Sound Recording Shares give you more visibility and more granular control over how your rights and data are represented on Content ID Sound Recording assets.
On Sound Recording assets, you’ll now see a “Sound Recording Share” asset created for each unique ISRC (International Standard Recording Code) you deliver to YouTube. Optionally, the same ISRC can also be represented on more than one of your Sound Recording Shares, if delivered with a distinct custom ID.
Unlike a Sound Recording asset, a Sound Recording Share represents only the metadata, ownership, and policy information provided by a single owner. Only you can see and edit your own Sound Recording Shares.
The breakout by ISRC helps you preserve previously delivered metadata versions during asset update or merge. Sound Recording Shares may also allow easier reporting to the appropriate record label or artist in cases where similar, but different audio references are deemed duplicate for Content ID and contained on the same Sound Recording asset.
FAQs
Where can I find my Sound Recording Share assets; what do they look like?
On Sound Recording assets, you’ll see a Sound Recording tab. Under the Your Shares section, you’ll see all Sound Recording Shares with your ownership.
Clicking on a Sound Recording Share title opens the details page. Each Sound Recording Share has its own unique asset ID and two tabs: Metadata and Ownership & Policy. The Metadata and Ownership & Policy tabs are the same as what you see today on a Sound Recording asset, but only show your provided metadata, ownership, and policy for that individual Sound Recording Share.
You can edit information by clicking the Edit pencil 
Keep in mind that when viewing the metadata comparison for a Share created before February 2019, you may see more than one ISRC in the metadata comparison. We only consider the latest delivered ISRC on a Sound Recording Share as the official ISRC for that Share.
Is Custom ID required for Sound Recording Shares?
Custom ID is not a required field. Custom ID and ISRC delivered together form a unique “key” to create a Sound Recording Share; however, custom ID is entirely optional. If you want to create two or more Sound Recording Shares with the same ISRC, custom ID must be used to differentiate.
Can Sound Recording Shares be deleted?
There is no official way to delete information from a Sound Recording Share. However, because we only consider the latest added metadata, ownership, and policy on a Sound Recording Share, the best way to make sure you’re displaying the correct information for a Sound Recording Share is to edit it, by clicking the Edit pencil
We’ll soon also add the ability to merge your own Sound Recording Shares together to “delete” extra, unwanted Shares.
What Sound Recording Share ownership and policy apply for an associated Sound Recording asset?
At this time, we’re only considering the ownership and policy from your latest delivered or latest updated Sound Recording Share as your ownership and policy for a Sound Recording asset.
In the future, we aim to expand this logic to take a union of ownership across all of your own Sound Recording Shares on a Sound Recording asset to preserve the most comprehensive ownership and most restrictive policy across your delivered ISRCs, even in cases of asset merge.
How should I address ownership conflicts for Sound Recording Shares?
Sound Recording Shares do not have ownership conflicts, since each Sound Recording Share has only one owner.
Ownership conflicts remain at the Sound Recording asset level, according to the aggregate ownership from all asset owners, based on each owner’s latest delivered or latest updated Sound Recording Share for a given Sound Recording asset. Learn more.
Ownership conflicts can be viewed on both the Ownership & Policy and Sound Recording tabs.
Do Sound Recording Shares have references or impact claims?
Sound Recording Shares are not tied to references and do not impact claims.
You may see that Sound Recording Shares are created during the delivery of new references, but references and claims remain associated with the Sound Recording asset.
Do Sound Recording Shares impact how I send updates to Sound Recordings with Content Delivery?
Sound Recording Shares should not impact how you deliver updates with Content Delivery.
When you deliver an update to a Sound Recording asset:
- If the ISRC you provided does not exist as the latest delivered ISRC for one of your Sound Recording Shares, a new Sound Recording Share will be created.
- If the ISRC you provided does exist as the latest delivered ISRC for one of your Sound Recording Shares, the Sound Recording Share will be updated.
- If the ISRC you provided exists as the latest delivered ISRC for more than one of your Sound Recording Shares, and no custom ID is provided to differentiate, your earliest created Share with that ISRC will be updated.
What if I don’t deliver ISRCs for my Sound Recording Assets?
ISRCs should be provided whenever possible, as these identifiers are the industry standard for audio recordings; however, if you do not have an ISRC for a recording, it is still possible to deliver with custom ID or Sound Recording asset ID. A Sound Recording Share will be created for your initial delivery to a Sound Recording asset, but data may be overwritten with subsequent updates to the asset where ISRC is not provided.
How can I search for a specific Sound Recording Share?
Sound Recording Shares cannot be searched by Sound Recording Share ID in the Assets list; however, you can search for the Sound Recording asset ID that contains a Sound Recording Share asset. Alternatively, you can search by your latest provided ISRC for a given Sound Recording Share.
Do Sound Recording Shares appear in YouTube Analytics?
Information about Sound Recording Shares doesn’t appear in YouTube Analytics. You can search in YouTube Analytics by Sound Recording asset ID. To see a breakout of your data by Sound Recording Share, you can use the Sound Recording Share downloadable report.
How do Sound Recording Shares appear in downloadable reports?
You can view all Sound Recording Shares and associated metadata in a NEW Asset Share report in the Reports > Asset section of your Content Manager.
Sound Recording Shares do not explicitly appear in any other metadata or financial downloadable reports. For all other reports, the most recent version of metadata you provided, or the display metadata if you didn't provide metadata, is the metadata version that shows.
However, because the Asset Share report shows more granular data of each Sound Recording Share ID and the associated Sound Recording asset ID, information can be compared against other reports to help provide a clearer picture of record label or artist by ISRC.
For example, if you delivered a remastered version of a song with an ISRC that merged onto the same Sound Recording asset as the original version with its own unique ISRC, the Asset Share report can show you separate Sound Recording Shares for the original and remastered versions, both relating to the same Sound Recording asset ID. If these versions are owned by different record labels, you may wish to compare against financial reports to provide information about Content ID performance to both labels.