{"id":103528,"date":"2025-02-26T11:42:35","date_gmt":"2025-02-26T11:42:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/routenote.com\/blog\/?p=103528"},"modified":"2025-02-26T11:42:38","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T11:42:38","slug":"what-is-isni","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/routenote.com\/blog\/what-is-isni\/","title":{"rendered":"UMG assigns digital passports – What is ISNI?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

UMG has officially adopted the ISNI to ensure accurate identification and crediting of creators. But, what actually is this code? <\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Universal Music Group (UMG) has started assigning International Standard Name Identifiers (ISNI<\/a>) to its artists, songwriters, and other contributors. This move helps ensure accurate identification in the complex digital world, and can help with discoverability within the digital music ecosystem. But what exactly is ISNI, and why does it matter?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you’re an artist who has music distributed online, you’ll be familiar with ISRCs. These codes identify the specific recording of a song or recorded works. ISNI works in a similar way, except the thing these codes identify differs from an ISRC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is an ISNI?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

An ISNI (International Standard Name Identifier) is a unique code assigned to individuals and organisations in the creative industries. Think of it as a digital passport that ensures your work is correctly linked to you across different platforms, databases, and organisations worldwide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ISNI system is managed by the ISNI International Agency (ISNI-IA) and is an official ISO standard (ISO 27729). It helps prevent confusion between artists with similar names and ensures that all your creative work is correctly credited to you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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How do ISNIs work?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

An ISNI is assigned to a person or organisation to help identify them across different creative industries. If an individual works under multiple names, separate ISNI may be assigned and linked together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, if an author named John Smith also makes music under the stage name Johnny Dylan, he could have two ISNI\u2014one for each professional identity. These ISNI would be linked in the database, showing that both names belong to the same person while keeping their creative careers separate. This system helps avoid confusion and ensures accurate crediting for all types of creative work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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ISNI vs. ISWC vs. ISRC \u2013 What\u2019s the difference?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n