The International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) plans to ‘overhaul’ the global information system of the International Standard Musical Works Codes (ISWC).
Dublin-based software company Spanish Point Technologies has been enlisted for the upgrade.
ISWC is the unique code that identifies musical works and links them to their creators.
The codes help collective management organisations track the use of musical works they represent across the globe.
Tens of millions of ISWCs have been assigned worldwide since the code was created in 2002.
In 2002 the ISWC was adopted by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) as a unique and accurate identifier (ISO 15707:2001).
The ISWC system has seen several updates over the years: the latest services, developed with long-time CISAC partner FastTrack, were rolled out in 2018.
The new collaboration with Spanish Point Technologies is being slated by CISAC as “the first of its kind”, which adds that the impending update to the system will help “speed up the process by which authors’ societies assign an ISWC code for use by digital service providers and publishers”.
“Investing in improved ISWC systems will immensely help music creators and publishers, authors societies and digital services navigate their way better in the rapidly growing digital music market.”
Gadi Oron, CISAC
CISAC Director General Gadi Oron (pictured), said: “Investing in improved ISWC systems will immensely help music creators and publishers, authors societies and digital services navigate their way better in the rapidly growing digital music market.
“The ISWC is the leading music industry identifier and it plays an important role in facilitating the identification of musical works.
“Our project with Spanish Point aims to increase the speed, accuracy and efficiency of the system in a way that is complimentary with our members’ systems, and which keeps pace with the explosive growth of music streaming.”
“This next generation ISWC system will help societies manage the marked increase of music streaming services and provide greater data accuracy.”
Donal Cullen, Spanish Point Technologies
Spanish Point Technologies CEO Donal Cullen said: “This next generation ISWC system will help societies manage the marked increase of music streaming services and provide greater data accuracy.
“Using modern cloud technologies and our innovative matching engine, the improved ISWC systems will assist societies in exchanging information with each other and music users, such as digital service providers and publishers.
“This will encourage greater use of the ISWC and should lead to more creators’ works being accurately identified and paid for.”
Elsewhere at CISAC, the organization’s Board of Directors launched a sanctions procedure against Spanish rights society SGAE, which could result in its ‘expulsion’ from the umbrella organisation.Music Business Worldwide
