Using ISWC Services to generate new or retrieve existing ISWCs

The ISWC is a unique, permanent and internationally recognised identifier, so knowing the ISWC for your Works can improve accurate registrations and matching. Traditionally, ISWCs would get assigned to Works when the Work is first registered with a collection society, if the Work meets the requirements. This came with the risk of duplication, which would make this unique identifier less unique and as a result, less reliable.

To centralise ISWC assignment and eliminate duplication and inaccuracies, CISAC has introduced two ISWC tools: the ISWC Resolution Service and ISWC Allocation Service. These tools reduce the time required to assign ISWCs to new Works to 24 hours, and enable lookup of ISWCs in bulk.

Curve provides functionality to send files for both ISWC Services. Publishers will need to reach out to their collection societies to be set up to send IAS and/or IRS files to them, more on this below! 

What is the ISWC Resolution and Allocation Service?

The key purpose of the ISWC Resolution Service is to deliver a same/next day ISWCs for existing, already registered works. Publishers can use this service to request an ISWC search for Works in bulk.

The key purpose of the ISWC Allocation Service is to deliver a same/next day ISWCs for new works. Publishers can use this service to request an ISWC allocation for brand new Works in bulk. 

So, to summarise: the Resolution service is used as a look-up to return existing ISWCs, whereas the Allocation service is used to request a new ISWC. 

For both services, the ISWCs are returned in an Acknowledgement (ACK) file, which can automatically be ingested into Curve. When doing so, Curve adds the returned ISWCs to the Works in your catalogue. There is more information about this at the bottom of this article.

How to get access to the ISWC Services

Your collection society will need to set up your publishing entity for the ISWC Resolution and/or Allocation Services. Please reach out to your collection society first to get set up. You will only need to be set up for one collection society, so if you’re a member of multiple societies you can ask one of them to help. Not all societies currently support the ISWC Resolution and/or Allocation Service.

If you would like to use the ISWC Services on Curve, please contact support@curveroyaltysystems.com to switch on this feature on your client once your society has set you up with access.

Setting up your Curve account for ISWC file creation and ingestion

Once you’ve been set up for access by your collection society, these are the steps to configure your Curve account to start sending IAS and/or IRS files.

  1. In the Deliveries > Delivery Settings area, make sure the CWR setup fields on the Overview page have been filled out. These should be filled with your CISAC issued Sender Party ID (usually 3 letters) and Sending IPI No (your IPI number).
  2. Set up an IRS and/or IAS Delivery Partner in the Deliveries > Delivery Settings > Delivery Partners area. You only need to fill out the fields you can see in the below screenshot. You will need a Delivery Partner per type of file, so if you’re planning on sending both IAS and IRS files, you will need two partners, one for each Output Format. If you’re sending to more than one society, you need a partner per file type per society. We recommend sending only to one society, to optimise the process. Since all societies will use the centralised CISAC database for ISWC allocation and resolution, the results will be the same regardless of which society you decide to send the file to.

These file types can only be sent via FTP or SFTP, the details of which can be provided by the society you’re sending the file to.

Please note, if you’re sending files to an ICE society you should select the individual society (eg. PRS or SABAM) as the receiving party, not ICE.

  1. Set your account up for ingestion of the returned Acknowledgement files from the society. You can do this in Settings > Integrations & FTP. Set this up on the ISWC FTP tab.

You’re now all set up to start generating files!

Create and send files to your society

It’s time to start generating your IRS or IAS  files! Remember, the ISWC Resolution Service is used to find existing ISWCs for Works, so if you’re including brand new, never registered Works, these will not return any results. The ISWC Allocation Service is used to generate ISWCs for new Works. It will first perform a search to see if an ISWC already exists. If it does, it will return this ISWC. If it doesn’t, it will assign a brand new ISWC to the Work and return this.

Before we start, it’s good to know the validation rules for IRS and IAS  files are different from validation rules for other file types such as CWR

Work Validation rules for ISWC Resolution (IRS) files

  • Work needs to be missing an ISWC
  • Work needs to have a Title
  • Work Writers all need to have an IPI number stored, OR
  • Work needs to have at least one Controlled Writer with an IPI number stored and a Society Identifier must be present on the Work (of any society)

Work Validation rules for ISWC Allocation (IAS) files

  • Work needs to be missing an ISWC
  • Work needs to have a Title
  • Work Writers all need to have an IPI number stored (including uncontrolled writers)

Please note the work does not need to be valid according to the CWR validation rules that we automatically apply on the platform, so even invalid Works can be included. The ISWC files also pick up Works regardless of their registration status.

Creating and sending your file

You can create and send your file from the Deliveries > ISWC area of Curve. To create a new IRS or IAS delivery, follow these steps:

  1. Create a new delivery with the + Create button
  2. Give your Delivery a name
  3. Select your Delivery Partner
  4. Select your filter: you can either include all Works that meet the validation criteria mentioned above, or include specific Works by selecting the Specific Works filter. Please note that you can add any Works to the Specific Works filter, but only those that meet the criteria will be added to the actual file that gets sent.
  5. When you’re ready, hit the Deliver button at the top of the page. This will deliver the file into the FTP/SFTP as specified on the Delivery Partner

Ingesting ISWC ACK files and the returned ISWCs

If you’ve set up the FTP/SFTP for ACK ingestion in the Settings > Integrations & FTP area as mentioned earlier in this article, your ACK file will be picked up and ingested automatically. You can find it under Deliveries > ISWC on the ISWC Acknowledgement tab.

ISWC Resolution files have a 24 hour turnaround time. We scan the FTP/SFTP for ACK ingestion every 6 hours, so you should see an ACK appear within 30 hours after sending your IRS file. If you haven’t received an ACK, please check with your society. 

Any ISWCs that have been returned for your Works will be added to your Works automatically. Any Works that didn’t have an ISWC returned because none were found will display the error message “No Matching Preferred ISWC Was Found”. Any Works that were rejected due to incorrect or missing information will have an error message detailing what is missing.

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