I am still not done digging into the ISRC data from Discogs, as I see it as a source of errors and I am in ranting mode. At the moment having errors in ISRC codes is not a big problem, as Discogs is not using it yet (right now you cannot specifically search on ISRC codes). Unlocking this data could actually quite handy in the future ("Oh, I like this track that I downloaded and want it on a physical release. On which physical releases was it published?") but I will let them discover that business case themselves.
If you don't know what ISRC codes are I suggest you start with reading one of my previous posts about the subject and follow the links there.
What I wondered is: how many times can you find the same ISRC code on a single release, for example if a contributor makes a copy/paste error and forgets to change the code? So I adapted my scripts and ran a test to see in which releases (where ISRC codes actually marked as such with a proper ISRC field) there are duplicate ISRC codes.
There are a few caveats: although an ISRC code should be unique to every recording it is a bit unclear what happens with remixes. On some releases remixes get their own ISRC code, while on others the ISRC code seems to be reused. So, not every duplicate necessary needs to be an error.
Also, as it turns out, it is not just contributors who are sloppy. Designers who made releases also make mistakes. Take this release from some German label. There are two ISRC codes that are duplicates, namely for track 1-09 and 2-09, and for 2-10 and 2-11 even though they are different tracks (and, according to the specifications, ISRCs are unique per recording). If you look at the pictures you can clearly see that the designers likely made copy/paste errors and no one caught these. Another example is this release from the UK where track 2-2 and 2-8 have the same ISRC code printed in the booklet, even though they should have a different code. And there is this one from Finland, where according to the booklet tracks 1 and 15 have the same ISRC.
These examples make me wonder what the actual benefit of ISRCs in general is if the reoord companies can't be bothered. I culd see the benefit in Discogs if there are for example two releases, one with ISRC metadata on the CD and one without, but currently there are simply too few releases where this information is reliably available and indicated in a clear way how it was obtained ("written on release" or "extracted from CD"). Discogs, sometimes you're a real mess.
Anyway, I ran my scripts and I found 48 releases where a single ISRC code is used multiple times. Most of the time this was because of reasons mentioned above (remixes, cut/paste errors by designers) but there were also real errors. My guess is that the amount of errors is actually higher because many releases have not yet switched to the ISRC field.
If you don't know what ISRC codes are I suggest you start with reading one of my previous posts about the subject and follow the links there.
What I wondered is: how many times can you find the same ISRC code on a single release, for example if a contributor makes a copy/paste error and forgets to change the code? So I adapted my scripts and ran a test to see in which releases (where ISRC codes actually marked as such with a proper ISRC field) there are duplicate ISRC codes.
There are a few caveats: although an ISRC code should be unique to every recording it is a bit unclear what happens with remixes. On some releases remixes get their own ISRC code, while on others the ISRC code seems to be reused. So, not every duplicate necessary needs to be an error.
Also, as it turns out, it is not just contributors who are sloppy. Designers who made releases also make mistakes. Take this release from some German label. There are two ISRC codes that are duplicates, namely for track 1-09 and 2-09, and for 2-10 and 2-11 even though they are different tracks (and, according to the specifications, ISRCs are unique per recording). If you look at the pictures you can clearly see that the designers likely made copy/paste errors and no one caught these. Another example is this release from the UK where track 2-2 and 2-8 have the same ISRC code printed in the booklet, even though they should have a different code. And there is this one from Finland, where according to the booklet tracks 1 and 15 have the same ISRC.
Not just Discogs users make mistakes with incorrect data. Record labels make them too.I don't know if the data on the discs itself (if any) is incorrect as well, but it would be interesting to compare the two. Which brings up an interesting question: which would be authoritative: the CD or the booklet? The information on the CDs is not perfect either. The submission notes of this release (only accessible if you have a Discogs account) says that according to the software used to extract the ISRC codes from the disc there are duplicate ISRC codes on the disc. So that might mean: an error in the software, or errors in the metadata on the CDs. And then there is this one (track 7, same story). And this one. So the correct answer would be: neither, and use the official ISRC database instead.
These examples make me wonder what the actual benefit of ISRCs in general is if the reoord companies can't be bothered. I culd see the benefit in Discogs if there are for example two releases, one with ISRC metadata on the CD and one without, but currently there are simply too few releases where this information is reliably available and indicated in a clear way how it was obtained ("written on release" or "extracted from CD"). Discogs, sometimes you're a real mess.
Anyway, I ran my scripts and I found 48 releases where a single ISRC code is used multiple times. Most of the time this was because of reasons mentioned above (remixes, cut/paste errors by designers) but there were also real errors. My guess is that the amount of errors is actually higher because many releases have not yet switched to the ISRC field.
Comments
Post a Comment