Same recordings with multiple ISRC

[Deleted_Editor_1807782]

I’ve been doing some editing for RBD and I found that every digital release of the same album has a different set of ISRC, even though the recordings are the same and don’t have any notable changes.

Release 1
Release 2
Release 3
Release 4

I took the liberty of creating different recordings for each of these releases with the corresponding ISRC. Is that okay or should them be merged to just one recording with multiple ISRC?

[jesus2099]

You can merge recordings if they have absolutely no differences, as it seems you have ear checked them.

For some reason they changed label code and country code, maybe because of distribution contracts per country?

[Skeebadoo]

See also:

Metadata is the biggest little problem plaguing the music industry

Release is an aggregate and stands beside the other two. On the atomic level MB goes like this: work -> recording -> track (which not coincidentally mirrors FRBR’s/LRM’s work -> expression -> manifestation, a model that NGS was to a certain extent based on). But ok, I’m arguing semantics here. Now that’s something I can’t agree with at all! While all those years I’ve been using MB for my personal collection, still from some idealistic point of view I genuinely believe in MB’s strive for being…

[tigerman325]

They are likely the same recordings. If they had the same country code and label code than I wouldn’t but the 4 different ISRCs on each are because of four different labels issuing the recordings.

[foxgrrl]

I have purchased a bunch of trance compilations, and regular albums, and ended up with some duplicate recordings… with different ISRCs. I can verify that the recordings are identical, sometimes exactly bitwise identical PCM data. So I enter this on MusicBrainz as one recording with multiple ISRC codes…

It happens a lot…

I suspect it’s because most small labels really don’t care about ISRCs and every time they upload some WAV files to a different distributor, the files get new ISRCs assigned to them…

A lot of companies are very sloppy with metadata. There are TV shows on Apple’s iStore thing that don’t even have the episodes in the correct seasons.

[tigerman325]

There’s also that label that issues all the “greatest hits” compilations, where they have the artist come and re-record their hits to give them a payday (typically artist whose fame peaked in earlier decades). They will use some of these recordings on tons of compilations and every single one of them has a unique ISRC, even though they are the exact same recording. So, yes, I agree. It happens alot.

[foxgrrl]

I just spotted this in the DistroKid distribution agreement

e. We will automatically generate unique identifying codes for each Recording and provide them to your chosen Digital Stores. If you have a “Musician Plus” or “Label” account you can choose to specify your own ISRC codes, but not UPC codes.

[ZincRider]

Whenever a recording is remastered or revised it should get a new ISRC (see https://isrc.ifpi.org/en/faq). Having several ISRC assigned to a recording is expected.