Can Songtrust Register a Song Without an ISRC?

Most songs have ISRCs - but if they aren’t commercially released, they may not.

Compositions and recordings are connected to two separate kinds of copyright. While Songtrust administers your composition/publishing side, your distributor (CD Baby, Distrokid, etc.) or record label manages the recording side.

Songtrust needs International Standard Recording Code (ISRC)s in order to effectively register your songs for royalty collection with most of our sources, including YouTube and all mechanical sources.

You can make sure as many relevant tracks as possible are linked with an ISRC by clicking “Add a Recording” next to each song within your account. This is a crucial step in gathering and tracking data for any royalties owed by streaming services.

But since not all songs are released commercially and assigned an ISRC (e.g., a song composed for a television theme and never distributed to streaming services), you may not have one when you go to register. Songtrust requires an ISRC to effectively register your song, so if you don't yet have one through your distributor or you released independently, do some research to find where you can get an ISRC attributed to your song.

Interested in learning more? Check out our article on Everything You Need to Know about ISRCs.

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