ISRC Vs Tunecore ID

[Jeff Price]

ISRCs are a bunch of number and digits that you can choose to have associated with a song. Sort of like a UPC for a song

The RIAA sells them to artists for a fee

they claim this allows songs to be tracked in the digital music industry, they are wrong (and this would also mean that every artist in the US would have to pay the RIAA money for a code so they could "track" their sales).

The truth is as follows

Currently,

- ISRCs are not used by digital music stores for tracking of information
- ISRCS are not used by any Performing Rights Organization to track public performances
- ISRCS are not used by any mechanical royalty collection agency for collection or administration of royalties.
- ISRCS are not required by any law – be it state, federal or international
- Entities like an iTunes do not require ISRC codes in order for a song to be made available to buy and accounted back on
- There is no central database of ISRC used by any entity for tracking or royalty payments
- SoundExchange does not use ISRC codes

IN other words, they serve no purpose beyond you paying the RIAA some money

Jeff

[Rob Murray]

Since when did ISRC's cost money? I just checked to make sure I didn't miss anything, and although there seems to be a $75 application fee if you want your own registrant code (lifetime use up to 100,000 tracks per year) I nowhere see a mention of pay-per-ISRC.

I understand your bias, but saying they sell them to artists for a fee is a lie. The fact that you also only bashed (not truthfully) ISRC's and yet never answered a single question regarding your own product also seems beyond strange.

[brethes]

Very surprised by Jeff's statements about ISRC codes. Don't doubt what he is saying as I am a Tunecore convert and therefore assume he has much better inside information than most of us.

Just wondering if this situation is US specific. Here in the UK registration is free with the PPL (Who we are - PPL) who issue the ISRC codes. Their moto is "to ensure that those who invest their time, talent and money to make music are fairly paid for their work".

I was under the impression that using ISRC codes was important to ensure payment for digital distribution and radio plays. Most of the mastering jobs we do for labels in the UK or Europe involve ISRC codes.

Is the situation different in Europe?

[Riccardo]

Same here, as correctly stated by Dominique. No fees to be paid. They are used for radio programme logging as well as digital sales.
Careful before making such statements.
In doubt contact your local agency and then decide.
90% of jobs here go out with ISRC codes.

[rikkpalmer]

Originally Posted by Jeff Price

ISRCs are a bunch of number and digits that you can choose to have associated with a song. Sort of like a UPC for a song

The RIAA sells them to artists for a fee

they claim this allows songs to be tracked in the digital music industry, they are wrong (and this would also mean that every artist in the US would have to pay the RIAA money for a code so they could "track" their sales).

The truth is as follows

Currently,

- ISRCs are not used by digital music stores for tracking of information
- ISRCS are not used by any Performing Rights Organization to track public performances
- ISRCS are not used by any mechanical royalty collection agency for collection or administration of royalties.
- ISRCS are not required by any law – be it state, federal or international
- Entities like an iTunes do not require ISRC codes in order for a song to be made available to buy and accounted back on
- There is no central database of ISRC used by any entity for tracking or royalty payments
- SoundExchange does not use ISRC codes

IN other words, they serve no purpose beyond you paying the RIAA some money

Jeff

So wow... is there no organization that keeps track of the "unique identifiers" that we use to keep track of digital distribution?

b/c From what I gather from what you wrote you can just type up and make your own digital tracking code.

What is to keep us from having duplicate codes... How can there be no standard for the format?



-rikk

[t_d]

ISRC codes are indeed required by iTunes, as are UPC codes for albums. songs are tracked by code #, not by "artist" "album" "song" etc... just one single code #.

and, yes, they're free (except for your one-time company prefix cost)

[ORC]

Originally Posted by Jeff Price

ISRCs are a bunch of number and digits that you can choose to have associated with a song. Sort of like a UPC for a song

The RIAA sells them to artists for a fee

they claim this allows songs to be tracked in the digital music industry, they are wrong (and this would also mean that every artist in the US would have to pay the RIAA money for a code so they could "track" their sales).

The truth is as follows

Currently,

- ISRCs are not used by digital music stores for tracking of information
- ISRCS are not used by any Performing Rights Organization to track public performances
- ISRCS are not used by any mechanical royalty collection agency for collection or administration of royalties.
- ISRCS are not required by any law – be it state, federal or international
- Entities like an iTunes do not require ISRC codes in order for a song to be made available to buy and accounted back on
- There is no central database of ISRC used by any entity for tracking or royalty payments
- SoundExchange does not use ISRC codes

IN other words, they serve no purpose beyond you paying the RIAA some money

Jeff

You sir, are lying!

[Red Mastering]

subscribed
maybe someone explains it really....

[modmark]

Thanks for starting this thread. I have been desperate to know exactly how to advise many of my clients (non-label custom records) the best way to navigate the tunecorps, iTunes, cd-baby, ISRC code question. It seems that there is as much confusion out there as in here. I have currently been advising my clients to pay the one time registrant fee to RIAA so that they can issue their own code b/c my understanding was that all these other companies will charge them each time they register new songs or projects and as well be entitled to an admin fee for any collected funds from entities like soundexchange. Am I wrong? How wrong am I?

[Rob Murray]

Originally Posted by Jeff Price

ISRCs are a bunch of number and digits that you can choose to have associated with a song. Sort of like a UPC for a song

The RIAA sells them to artists for a fee

they claim this allows songs to be tracked in the digital music industry, they are wrong (and this would also mean that every artist in the US would have to pay the RIAA money for a code so they could "track" their sales).

The truth is as follows

Currently,

- ISRCs are not used by digital music stores for tracking of information
- ISRCS are not used by any Performing Rights Organization to track public performances
- ISRCS are not used by any mechanical royalty collection agency for collection or administration of royalties.
- ISRCS are not required by any law – be it state, federal or international
- Entities like an iTunes do not require ISRC codes in order for a song to be made available to buy and accounted back on
- There is no central database of ISRC used by any entity for tracking or royalty payments
- SoundExchange does not use ISRC codes

IN other words, they serve no purpose beyond you paying the RIAA some money

Jeff

Funnily enough if you replace the word ISRC with Tunecore ID in this post it would probably be more true...

[rogerbrain]

i want every ID option to be attached to my music. using ISRC codes is a no loose situation.. putting the codes ( and all info) in the meta data is also a no loose proposition.. why would i not use them??

[rikkpalmer]

Originally Posted by t_d

ISRC codes are indeed required by iTunes, as are UPC codes for albums. songs are tracked by code #, not by "artist" "album" "song" etc... just one single code #.

and, yes, they're free (except for your one-time company prefix cost)

Yes this is what I have always believed, but then what about those who go through Tunecore and use the Tunecore id? They somehow make it to iTunes and you can see that Jeff Obviously does not use the ISRC with his company...

What is to stop us all from making our own company with, in my case, RP (rikk palmer) codes to track my distribution?

UPC/EAN codes have no substitutes, Why then can ISRC related codes? You would think they both represent specific products... Or.. is it the combination of the two (UPC,ISRC) that makes all this digital tracking possible.

This is a very murky subject...

-rikk

[Greg Reierson]

ISRC were completely free until just a few years ago when the RIAA got overwhelmed with requests from independent artists. I got mine for free in the late '90s.

The RIAA is not making money from selling ISRC. They might be breaking even.


GR

[taturana]

Originally Posted by ORC

You sir, are lying!

+1
or at least very ill informed...

the worst part about jeff's post, is that beside being completely untrue... it makes his s**t sound good... which is definitely not...
so yeah, make people pay annualy for your code, which means absolutely nothing outside of tunecore, and yet you say that the isrc, which is adopted worldwide by all kind of perfoming rights associations (including mine here in brazil) is not valid... c'mon, be serious. i take serious offense to your way of selling your product. btw, i have 2 ISRC codes, one for myself and one for my company, and i receive my rights correctly because of them. don't plan to ever have any tunecore codes though...

don't fall for that talk... it's worthless.

[Nobilmente]

Originally Posted by Riccardo

Same here, as correctly stated by Dominique. No fees to be paid. They are used for radio programme logging as well as digital sales.
Careful before making such statements.
In doubt contact your local agency and then decide.
90% of jobs here go out with ISRC codes.

Yes, you are correct, and I also have paperwork requesting information for broadcasts throughout Europe and the USA too involving ISRC codes.

[kosmokrator]

if you are played on European radio, you better have ISRCs.

Very surprised by Tunecore's answer here.

[huejahfink]

If in the UK, join PPL and they will gladly issue you with your own ISRC header from which you can assign your own codes.
Not a penny spent at any part of the process.

And yes, digital aggregators / distributors ARE using ISRC to track sales.

It is not called the "International Standard" for no reason.

[rikkpalmer]

Well none of my original questions have been answered. It has just led to more questions and more research. I have several theories none of which I know are right:

-The first has got a scary conspiracy undertone.

-The other one may not be so bad.

Without being able to clearly find the answers I must speculate.

I do believe that Jeff is right in saying that ISRC codes are not required by law, but it’s the way in which he informed me that has me scratching my head.

Quote

“Entities like an iTunes do not require ISRC codes in order for a song to be made available to buy and accounted back on”

This seams to be the page for applying to iTunes:

https://itunesconnect.apple.com/WebO....0.0.9.7.3.1.1

Read content requirements… it says ISRC codes. So you can see how this has me confused. My next thought would be once I put a song on iTunes or any other such place wouldn’t it be for as long as the information (music) can exist?

TuneCore : Terms and Conditions
This is tune cores terms and agreements page.

Nowhere does it say that if you are dissatisfied or choose to end your service by ending your yearly fee payment that they will remove your material from your iTunes/equivalent. From what I make out at best they will freeze your account.

So the conspiracy theorist in me has me thinking that Jeff Price, who is advocating to the lower independent musicians and against the “industry”…..

http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2011/...-yourself.html

Jeff Price Of TuneCore Slams Tom Silverman Of New Music Seminar - Musformation

…is really trying to gain the trust of these artists that know very little about rights and codes to gain sole digital rights to their music for eternity.
Read how they say ISRC codes and tune core song codes are the same.
ISRC vs. TuneCore Song ID - TuneCore Message Board

Ok but the other theory may be yeah… they don’t take any of your royalties, charge very little for signup, and if you cancel or not pay the yearly fee you can take your music down and go elsewhere. Making them Awesome!

Still none of this tells me what the tune core ID is vs. the ISRC code? Or does it??

sorry for so much bold, just getting use to the formatting.

-rikk

[Rob Murray]

ISRC though not a legal issue is the standard. I don't know much about tune core, maybe it has some cool benefits for a small artist, but at the end of the day it's still a business looking to profit. The fact that he came on and flat out lied, is unprofessional, and downright scummy.

[Bob Olhsson]

FWIW. TC is the country code for TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS. ISO - Maintenance Agency for ISO 3166 country codes - Country names and code elements

The RIAA was just an agent for the ifpi who administrates ISRCs. RESOURCES - ISRC - Home Page

Just making up his own ISRCs isn't exactly doing artists a favor. In the U.S. there is an annual fee for ISRC managers but just a lifetime $75 setup fee for artists/rights owners. https://usisrc.org/managers/index.html

From https://usisrc.org/applications/types.html :

"There are two tiers of ISRC managers, depending on the type of business and expected volume of ISRC assignment:
• Hybrid/Studio 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.

Hybrid/Studio ISRC Managers can annually assign ISRCs to no more than 1,000 recordings whose rights they do not own. This Registrant Code can also be used to assign ISRCs for recordings owned by the Registrant.
• High Volume ISRC Manager
High Volume ISRC Managers are typically online aggregators and digital distribution companies who wish to assign ISRCs as a service for their clients.

High Volume ISRC Managers can only assign ISRCs to recordings owned by others and can assign up to 100,000 ISRCs each year for this purpose.

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."


I feel really bad about having recommended TuneCore because as far as I can tell this really is a hustle.

[hank alrich]

In my opinion Jeff's reply tells me all I need to know about his business and is sufficient to suggest that I should never place music with Tunecore in any fashion whatsoever.

That type of blatant marketing presented as an "answer" is a disservice to this forum.

[brethes]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

I feel really bad about having recommended TuneCore because as far as I can tell this really is a hustle.

I also have been recommending Tunecore to my clients partly due to the ease of assigning ISRC codes to tracks, so I would like very much to hear more from Jeff about his statements presented as fact.

Either through the workings of Tunecore he has a clear insider view of the true usefulness of ISRC (at least in the US), or he is misinformed in a way that I would find very puzzling coming from a company which deals with ISRC codes on a daily basis.

[jamesp]

Seeing that reply from a Tunecore representative has made me very wary of going anywhere near there services in the future.

[bmanic]

Just go for any of the alternatives like Bandcamp.

Can't understand what the fuzz is with tunecore. If the owner or employers are this clueless at tunecore then surely your music isn't safe with them?

[rikkpalmer]

Originally Posted by AngeloClematide

ISRC code are allocated by International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).

The code is free, no cost.

ISRC code is necessary for licencing music. No licencee will accept music without ISRC code. If a licencee accepts music without that code, you the author is screwed and the company is a fraud.


IFPI

Thanks for the link! This is very useful.



-rikk

[Dene]

1/ ISRC is fast becoming the international standard for "tracking"
2/In all territories accept the US it is free
3/Tunecore is applying ISRC numbers to its releases automatically using their own identifier unless that artist has their own ISRC (and the same goes to UPC) because it is necessary for tracking/distribution in many international markets.
4/It literally takes minutes to setup an ISRC number in most cases.
5/It seems that right now the only markets that are not moving towards ISRC are the US (probably due to RIAA charging for processing) and Canada (not sure why, because it is free there)
6/ If you are working with an artist who intends to sell/promote/licence music outside of the US/Canada they should have their own ISRC number. This is becoming more important than a label having their own unique UPC.

That should answer everyones questions...the only question is why the US is charging for something that could easily be automated (and probably is in most territories).

[Bob Olhsson]

It was free in the US up to a year or so ago around the time they ran completely out of US prefixed registrant codes. $75 for a lifetime registration is not exactly expensive and is probably covering the cost of creating an automated system for the benefit of indies.

My understanding has been that registration was not free in many other countries while it was in the U.S. The main change was the requirement of a yearly fee for aggregators like TuneCore. I suspect this may be intended to encourage copyright owners to obtain their own registrant codes so they can be more easily reached years later without trusting a third party to maintain accurate records indefinitely.

[rikkpalmer]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

FWIW. TC is the country code for TURKS AND CAICOS ISLANDS. ISO - Maintenance Agency for ISO 3166 country codes - Country names and code elements

.

Does iTunes not thoroughly check who is uploading music to there service? If they require ISRC codes and Tuncore is putting in there own id starting with TC and that is the Turks and Caicos. Is iTunes simply unaware? or can i just start putting in PR codes for (palmer,rikk ) and say screw puerto rico?

-rikk

[taturana]

Originally Posted by rikkpalmer

Does iTunes not thoroughly check who is uploading music to there service? If they require ISRC codes and Tuncore is putting in there own id starting with TC and that is the Turks and Caicos. Is iTunes simply unaware? or can i just start putting in PR codes for (palmer,rikk ) and say screw puerto rico?

-rikk

and what good would that do to you?