The International Standard Recording Code

ISRC International Agency Bulletin 2007/01
International ISRC Agency to use "ZZ" Country Code

15 June 2007

The International ISRC Agency announces today that it will designate the unallocated Country Code "ZZ" for its own use in allocating ISRC Registrant Codes where a National ISRC Agency is unable to do so. A National ISRC Agency may be unable to allocate a Registrant Code because of systems failure, staff changes or natural disaster amongst other reasons. In these circumstances, applicants for Registrant Codes may be unable to do business. However the International ISRC Agency does not have access to the National Agency's records and cannot therefore allocate a Registrant Code itself because it might duplicate a Code already allocated. In these circumstances, the International Agency will allocate a Registrant Code associated with the Country Code "ZZ" which is reserved by the ISO3166 Maintenance Agency for internal use by users and will never be assigned to a country. Such Registrant Codes will be equivalent in every way to one allocated by a National Agency and will not need to be replaced. Once allocated, the ISRC is a "dumb number" and no inference should be made from the Country Code about the territory where the recording was made or is owned. (see ISRC International Agency Bulletin 2006/03, Assigning Meaning to ISRC Elements for more information)

The International Agency will report periodically to ISO on the use made of this facility which it will incorporate into the ISRC Handbook in due course and will seek to have included into the International Standard ISO3901 at its forthcoming revision.

Enquiries about this arrangement may be addressed to:

International ISRC Agency
c/o IFPI
10 Piccadilly
London W1J 0DD
United Kingdom
isrc@ifpi.org
www.ifpi.org/isrc