Every track and every release needs two identifiers to move cleanly through the global music industry: an ISRC at the recording level, and a UPC at the release level. Get them wrong, and you risk lost royalties, duplicate uploads and a catalog that will be painful to clean up later.
What ISRC and UPC actually do
ISRC (International Standard Recording Code) identifies a specific recording. Two artists covering the same song each get their own ISRC. UPC (Universal Product Code) identifies a release — a single, EP or album — as a packaged product on stores.
How Be Musix handles them for you
You can bring your own codes if you already have them, or Be Musix will assign clean industry-standard codes during release submission. Either way, codes are validated for duplicates before delivery to any DSP.
Common ISRC/UPC mistakes to avoid
- Re-using an ISRC for a remaster — it should get a new ISRC
- Letting a remix share the original recording's ISRC
- Submitting albums where every track shares the same ISRC
- Forgetting to keep an offline record of your codes for later sync use
Wrap-up
Treat your identifiers like passport numbers for your recordings. Once you set them up right, the rest of the catalog operation gets much, much easier — and royalties land where they should.