Song Registration
Our platform supports a collaborative, multi-step registration process for songs. This system ensures that ownership, metadata, documents, and approvals are properly collected before a song is submitted to Worth for final review and publication.
What is Song Registration?
Song registration is the process of formally documenting a song on the Worth platform with:
- Ownership shares and rights holders
- Artist contributions and roles
- Metadata (ISRC, publisher info, etc.)
- Supporting documents (split sheets, contracts)
- Approval from all stakeholders
Once registered and approved, songs can be linked to projects, tracked for revenue, and included in fundraising campaigns.
Song Status
| Status | Description |
|---|---|
| Draft | Initial state. The registrant is building out the song's details. Free editing. |
| Awaiting Approval | Editing is locked while organizations review and approve. The registrant can withdraw to draft. |
| Submitted | All organizations have approved. Awaiting final review by a Worth administrator. |
| Registered | Finalized and locked. Revenue tracking and distribution enabled. |
| Reopened | A Worth administrator has reopened the song for corrections. Editing is allowed with logging. |
Who Can Register Songs?
Organization Admins can register songs on behalf of their organization. The registering organization becomes the "Song Registrant" with full control over the registration process.
Roles and Permissions
Song Registrant
Members of the organization that creates the song have certain privileges:
- Organization Admins in this organization can edit, approve, and submit the song
- Organization Viewers can view the song but cannot edit or submit
Organizations with Ownership
When you add organizations to the ownership structure:
- They are automatically assigned the Song Admin role
- Their Organization Admins can edit and approve (but cannot submit)
- Their Organization Viewers can only view
- They must approve the song before submission
Need custom permissions? Contact the Worth team to adjust roles for your organization or registered songs.
Registration Workflow
Step 1: Initial Creation
Organization Admins initiate the registration process:
- Click "Register Asset"
- Select the registrant organization
- Enter the song name
- Choose which rights streams the song covers (Recording, Publishing, or both)
- Optionally paste metadata or attach a file (distributor report, liner notes, spreadsheet) for automatic extraction
- Click "Register" to create the song
The song is created in Draft status and you can now add additional details.
Step 2: Add Collaborators and Ownership
Define who owns economic rights to the song. Songs track two independent types of rights:
- Recording rights (the master) — the specific recorded performance, typically owned by the artist and/or their record label
- Publishing rights (the composition) — the underlying words and melody, typically owned by the songwriters and their publishers
These are tracked separately because they often have different owners and different revenue streams. The Ownership tab on the song page shows both.
To set ownership:
- Add organizations with their ownership percentages for each rights type
- Percentages should total 100% per rights type
- An organization must be registered on Worth before you can add them
- All organizations with ownership stakes must approve the registration
Step 3: Provide Metadata
Add detailed information about the song:
Standard Fields:
- ISRC (International Standard Recording Code)
- ISWC (International Standard Musical Work Code)
- Spotify ID
- Publisher information
- Recording year
- Release date
- Genre (e.g., R&B, Pop, Hip-Hop)
- Language and Language Code (ISO code for international catalog management)
- Explicit content flag
Recording Details:
- Recording Location (Studio name and/or city)
- Recording Date
- Mastering Studio
- Mixing Studio
- Display Artist (Formatted artist name for display)
Custom Metadata: Contact us to add additional information specific to your needs.
ISRC: Each recording needs a unique ISRC. If you enter an ISRC that is already registered to another song on Worth, you will see a conflict warning and the save will be blocked. Songs with recording rights must have an ISRC before they can be submitted for registration. Publishing-only songs do not require an ISRC.
ISWC: The ISWC identifies the underlying composition rather than the specific recording. Multiple recordings of the same song (covers, live versions, remasters) share the same ISWC. When you enter an ISWC, the platform will show you other songs that share the same composition, making it easy to copy publishing information from a sibling recording.
Pro Tip: The more metadata you provide, the easier it will be to match revenue from distributors and track performance across platforms.
Step 4: Add Artist Contributions
Document all artists who contributed to the song.
Step 5: Upload Documents
Attach supporting files to your song registration:
Common Document Types:
- Split sheets
- Publishing agreements
- Recording contracts
- Copyright certificates
- Distribution agreements
- Audio files (WAV, MP3, FLAC, etc.)
Audio File Metadata: When you upload audio files (like WAV, MP3, or FLAC), our system automatically extracts technical details such as sample rate, bit depth, and format. This helps ensure your music meets distribution standards without requiring you to enter this technical information manually.
Upload Options:
- Internal Files - Upload directly to Worth (stored securely)
- External Links - Link to documents stored elsewhere (e.g., for highly sensitive files)
All documents are private and only accessible to organizations with Song Admin or Song Viewer roles.
Step 6: Request Approval
When the song details are complete, request approval from all stakeholders:
- Click "Request Approval"
- Song status changes to Awaiting Approval — editing is now locked
- All organizations with ownership stakes are notified and must approve
Organization Approvals:
- All organizations with ownership stakes must approve
- You can add additional organizations to the approval list even if they don't have ownership
- Any admin in the organization can approve on behalf of the entity
- Approval is recorded with the approver's name and timestamp
Withdrawing: If you need to make changes, click "Withdraw" to return the song to Draft status. All collected approvals are reset.
Important: Approval Reset If any of the following fields were edited before requesting approval after approvals were previously collected, all approvals are reset:
- Ownership percentages
- Adding/removing organizations
- Metadata changes
- Document uploads or deletions
This ensures all parties have approved the final version of the registration.
Step 7: Submit for Registration
Once all approvals are collected, you can submit the song to Worth:
- Click "Submit for Registration"
- The submission modal shows a pre-flight checklist:
- ✅ All ownership organizations have approved
- ✅ All added approvers have approved
- ✅ ISRC provided (required if the song has recording rights — blocks submission if missing)
- ℹ️ ISWC provided (recommended if the song has publishing rights — informational, does not block submission)
- ✅ Ownership percentages are reasonable
- Song status changes to Submitted
- Worth team is notified for review
During Review: You cannot edit the song while it's being reviewed. If changes are needed, Worth staff will return it for editing.
Step 8: Worth Registration
The Worth team reviews your submission:
- Verifies ownership information
- Checks metadata for accuracy
- Reviews supporting documents
- Registers the song (status changes to Registered) or requests changes
The Song Page
After a song is created, its detail page is organized into tabs. Here's what each tab does and when you'll use it.
Main Info
View and edit the song's basic details — name, ISRC, ISWC, Spotify ID, genre, language, recording details, and all other metadata. This is the default view when you open a song.
If the song has recording rights but no ISRC, a "Required for submission" hint appears next to the ISRC field. If you enter an ISRC that is already in use by another song, an error message will appear and the save button will be disabled until the conflict is resolved.
When the song has an ISWC, a Composition Siblings banner appears showing other songs on the platform that share the same composition. From this banner, you can copy publishing ownership from a sibling song into the current song, saving time when registering covers, live versions, or remasters.
Linked Agreements
Link agreements (contracts) to this song and import their terms. If your organization has uploaded an agreement to Worth, you can connect it to the song here.
Once an agreement is linked, you can apply its rules — this imports the ownership percentages and payment rules extracted from the agreement directly into the song. You'll see a preview of exactly what will be created before confirming. See the Agreements guide for the full workflow.
Ownership
View and manage ownership percentages for both recording and publishing rights. Ownership is organized by time periods — when deal terms change (a new agreement kicks in, a label deal expires, etc.), a new time period is created to hold the updated ownership percentages.
The system keeps the history so that revenue is always distributed using the ownership that was in effect when it was earned. If a royalty statement arrives for last quarter, the system uses last quarter's ownership, not today's.
Key concepts:
- Time periods define date ranges during which a specific set of ownership percentages and payment rules are in effect
- A song starts with one default time period. New ones are added when terms change.
- Pending time periods can be set up for future business events (e.g., "when recoupment is complete") and activated later by an admin
Payment Rules
Configure how revenue flows through your song's distribution waterfall. Payment rules define the order in which parties get paid from incoming revenue.
Common rule types:
- Deductions — Fees taken off the top before other distributions (e.g., distribution fees)
- Overrides — Priority payments to a specific party before the standard split (e.g., a producer override)
- Recoupment — Recovering an advance before the artist receives royalties. During recoupment, the artist's share goes toward paying back the advance. Once the advance is fully recouped, the rules transition to the post-recoupment phase. If multiple songs are covered by the same advance, they can share a single recoupment balance so that revenue from any of those songs counts toward paying it back. To share a balance, the songs must be in the same project. When adding a recoupment on a song, you can choose "Link Existing" to select a balance from another song in the project instead of creating a new one.
- Royalties — Fixed percentage payments to specific parties (e.g., artist royalty of 15%)
- Investor participation — Distributes a percentage of revenue among project investors based on their participation shares, used for fundraising campaigns where investors receive a share of project revenue
- Ownership split — Final distribution based on ownership percentages after all other rules have been applied
Payment rules are also organized by time period, just like ownership. This means your revenue distribution can change over time — for example, different rules before and after an advance is recouped.
How it works in practice:
Revenue flows through rules in priority order. Each rule takes its portion, and the remainder passes to the next rule. The final ownership split distributes whatever is left.
No payment rules? If no rules are configured, revenue is simply split according to the ownership percentages. Payment rules are optional and are most useful for complex deals with recoupment, deductions, or multi-party waterfalls.
Registration Approvals
Track and manage the multi-party approval process. See who has approved, who hasn't, and add additional approvers.
Media/Documents
Upload and manage audio files, artwork, contracts, split sheets, and other supporting documents.
Distribution
View and manage distribution-related information for this song, including DDEX package readiness and delivery status.
Revenue History
View revenue records and charts for this song. Filter by date range and see how revenue has been distributed over time.
Common Questions
What if a co-owner doesn't have a Worth account? You can add them to the approval list by email. They'll be invited to create an account and approve the registration.
Can ownership change after registration? Yes. A Worth administrator can reopen a registered song to allow corrections. The song moves to "Reopened" status, where edits are allowed and logged. Once corrections are complete, it can be re-registered.
What's the difference between recording and publishing rights? Recording rights cover the specific recorded performance (the master). Publishing rights cover the underlying composition (the words and melody). They are tracked separately because they often have different owners — for example, a label may own the recording while the songwriter owns the publishing.
Do I need to set up payment rules? Not necessarily. If your revenue distribution is a simple percentage split among owners, the ownership percentages handle it automatically. Payment rules are useful when you have more complex arrangements like advances, recoupment, or distribution fees.
What if my ISRC is already used by another song? Each recording needs a unique ISRC. If the ISRC you enter is already registered to another song on the platform, you will see an error message and will need to resolve the conflict before saving. This usually means one of the songs has the wrong ISRC. If you believe the ISRC is correct, contact the Worth team for help.
What are composition siblings? When two or more songs share the same ISWC (composition identifier), they are recordings of the same underlying composition — for example, a studio recording and a live version. The platform detects these automatically and shows them in a banner on the Main Info tab. You can use this to copy publishing ownership from one recording to another, which is helpful when the same writers and publishers apply across multiple recordings of the same song.
Do I need an ISRC to submit a song? Only if the song has recording rights. Songs that only have publishing rights (composition-only registrations) can be submitted without an ISRC. An ISWC is recommended for publishing rights but is not required for submission.
Archiving Songs
Songs can be archived instead of deleted. Archiving hides a song from all listings, selectors, counts, and aggregations while preserving the underlying data. Archived songs can still be viewed by navigating directly to their URL.
Who Can Archive
Organization Admins and Worth super admins can archive and unarchive songs.
When a Song Cannot Be Archived
A song cannot be archived if it has:
- Revenue records on file. Cancel or correct the revenue first.
- Active recoupment balances (outstanding advance repayments).
- An active fundraise through a linked project.
- An active contract linked to it.
- A pending approval workflow (status is "Awaiting Approval" or "Submitted"). Resolve the workflow first.
Songs in Draft, Registered, or Reopened status that have none of the above can be archived.
How to Archive
- Open the song detail page.
- Click the Archive button in the page header.
- Confirm in the dialog. If the song is ineligible, the dialog explains why.
How to Find Archived Songs
On any song listing page, use the Filter dropdown next to the sort control. Choose Archived to see only archived songs, or All to see everything.
Unarchiving
Open an archived song (via direct link or the Archived filter) and click Unarchive. The song immediately reappears in all listings and selectors.