Royalties are matched to money by identifiers. Somewhere in the world your track gets played, a payment is generated — and a code decides whether that payment finds you or sits unclaimed. Three codes do most of the work, and mixing them up is one of the most common (and expensive) mistakes independent artists make.
ISRC — International Standard Recording Code. This identifies one specific recording (the master). Every distinct recording gets its own ISRC: a remix, a re-record, a radio edit — each is a new ISRC, even if it is "the same song." It is what platforms and neighbouring-rights bodies use to track plays of that exact audio. Usually your distributor or label assigns it.
ISWC — International Standard Musical Work Code. This identifies the composition — the song itself — no matter how many recordings of it exist. It is assigned when the work is registered with a collecting society (PRO/CMO). The ISWC ties every version of a song together for the purpose of collecting publishing royalties.
IPI — Interested Party Information. This identifies a person or company — a songwriter or a publisher — inside the global CISAC system. Your collecting society assigns it, and it is how your writer share is recognised across societies worldwide.
Put simply: ISRC is the recording, ISWC is the song, IPI is the people. A single stream generates recording royalties (matched by ISRC) and composition royalties (matched by the ISWC and the writers' IPI shares). Get one of them wrong and up to half the money a play generates can go uncollected.
The usual failures are avoidable: reusing one ISRC across different masters; never registering the composition, so there is no ISWC and the publishing is never collected; a wrong or missing IPI, so a co-writer's share sits unclaimed indefinitely. None of these show up as an error message — the money just quietly never arrives.
Registering works correctly — ISWC, IPI, accurate splits — is core to what a publisher actually does. At PA74 Music we make sure the codes are right and the registrations are filed, so the royalties reach the right people. See our services →