Getting your own registrant code is easier and cheaper than most people assume, and there is exactly one requirement that stops applications.
It is free
IMI puts this in writing twice, on the application form, which records that no fee is currently levied while reserving the right to introduce annual or renewal fees later, and in correspondence, which states plainly that ISRC codes are free of cost.
That is worth knowing before you pay a service to do it for you.
What you send
The forms and supporting documents:
- Application Form for Registrant: a single page asking for the applicant name, address, telephone, email, income-tax PAN, contact person and title, and the legal entity type (individual, proprietor, partnership, private limited or other).
- Application Form for Registrant, Digital Releases, if you release digitally with no physical CD. It is the same form plus a declaration to that effect. If that describes you, send both.
- A request letter on your letterhead.
- Firm PAN, and an address proof: a GST registration certificate serves.
- Your constitution document, for a partnership, the deed.
Then, and this is the one that is not on the form:
- PAN and Aadhaar of every partner, each carrying the firm’s stamp and signature.
- Inlays: five to six of them, one per release, in soft copy. Mandatory.
Inlays are the real gate
IMI describes an inlay as the cover artwork of an audio or video song, featuring the company’s logo and song details.
In effect it is proof that you are an operating label with released repertoire and your own branding, rather than someone collecting identifiers speculatively. If you have not released anything yet, or your artwork does not carry your logo, this is the part of the application you cannot satisfy, and no amount of paperwork substitutes for it.
Plan for it before you apply.
The terms you are agreeing to
Short, and worth reading rather than skimming, because two of them constrain how you can use the code afterwards:
- The allotment is only for recordings you exclusively own, and you agree not to use the registrant code for content you do not own.
- It is non-transferable.
- On demand, within 10 days, you must produce the complete list of codes you have assigned with their corresponding recordings, and the list of users with whom you have deployed that content.
- Breach or misuse makes the code liable to cancellation without notice.
- You must notify IMI of any change of address or contact details.
- Disputes fall to the courts in Mumbai.
The 10-day clause is the one with an ongoing consequence: it means you have to keep a register of what you allocated and where it went, from the first code onwards. That is its own discipline.
What comes back
A letter confirming your registrant code (separate codes for audio and for video), with an allocation sheet attached. IMI states codes will be assigned within 14 days of a complete application. Ours came faster than that, but the clock starts at complete: an application missing the inlays simply waits.
The letter also sets out an ongoing obligation: as an ISRC user registered in India, you are required to give IMI the details of ISRCs you have allotted to repertoire released in digital format at least once a year, in Excel, by email.