Applications

Types

Recording Rights Owner: $95
Recording Rights Owners are provided with a Registrant Code that allows them to assign ISRCs for all recordings that they own or control. Recording Rights Owners are typically labels or bands, but can be individual artists as well.

Your ISRC Registrant Code is yours for life and will allow you to assign up to 100,000 ISRCs each year to recordings that you own.

ISRC Managers: Annual Fee Required
ISRC Managers can assign ISRCs to recordings that they do not own. All ISRC Managers must confirm their intent to follow a set of procedures designed to avoid duplicate assignment and to respect the rights of the recording owner.

In particular, ISRC Managers must:

• verify that an ISRC has not already been assigned for each track;
• only assign ISRC(s) as a value added service provided to the rights holder alongside other services such as recording, mastering, distribution or aggregation;
• ensure that they have permission from the recording rights holders to issue ISRCs on their behalf; and
• inform the rights holders of the ISRCs assigned on their behalf.

There are two tiers of ISRC managers, depending on the type of business and expected volume of ISRC assignment:

• Low Volume ISRC Manager
  This is a solution for studios, engineers and producers who wish to assign ISRCs both to recordings that they own and to recordings owned by a small number of clients.

Low Volume ISRC Managers may assign codes for themselves (for any recordings they own) and in limited volumes as a value-added service, typically for clients that use an ISRC Manager's studio services to create their sound recording. A Low Volume ISRC Manager is limited to issuing 10,000 ISRCs per year, and the annual fee for this provision is scaled, depending on the number of ISRCs assigned each year.

• High Volume ISRC Manager
  High Volume ISRC Managers are typically online aggregators and digital distribution companies who wish to assign ISRCs as a value-added service for their clients.

High Volume ISRC Managers may hold several Registrant Codes to allow them to assign over 100,000 codes per year.

The annual fee is determined by the size and type of your business. We aim to keep this fee fair and equitable, and we do not intend to impose a prohibitive barrier for any organization.

Starting March 1, 2015, both types of ISRC Managers will have to provide evidence (i.e. description of offerings, marketing materials or other similar information reasonably requested by the US ISRC Agency) of the value-added services they are providing in connection with codes assigned to others. ISRC Managers may not sell codes as stand alone units/services. Rather, they may only be assigned in connection with other value-added added services necessary for the creation, content aggregation or distribution of music.

If you wish to become an ISRC Manager or if you have questions, please contact us: isrc@riaa.com.

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