edition.[1] ISO 3901:2019 cancels and replaces the second edition, which dates from 2001.[1]

Use

ISRC uses the ten Arabic numerals and the 26 upper-case letters of the Roman alphabet.[1] The handbook recommends that systems map lower-case letters to their upper-case equivalents before validating or using codes.[1] It warns against confusing the digit zero with upper-case O, and the digit 1 with lower-case l and upper-case I.[1] When an ISRC is shown to human readers, it should be preceded by the letters ISRC and split by three hyphens, as in ISRC AA-6Q7-20-00047.[1] The letters ISRC, the space and the hyphens do not form part of the code.[1]

An ISRC identifies a sound recording, not the song itself.[3] A recording reused on a compilation without change, re-mixing or re-mastering keeps the same ISRC.[1] The handbook says releases of the same recording cannot be told apart by ISRC, and points to product identifiers for that.[1] If your question is about albums or releases rather than recordings, expect one ISRC to appear on many rows. (Meridian's view)

Re-use of an ISRC that has already been assigned to another recording is not permitted.[1] The handbook says that where two distinct recordings have improperly been given the same ISRC, one or both should be assigned a new ISRC.[1]

The handbook says many online services require an ISRC to identify a recording.[1] It says collective management organisations usually require ISRCs to manage their databases of registered repertoire.[1] All DDEX standards allow an ISRC to be carried wherever a recording is specified.[1] The handbook says recipients of DDEX messages should validate the ISRCs they receive.[1]

Where you'll meet it

Spotify's Web API lists the ISRC among a track's known external IDs.[4] MusicBrainz says some users have written tools to submit ISRCs from a CD or a digital service provider through the MusicBrainz API.[3]

Sources

  1. [1]International Standard Recording Code (ISRC) Handbookdocumentation
  2. [2]International Standard Recording Code - Wikipediasecondary source
  3. [3]ISRC - MusicBrainzorganisation
  4. [4]Web API Reference | Spotify for Developersorganisation

Detection notes

ISO 3901 standard. Typically written without hyphens in data systems. Country code follows ISO 3166-1 alpha-2.

Use it

CLI · DuckDB
$ finetype infer -i "USUAN1400011" --mode column
→ identity.commerce.isrc

SELECT ft_infer('USUAN1400011');
-- → 'identity.commerce.isrc'
Cast expression
CAST({col} AS VARCHAR)

Schema

https://meridian.online/schemas/identity.commerce.isrc · Frictionless type string

finetype taxonomy identity.commerce.isrc -o json-schema

Aliases

recording_code

Type Registry