What a manager needs from an artist’s catalogue on day one

69 · 2026-10-07 · 19 min read · Español

On day one a manager needs four things from an artist’s catalogue: the codes, the paper, the registrations and the access. Every recording, release and song with its ISRC, UPC and ISWC; the signed documents that say who owns each and what has already been promised against it; the state of every registration that pays, in the United States and in Canada; and a login of the manager’s own at each society and store that offers one. Without the codes nothing can be claimed or disputed. Without the paper nothing can be licensed or signed. Without the registrations the statement is short. Without access, the manager is a stranger to every organisation that holds the money.

• The codes: every recording’s ISRC, every release’s UPC and every song’s ISWC, with each writer’s IPI number, held in a register outside any distributor’s dashboard. Every claim, registration, takedown and dispute is keyed by a code, not by a title.
• The paper: the signed documents that say who owns each recording and each song and what has been promised against them — split sheets, assignments, producer agreements, the distribution agreement, and any label, licence, administration or previous management agreement still in force.
• The registrations: for each song and recording, whether it is filed where it earns — a PRO, The MLC and SoundExchange in the United States; SOCAN, CMRRA and Re:Sound in Canada — and under which numbers.
• The access: a login of the manager’s own, granted inside the artist’s account. ASCAP assigns a designated user, SOCAN an authorized representative, SoundExchange Direct a guest with view-only or view-with-repertoire access, The MLC a Super, Finance or Copyright user; Spotify for Artists and Apple Music for Artists carry team roles. Each publishes the mechanism on its own page.
• The exception: DistroKid’s help centre states that an account is designed for one person with one email address and one password, and that a second set of credentials cannot be created. A manager reads that account through what the artist downloads and hands over, and holds the register somewhere else.

Why does a manager need the codes before the titles?

Every register a manager files with, claims from or disputes at runs on codes: a recording’s ISRC, a song’s ISWC, never a title. The artist knows the catalogue as forty titles. The manager has to know it as forty codes, and the two lists are not the same list.

There are four of them and the page on which code is which holds the map; what matters here is what each one unblocks. The ISRC is the recording, and it is what a SoundExchange claim names, what a takedown request names, what a statement line carries and what a duplicate dispute is fought over. The ISWC is the song, and it is what a society’s registration resolves to when two writers filed the same title with two different spellings. The UPC is the release, and it answers questions the ISRC cannot. And the IPI number is the writer, which is the number that makes a registration payable rather than merely filed. A manager holding those four for every track can open an account, file a claim, answer a lookup and read a statement without asking anybody. A manager holding titles can do none of it.

Where the codes are is the second question, and the first place to look is a dashboard the manager cannot log into. Every store publishes the ISRC somewhere, so a missing code can be recovered one lookup at a time; whose registrant prefix the codes came from decides who may assign the next one, and it is worth writing down before the first release under new management. But the register that matters is the one the artist holds outside any distributor, and if that register does not exist on day one, building it is the first job — before the pitch, before the tour, before anybody talks about a plan. A manager who has to ask for a code every time is not managing the catalogue. The artist is, on worse hours.

What paper does a manager need to read in the first week?

Every document that decides who owns each recording and each song, and what has already been promised against it. Split sheets, assignments, producer agreements, the distribution agreement, and any label, licence or administration deal still in force. The first thing a manager fields is a request or an offer, and both are answered by paper.

Start with the reason. A placement, a sample, a cover, a label’s interest — each one asks who owns what, and the Copyright Office puts the shape of the answer plainly: “A sound recording and the music, lyrics, words, or other content included in the recording are separate copyright-protected works,” and the two are “commonly owned and licensed separately.” Two copyrights in every song. A manager can say yes to a supervisor only for the half the client owns, and a yes on the recording alone is half a yes. So the paper has to answer, per track, who owns the master and who owns the song — and the answer is never a memory, because a transfer of copyright needs a signed writing, and what makes a signature bind is its own page.

On the song side that means a split sheet, signed by every writer, for every song — and a manager reading one should know what a split sheet does not cover, because the gaps are where the requests land. On the recording side it means the producer’s paper — what the payment bought and what the points are a percentage of — and an assignment from every session player, because a player who signed nothing is a question that arrives the week the record does well. Then the deals the catalogue is already inside: the distribution agreement, for its cut, its term and its takedown process, and for what happens to the catalogue if the distributor stops; a publishing administrator’s agreement, if there is one, for what its percentage buys and how long it runs; and a label deal, if there is one, which reaches the other copyright in ways the front page never says. Every grant in that pile carries a date, and the date is what a termination window counts from decades later, so the manager writes the date down beside the grant.

One more document, and it is the one nobody thinks to ask for: the previous manager’s agreement. If it carries a post-term commission clause — the last manager still commissioning income from deals made during their term — then the income the new manager is about to commission is already partly spoken for, for as long as that clause runs. The clause is named here as a thing to read and nothing more, because what a management agreement commits anyone to is its own subject. But read it in week one. You are not taking over a catalogue. You are taking over a building with a tenant in it.

Which registrations does a manager need to see?

Whether each song and recording is registered at every collector that pays, in the United States and in Canada, and under which numbers. In the United States that is a PRO, The MLC and SoundExchange; in Canada, SOCAN, CMRRA and Re:Sound. A registration that exists under the wrong number, or under nobody’s, pays nobody.

The map of every stream is the checklist, and this page reads it as one without restating it. The song’s performance money sits with the PRO, which pays writers and publishers it can identify by IPI number; the song’s US mechanical money sits with The MLC, which pays the members who registered the work; the recording’s US digital-performance money sits with SoundExchange, which pays the featured artist and the owner it can match to an ISRC. In Canada the recording’s money runs through Re:Sound, under its own eligibility test, and the song’s through SOCAN and CMRRA. Six doors, and a manager needs to see, per song and per recording, which of them the catalogue is already inside.

Every one of those registrations is a join on a number. The writer’s registration is payable when it carries the writer’s IPI; the work gets its ISWC from a society, not from a form the manager can file; the recording is matched by ISRC. Which is why the codes came first on this page: a manager who arrives with the numbers can read each register in an afternoon, and a manager who arrives with titles is searching six databases for a spelling.

Then the clocks. SoundExchange’s is a federal regulation, 37 CFR §380.4(b): where the collective cannot identify or locate the performer or owner a payment belongs to, it “must retain the required payment in a segregated trust account for a period of three years from the date of the first distribution of royalties from the relevant payment by a Licensee,” and “No claim to distribution shall be valid after the expiration of the three-year period.” A manager who registers a recording in its second year has beaten the clock; in its fourth, the money is gone. The MLC’s unmatched money sits behind its matching tools, and the black box across every collector is where a manager looks before the first statement, not after. And once everything is registered, the statement is still short for six reasons, most of them not errors — which is why the statements are read last, after the registrations, and not first.

Which logins does a manager need, and which should never be shared?

A login of the manager’s own, granted inside the artist’s account at every organisation that offers one — never the artist’s own password. Four of the collectors on this page publish exactly how, and so do the two stores whose artist pages a manager will need to touch.

ASCAP’s help centre answers the question directly: “We recommend that you never share your ASCAP Member Access username or password. Instead, you can assign a designated user (DU).” A designated user is “someone who has been authorized by an ASCAP member to view or manage their Member Access account” — “a trusted advisor, business manager, employee, etc.” — with their own username and password, and permissions the member can change or delete at any time. The member clicks Designated Users under the Profile menu, adds the person, and ticks the permissions. That is the whole mechanism, and it is the shape every other one on this page takes: the account stays the artist’s, the manager gets a key of their own, and the key can be taken back.

SOCAN calls it an Authorized Representative — “a person who can do business with SOCAN on behalf of a member,” and its page names who that tends to be: “accountants, managers, lawyers, publishers etc.” The member selects the permissions inside the portal — change of address, authorized signatory, work registrations and modifications, requests for earnings information, online access to statements and catalogue — and uploads the documentation that supports the authorization. Then the sentence a new manager should read twice: “Without a complete authorized representative application from the member, SOCAN will not accept direction from anyone other than the member.” Until that form is in, you are not the manager. You are a stranger with opinions.

SoundExchange separates the two questions a manager actually has — can I see it, and can I be paid — and answers them on different pages. On access, SoundExchange Direct gives every account a primary contact, who “does not have to be the artist or rights owner the account is registered to — it could be a financial advisor, business manager, or anyone the registrant deems fit for the role,” and a guest list of up to 50 people at two levels: “view only,” which sees membership details and payment history and changes nothing, and “view with repertoire,” which can also “see all recordings associated with an account and … submit claims on behalf of an account.” Guests are added inside the portal and removed the same way. On payment, the FAQ’s answer to I manage a recording artist – can their royalties be paid to me directly? opens with “It is our strict policy that we cannot pay third parties,” and the closed list of who is paid is on the registration page. A manager can claim on the artist’s behalf. The money still goes to the artist.

The MLC gives its users three permission levels and publishes what each one can do. Super Users “have full capabilities for the Member account” — banking and tax information, adding other users, managing permissions, and viewing, editing and creating works. Finance Users manage tax and banking and see reporting, and may suggest matches, but “cannot view, edit or create works.” Copyright Users “can manage the catalog by viewing, editing and creating works” and cannot see user permissions. A Super User adds the others from User Permissions under Member Settings, and the invitation goes to the new user’s own email. The account is a Member — “the person or entity that is authorized to administer musical works, and receive digital audio mechanical royalties” — and the manager is a user inside it, at whatever level the artist chose.

The stores work the same way for the artist page, which a manager touches the first week whether or not anything is wrong with it. Spotify for Artists has three access levels — Admin, Editor and Reader all see stats, the roster and the profile; Editors and Admins edit the profile, pitch upcoming releases and run campaigns; only Admins add and edit payment methods — plus an optional Team Admin who invites and removes members and sets everyone else’s level. Apple Music for Artists assigns Admin to “the artist or artist manager who first gains access to a page,” and that Admin reviews every later request and hands out Admin, Analyst or Profile Editor. Note the order in Apple’s sentence: a manager who claims the page first is the Admin, which is a reason for the artist to claim it before the manager does, and to invite rather than be invited. For any society or store not named here, the question is the same one and the answer is on its help page or it is not; ask, and if the answer is “share the login,” that is a fact about the organisation worth knowing on day one.

Why is the distributor account the problem?

DistroKid states that an account is designed for one person, one email and one password, and that no second login can be created. The distributor holds every code the artist owns, and it is the one account on this page with no key to hand a manager.

DistroKid’s own help centre says it in full: “DistroKid accounts are designed to be accessed by one individual, with one email address and one password. It is not possible to create two separate sets of login credentials for one DistroKid account. If you wish to provide access to your DistroKid account to another individual, the email address and password for your account must be shared with them. For security reasons, DistroKid does not recommend this.” Read that beside ASCAP’s sentence from the section above. One person, one email, one password, and every code the artist owns behind it — a design that breaks the one rule the rest of this page is built around, which is that nobody shares a password. The artist is left with a choice, and the choice is crap: a manager who cannot see the catalogue, or a manager holding the artist’s identity — and the help page recommends against the only route it offers.

So the manager does not log in. The manager asks for two things the artist can download from inside their own session: the release list, with every ISRC and UPC on it, and the statements, as far back as the account goes — whatever the dashboard lets the artist export, in whatever format it comes. Those two files are the distributor as far as a manager needs it on day one, and they are also the raw material for the register the artist should have been holding anyway: the codes, held somewhere the distributor cannot close. What a shutdown does to a catalogue that lived only in a dashboard is its own page, and it is the same lesson with worse timing. This page names one distributor because one distributor published the sentence. For any other, the manager asks its help centre the same question in the first hour and writes the answer down next to the login it cannot have.

What cannot wait, and what can?

The codes, the signed splits and the manager’s own access cannot wait; metadata, credits and profile clean-up can be scheduled once the register exists. The order is the priority, and the priority is whatever nothing else can be rebuilt without.

The audit checklist already said identifiers and signed splits first, because everything else can be rebuilt from those two and nothing can be rebuilt without them, and this page takes that as its premise rather than re-arguing it. What “rebuilt” costs is the reason: a missing ISRC is one lookup on one store page, and forty of them is an afternoon, and four hundred is the month the manager was hired to spend on something else. A missing split sheet is a conversation with everyone who was in the room, and the conversation gets harder every month the record earns. Access is the third thing that cannot wait, because every other task on this page is done inside an account, and until the forms are in, the manager is doing them by asking the artist to.

What waits is everything that is wrong rather than missing. A title formatted against the store’s guide, the fields a distributor rejects, a track on the wrong artist page and how it got there, a credit missing from a store — each has a fix with a queue and a ticket, and each can be scheduled for week three without costing a dollar in week one. They go on the list. They do not go first.

So the day-one packet, in one sentence: a register of every recording, release and song with its codes; the signed paper for every owner and every deal; a note per song and per recording of which of the six registers holds it and under which number; and a login of the manager’s own at every one of them that offers it, with the distributor’s exports standing in for the one that does not. Day two is the audit, which is the same catalogue asked a different question — not do I have it but is it right. And before the manager signs anything on the artist’s behalf, or answers a licence request with a yes, the document that says the manager may is one a music lawyer reads first, because what that hour is for is exactly the sentence in the contract that says who can commit whom. Get the four things. Then get the audit. Then go and manage something.

FAQ

Can a manager register an artist’s works or recordings for them?

At the organisations that publish a delegated-access mechanism, yes — inside the artist’s account, with a permission the artist granted: SoundExchange Direct’s view-with-repertoire guest can submit claims on the account’s behalf, The MLC’s Copyright User can create works, and SOCAN lists work registrations among the permissions a member can assign. The account stays the artist’s and the money is paid to the artist.

Does a manager need all of this if the artist has a label?

Yes; the same four things, with the label’s contract added to the paper. The label holds the recordings it owns and reports on them, and the manager still needs the codes, the songs, the deal’s term and rate, and the registrations the label does not make — the writer’s at a PRO, and the featured artist’s share under section 114, which SoundExchange pays to the artist rather than through the label.

What if the catalogue was released years ago and nobody registered anything?

The same list, read against three clocks: SoundExchange holds an unclaimed royalty for three years from the payment’s first distribution and no claim is valid after; The MLC holds unmatched money against its matching process; and in the United States a grant made after 1977 can be terminated thirty-five years on. Register first, then claim, then read the statements.

Sources

• ASCAP Help Center, Can I give someone else viewing or editing access to my Member Access account? — never share the Member Access username or password; the designated user, who it might be, their own credentials, and permissions the member can change or delete at any time; how one is assigned.
• SOCAN, Authorized Representatives — the definition; the examples of who acts for a member; the permissions a member selects; the uploaded backup documentation; and that without a complete application SOCAN will not accept direction from anyone other than the member.
• SoundExchange, Primary & Guest Access in SoundExchange Direct: Everything You Need to Know (2020-11-24) — the primary contact, who need not be the registrant; up to 50 guest users; “view only” and “view with repertoire”; the latter able to see all recordings and submit claims on the account’s behalf; adding and removing guests inside the portal.
• SoundExchange, Frequently Asked Questions — I manage a recording artist – can their royalties be paid to me directly?: the strict policy against paying third parties and the closed list of who is paid performer money. Every answer renders on one page, so the page is linked rather than an anchor.
• The MLC Help Center, What are the different types of user permissions? How do I manage users? — Super, Finance and Copyright Users and what each can do; how a Super User adds, removes and edits users.
• The MLC Help Center, What is a Member? How do I create one? — the definition of a Member as the person or entity authorized to administer musical works and receive digital audio mechanical royalties.
• DistroKid Help Center, Can I Give Access to My DistroKid Account to Other People? (updated 2026-02-27) — one individual, one email address, one password; no second set of credentials; sharing as the only route and not recommended.
• Spotify for Artists support, Access levels in Spotify for Artists — Admin, Editor and Reader and what each can do; Team Admin as an optional additional level.
• Apple Music for Artists support, Manage users on your account — the first artist or artist manager to gain access is the Admin; Admin, Analyst and Profile Editor; requests reviewed by the Admin.
• US Copyright Office, Musicians — the sound recording and the music, lyrics and words as separate copyright-protected works, commonly owned and licensed separately.
• 37 CFR §380.4 (Cornell LII) — (b), unclaimed royalties retained in a segregated trust account for three years from the first distribution, and no claim valid after.
• 17 U.S.C. §114(g)(2)(D) (Cornell LII) — the featured artists’ share of statutory-licence receipts, paid per sound recording to the artist.

Every page cited here was read on the date at the top of this piece. The access mechanisms are each organisation’s own, as published that day; a portal that changes changes the sentence, and the page will carry a dated correction if one does. This page names one distributor because that distributor published the sentence quoted, and states nothing about any other. Nothing here is legal advice about a management agreement, a licence or a grant in front of you: the statutes and the companies are quoted in their own words, and a lawyer is the person who says which clause governs yours.

Keeping the register

The four things on this page are one register, and the register is the thing a manager asks for. CatalogTracker holds it: every release and track with its ISRC, ISWC and UPC, searchable by any of them; the parties with their IPI and PRO beside the name; per-track master and publishing splits with a status of confirmed, ready, pending or draft; the agreements uploaded against the recordings they cover, with a content hash and a warning when the parties or the splits changed after signing; and a history of who changed what. Its JSON export is a full copy of all of it, which is the handover packet in one file. It holds no login to anything — it is the register beside the accounts, not a door into them — and this page does not pretend otherwise. In development for iPhone.