SHELVES

Learned recently that there’s such a thing called an International Standard Recording Code (ISRC). It’s a unique code that helps identify your track on digital music players such as iTunes and most CD players. With it, it’s able to know your band name, song and album title, everything. So it’s quite important if you want your music out there on the Internet and want some way to track how it’s doing. That’s how royalties are measured.

The codes available are finite, naturally. Every country has a certain designated set, and each country offers subsets of these codes to music labels which then assign them to songs.

The authority that assigns these locally is Recording Industry Association (Singapore). I wrote to them for one and got it within three days.

But first I asked around to see who had gotten them. Surprisingly few bands have. One replied to say that this is only necessary for big ticket bands. I wasn’t so sure.

We got one anyway, and we are well pleased. It technically means that we are now able to assign our own internationally recognised codes to songs and videos. We are practically our own music label. How more independent can you get?