Practical steps

Write the split before the release

Before the song is released, write down who wrote it and what percentage each person owns of the composition. A split sheet is that agreement. It should use the legal names people will register with, not only nicknames. If someone contributed a lyric, a topline, or a beat that is part of the composition, they belong on that conversation before the release, not after the first statement.

Do not confuse two different halves. ASCAP divides the performance royalty into a writer side and a publisher side, and it wants each side to add up to 50%. Inside the writer side, the co-writers’ own deal can be anything they agreed, as long as those writer numbers add up to ASCAP’s writer half. Other societies ask the question differently. Register the deal you actually made, in the format each society requires.

Put the same facts in each door

Join one PRO for the composition’s public performance, or confirm that a publisher or administrator already did. Join The MLC, or confirm your administrator or foreign collective, for the U.S. digital mechanical shares you control. Give the distributor accurate recording metadata, including the ISRC, so master streaming can be matched. Those are three doors. Closing one does not close the others.

If you are self-administered, you can do this yourself. Administration is a service for the work you do not want to do, not a requirement for owning your songs. If you hired an administrator, let that company register the shares it controls, and keep the rest yourself.

ISRC identifies the recording

The U.S. ISRC Agency says an ISRC is the permanent identifier for a specific sound recording or music video. It does not change when the same recording moves from a download to a stream, and the agency describes a completed ISRC as a “dumb” number: it identifies the recording, it does not encode who owns it.

To issue your own codes in the United States you need a registrant prefix. The agency’s site said, when we checked on 15 October 2026, that allocating a prefix costs a one-time $95 administrative fee and that assigning codes after that has no further fee from the agency. Some distributors will assign ISRCs for you. Ask yours before you pay for a prefix you do not need. Never reuse one ISRC for a new recording, a remix, or a new edit.

ISWC and IPI

The ISWC is the identifier for the musical work, the composition, run by CISAC’s ISWC system. It is not the ISRC, and you do not invent one in a spreadsheet. It is issued through the system societies use. A song can have one ISWC and many ISRCs, because one composition can be recorded many times.

CISAC’s IPI system gives a unique identifier to a person or a legal entity who has an interest in a work, across roles such as composer, arranger, or publisher. SUISA administers the database for CISAC. You receive an IPI name number through your society. You do not pick one.

When a registration is rejected or a royalty sits unmatched, the usual cause is boring: a legal name spelled two ways, a missing publisher, or a split that adds up on one site and not the other. Keep one private list of every song with the writers, the percentages, the IPI numbers, the ISWC, every ISRC, and who is allowed to collect each share.