Sending BMI my ISRC codes?

[Dene]

In Canada/US there is a system called BDS (Broadcast Data System). If you are an independent musician it might make sense to register within that system if your music has potential to be played on commercial airwaves. College radio is tracked up here (canada) via random sampling (like a survey). I don't know if ISRC is a common form of tracking yet in North America.

[Dene]

PS when you got your ISRC code it includes a few digits that should be your unique identifier so even if you are tracked via isrc you have nothing to worry about

[SörenHjalmarsson]

Hi!

The ISRC is the "thumbprint" of your song. This thumbprint (which is baked into your song) will make it easier for radiostations and netstores etc., to read and report their songlist to organizations such as STIM and BMI.


Cheers,

[SörenHjalmarsson]

Reading your post again i can see that what you were really asking was: "and how does BMI know what my thumbprint looks like if i don't report it to them?".

That's a good question! In the case of STIM (the swedish version of BMI) you only report the song title and duration etc., Then the song gets it's own "song number" called ISWC. How they correlate and how STIM gets the ISRC information that belong to each of their registered songs i don't know, sorry!

Why not send BMI a letter and ask them?

/Sören

[Shankmasterflex]

Originally Posted by Dene

PS when you got your ISRC code it includes a few digits that should be your unique identifier so even if you are tracked via isrc you have nothing to worry about

I totally forgot about how theres that three digit part that only I can use! Great point! So I guess if they really had to they can trace it back to me.

Originally Posted by SörenHjalmarsson

Reading your post again i can see that what you were really asking was: "and how does BMI know what my thumbprint looks like if i don't report it to them?".

That's a good question! In the case of STIM (the swedish version of BMI) you only report the song title and duration etc., Then the song gets it's own "song number" called ISWC. How they correlate and how STIM gets the ISRC information that belong to each of their registered songs i don't know, sorry!

Why not send BMI a letter and ask them?

/Sören

Either way, it sounds like they somehow get it and most people don't really understand how, but it seems to work out either way haha.
I will email them because I'm curious, but atleast I'm a less worried that I'm not backing myself up here. I really just needed some reassurance =)
I'll come back if the email brings up some interesting stuff and/or leads me to ask more questions.