A catalogue audit checklist

Six layers, in the order failures propagate. A wrong identifier corrupts every register downstream; an unsigned split freezes money; an unregistered work earns nothing. Fix causes before symptoms.

Identifiers — one code per version, and your own register of them

Every track carries exactly one ISRC per version and every release one UPC, and a code once assigned is never changed or reused. This section is you matching your own register against what is actually live.

A wrong code is not cosmetic, because everything downstream keys on it. If one is already wrong on a released track, fixing it is its own procedure with its own order. Version boundaries are where most codes go quietly wrong — a straight remaster keeps its code, a remix or an edit takes a new one, and whether a version needs a new ISRC is decided by written rules, not by feel. If you do not know whose registrant prefix your codes came from, write that down as a finding: it decides who can assign the next one. And if one recording turns up under two codes, which code survives is settled by the standard rather than by preference.

Ownership — two copyrights per song, and the paper behind each

Every song is two properties — the sound recording and the musical work — owned separately. This section passes only when you can name every owner of both and produce the signed paper that says so.

Paying for the session did not settle the master; who owns the recording turns on authorship and assignments, and a work-for-hire label alone may transfer nothing. A producer’s cut lives in a producer agreement, not in anyone’s memory of a conversation. Session players and side artists stay open questions until a one-page assignment closes them. And a transfer that is not in a signed writing did not happen — the law is not flexible on this, whatever the chat thread says. Every grant in that pile also carries the date it was executed, which is what a termination window counts from decades later.

Splits — signed, summing to 100, matching what the registers hold

Every song has a split sheet signed by everyone on it, totalling 100 on the writer-share convention, and the splits your societies hold match the sheet. Three checks, three different failures.

No sheet? The template is free and takes ten minutes, and the rounding has a page of its own for the splits that will not divide. Never signed? The law already split the song without asking anyone, and its defaults are not what most rooms would have agreed to. And when the sheet and a register disagree, changing a split after release is a paperwork problem with a real distinction at its centre — a correction is not a transfer. A registration conflict does not argue with you; it holds the money and waits.

Registrations — every register that pays, in the US and Canada

Royalties wait in registers that pay only the registered. Check that each song and recording is filed everywhere it earns: in the US your PRO, The MLC, and SoundExchange; in Canada SOCAN, CMRRA, and Re:Sound.

The US side: your PRO pays performance royalties to registered writers and works, which it identifies by IPI number; The MLC holds US mechanicals, and its portal lets members search unmatched money sitting under their own songs; SoundExchange pays US digital-performance royalties, where the credit category decides who gets what. The Canadian side is three registers, not one: SOCAN for performance, CMRRA for reproduction, Re:Sound for equitable remuneration. Each register is a deeper subject than one line here — and why a statement stays short with everything registered is its own piece.

Metadata and credits — what the stores actually show

The stores enforce written style rules, so check your live metadata against them: one spelling of every artist name, version fields formatted to each store’s guide, credits in the right categories, every track on the right profile.

The rules are published — Apple’s style guide and Spotify’s — and what distributors reject is enforcement of them, not moods. Credit categories are money, not decoration: featured, “with,” and side artist pay differently, and the wrong one costs someone a share. A track on the wrong artist profile is a metadata failure wearing a discovery costume — it has a fix, with two filers.

The paper, in one place a stranger could use

The audit ends at the shelf: every agreement findable in one place, and the register itself backed up somewhere that is not one person’s inbox. If only you can find it, the catalogue is documented the way a password written on a napkin is secure.

Know your distribution agreement’s cut, its term, and its takedown process — knowing them is the audit; renegotiating them is another day’s work. Then export the register and put a copy where a second person could reach it. The test for this whole page is one sentence long: could someone who is not you take over this catalogue on Monday?

This is a checklist, not legal advice, and it is written against US and Canadian practice. The linked pieces carry the sources for every claim above; if a check turns up real money or a real dispute, have a lawyer in the relevant territory look before you act.

How often should you audit a music catalogue?

Before anything moves — a new manager, a distributor switch, a sync request, a sale — and once a year even when nothing does. That cadence is our recommendation, not an industry rule: a move is when someone else reads your catalogue, and the annual pass is what keeps the move-day audit short.

Can you audit a catalogue with a spreadsheet?

Yes. The fields matter, not the software: a spreadsheet that names every identifier, owner, split, and agreement passes this audit. What a spreadsheet will not do is check itself — the discipline is yours either way.

What does a manager check first when taking on a catalogue?

Identifiers and signed splits, because everything else can be rebuilt from those two and nothing can be rebuilt without them. The full day-one picture is a piece of its own; until it exists, run this checklist top to bottom — the order is the priority.

The registers and rulebooks the checks point at. Every legal and factual claim above is sourced in the piece linked beside it.

• Apple, Apple Music Style Guide — the store’s own rules for titles, versions, and credits.
• Spotify, Spotify Metadata Style Guide — the same, for Spotify, and they disagree with Apple in places that reject releases.
• The MLC, Royalty Income Tracking — where unmatched US mechanicals sit, searchable by members.
• SoundExchange, Digital Performance Royalties — the US digital-performance register and its payout categories.
• SOCAN — performance royalties in Canada; verified live 2026-08-07.
• CMRRA — mechanical reproduction royalties in Canada; verified live 2026-08-07.
• Re:Sound — equitable remuneration for performers and makers in Canada; verified live 2026-08-07.

CatalogTracker is the register this checklist fills: the release and track fields above with a completeness meter per release, search across six identifier types, and per-track master and publishing splits that must total 100 — exportable as JSON for the backup check. In development for iPhone.

This page stays here either way, free and ungated, because a checklist behind an email form is not a checklist.