Codes Explained - Catalogue Numbers, ISRCs, UPCs, LCs and More

In order to properly identify a release and its constituent assets, every release, and its constituent assets, is given a series of unique identifiers. These exist to help organisations properly serve, catalogue, display, and track your release, and is a core component to ensuring your release's rights, royalties, and metadata are all used appropriately.

The main identifiers (or 'codes') found on every release, or its assets, are:

• Catalogue Number
• Universal Product Code (UPC) and/or European Article Number (EAN)
• International Standard Recording Code (ISRC)

You might also come across the following when registering your assets with a Neighbouring Rights Organisation (like PPL) or dealing with broadcasters:

• International Standard Work Code (ISWC)
• PRS Tunecode
• International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI)
• International Performer Number (IPN)
• Label Code (LC)
• PPL Recording ID

We will explain all of these below.

It is important to keep a log of your assigned 'codes', as you will be referring to these frequently.

Catalogue Numbers

The Catalogue Number is an identifier that is assigned by you to identify your release. This is usually chronological, and will generally only be used in your own systems and when submitting to DSPs, though many labels choose to publish these catalogue numbers on their websites.

The convention is to choose a prefix that will represent your label, which will be followed by a four digit identifier (padded with zeros).

For example, we use ENDCD as the prefix for our own recordings, Signum Records uses SIGCD, National Youth Choir Recordings uses NYCR, and NMC Recordings uses NMC.

If your label were called Acme Records, your first three catalogue numbers might be: ACME-0001, ACME-0002, ACME-0003.

Where you have two different versions of a release - for example, a stereo version and a Dolby ATMOS version - it is common to add a suffix to the Catalogue Number. For example, ACME-0001 would be the stereo version of the release, and ACME-0001A would be the ATMOS version.

It is common for digital and CD formats of the same release to share a Catalogue Number.

It doesn't really matter what format you choose so long as its consistent for all of your releases and ideally chronological.

Universal Product Codes (UPCs)

A Universal Product Code (UPC) is a barcode that uniquely represents each product that you release. They are 12 digits in length, and will ordinarily be assigned to your products by us, unless you wish to provide your own UPCs.

Unlike Catalogue Numbers, digital and physical formats of your release would get different UPCs, as they are separate products.

European Article Numbers (EANs) are very similar to UPCs, except they are 13 digits in length and are slightly newer.

UPCs and EANs are different implementations of the Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) standard.

You may sometimes be required to enter an EAN, for example when registering Releases with PPL, but only have a UPC - in this scenario, you can simply prefix the UPC with 0.

International Standard Recording Codes (ISRCs)

Unlike Catalogue Numbers and UPCs, which represent releases, ISRCs are assigned to individual sound recordings or video recordings. In our case, this usually means tracks, but where there are multiple versions of a track (e.g. stereo and ATMOS), an ISRC would be assigned for each unique asset.

An ISRC is a 12 character string, comprising the following sections:

• Country Code (CC) - a two letter code identifying the ISRC Issuer (usually the country code, but countries with many registrations often have multiple codes)
• Registrant Code (RC) - a three letter code issued by the ISRC Issuer to an individual Recording Rightsholder
• Year of Reference (YR) - a two digit number representing the year of registration (usually, but not always, the year of release)
• Designation Code (DC) - a five digit number representing an individual sound or video recording, unique to the reference year

It will take the format CC-XXX-YY-NNNNN, where CC is the Country Code, XXX is the Registrant Code, YY is the Year of Reference, and NNNNN is the Designation Code.

When used together, the Country Code and Registrant Code are known as an ISRC Stem - each of these is completely unique, and represents an individual Rightsholder on a global level.

The Year of Reference and Designation Code collectively are called the Serial Number. 

There are two ways to manage your Designation Codes:

• incremental - each ISRC assigned will increment the Designation Code by one; for example, if one release receives 00001 to 00012, the next release might receive 00013 to 00025.
• release-centric - digits from your catalogue number are included as the first three digits of the Designation Code, and the last two digits match the track number; for example, release ACME-0127 has might receive 12701 to 12712 for CD 1, and 12713 to 12725 for CD 2.

For labels either releasing predominantly singles or distributing a large catalogue, an incremental approach is recommended. Otherwise, release-centric assignment is recommended since it relates ISRCs visually to Catalogue Numbers, thus easing administration somewhat.

When starting your label, a key action is requesting an ISRC Stem - in the UK, these can be requested (free of charge) from PPL.