Why ISAN Matters?

While titles are often ambiguous - changing across languages, regions, or due to similar naming conventions - an ISAN remains constant. It acts as a universal key that identifies a specific work across stakeholders, siloed systems, national boundaries and language barriers, eliminating confusion in global workflows.

Unlike the ISBN (which identifies specific book publications/editions), ISAN identifies the work itself, not the publication format or the rights holders. Whether a film is distributed in theaters, on streaming platforms, TV, or physical media, the core ISAN remains the same.

Scope of Application

ISAN applies to a vast range of audiovisual content, including:

• Cinema & TV: Motion pictures, short films, documentaries, and individual episodes of television series.
• Digital & Interactive: Video games, trailers, podcasts, and multimedia works with significant audiovisual components.
• Other Formats: Industrial, artistic, educational, and training films; commercials; and recordings of live events (sports, newscasts).

Key Characteristics

• Unique & Permanent: Once assigned, an ISAN is never reused to identify another work and never changes, ensuring long-term stability.
• "Dumb" Number: The code itself (e.g., ISAN 0000-0000-3A8D-0000-Z-0000-0000-6) contains no embedded intelligence or signifying elements. Its sole purpose is unique identification; all descriptive details (title, director, duration) are stored as linked metadata.
• Version Control: While the core ISAN identifies the main work, the system also generates specific version identifiers - derived from the root ISAN - to distinguish individual versions (e.g., director’s cut, dubbed versions), linking them hierarchically through the ISAN structure.

Practical Applications

As a robust unique identifier, ISAN streamlines information exchange between stakeholders in:

• Rights Management: Assisting collecting societies and producers in tracking usage and allocating royalties accurately. ISAN serves as the critical bridge that links audiovisual works directly to their rights holders. By providing a unique, stable key, ISAN enables the automated mapping of massive usage reports from broadcasters and streaming platforms against internal rights databases. This eliminates manual reconciliation errors, ensures that every reported play is matched to the correct owner, and significantly accelerates the distribution of royalties across complex, high-volume data flows.
• Anti-Piracy: Reducing unauthorized use by enabling precise identification of protected content across digital platforms.
• Industry Statistics & Market Analysis: Serving as a critical key for statistical offices and observatories, such as the European Audiovisual Observatory and the Swiss Federal Statistic Office. By using ISAN to aggregate data from thousands of VOD catalogs (e.g., in the LUMIERE VOD database), these organizations can accurately measure market shares, track the cross-border circulation of European works, and analyze catalog diversity without duplication errors. ISAN transforms fragmented catalog data into reliable, comparable industry statistics.
• Public Funding & Policy Efficiency: Enabling film funding offices and national agencies to track the lifecycle of projects they finance. By mandating ISAN at the application stage, funders can monitor a project’s distribution, broadcast, and commercial performance post-release. This data is essential for measuring the efficiency of funding policies, ensuring public funds achieve their intended cultural and economic impact.
• Cataloguing: Managing vast audiovisual libraries and archives with precision.

Important Note: The issuance of an ISAN is not a process of copyright registration. It does not provide legal evidence of ownership or rights status; it is purely an identification tool to facilitate industry workflows.

Integrating ISAN into your workflows ensures precise identification of your content from production to archiving. The process involves three key stages: registration, metadata association, and distribution.

1. Register and Obtain Your ISAN: The process begins by registering your audiovisual work with an ISAN Registration Agency.
   1. Submission: Provide core metadata (title, director, duration, production year ...) via the online registry.
   2. Deduplication: The system automatically checks for existing records to prevent duplicates.
   3. Assignment: Once validated, you receive a unique 24 hexadecimal ISAN for the original work and specific ISAN version identifiers for each version (e.g., theatrical cut, TV edit, dubbed version).
2. Embed and Associate Metadata: An ISAN is most effective when it travels with the content.
   1. File Embedding: For digital files, the ISAN can be embedded directly into the video container (e.g., MXF, MP4) using standard metadata schemas like XMP. This ensures the identifier remains attached to the file even if it is copied or moved.
   2. System Integration: In content management systems (CMS) and electronic program guides (EPG), the ISAN should be stored in the designated "Identifier" field, linking your internal database to the global registry.
3. Deploy Across the Value Chain: Use the ISAN to streamline operations at every stage of distribution:
   1. Rights Management: Clearly link licenses and royalties to specific works and versions with ISAN, reducing disputes and administrative errors. Mandate the inclusion of ISAN when declaring rights, reporting usage, or claiming royalties to ensure unambiguous identification across all transactions.
   2. Distribution & Broadcast: Provide the ISAN to distributors, broadcasters, and VoD platforms as part of your delivery metadata. Many platforms now expect ISAN (e.g. Apple) for ingesting content. Furthermore, mandate the inclusion of ISAN in usage reports, sales statements, and forecasting data to ensure precise tracking and royalty allocation.
   3. Archiving & Preservation: Use the persistent ISAN identifier to catalog assets in digital archives, ensuring works remain identifiable even as file formats or storage systems change over decades. Additionally, print the ISAN barcode on physical carriers, storage cases, and reel labels to bridge the gap between physical inventory and digital metadata.
   4. Anti-Piracy: Leverage the unique ISAN identifier to monitor and track unauthorized copies across the web and social media platforms.

By adopting ISAN, you transform a simple reference number into a powerful tool for automation, accuracy, and global interoperability.

ISAN is governed by the ISO Standard 15706-1 and 15706-2.

The ISAN Standard was developed under the auspices of ISO Technical Committee TC46, Subcommittee SC9, responsible for ISO International Standards related to the identification and description of information resources.

Over seven years, ISO dedicated significant efforts to create this standard, incorporating contributions and feedback from numerous media companies, producers, authors, collecting societies, and broadcast standards organizations. The ISAN ISO Standard represents a consensus within the Audiovisual Industry; it was created by and for the Audiovisual Industry.

The initial International Standard forming the foundation of the ISAN system was published as ISO 15706-1, titled "Information and documentation -- International Standard Audiovisual Number (ISAN)." Subsequently, to accommodate the diverse needs of the audiovisual distribution chain, the ISAN Standard was expanded to include version identification, as outlined in ISO 15706-2.

Both parts of the standard are available for purchase, each in separate English and French editions.

The ISAN system is built on a foundation of multilateral governance and sovereignty, operating under the exclusive ownership and oversight of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

As a public standard (ISO 15706), ISAN is managed by non-profit entities strictly dedicated to its stewardship, ensuring that the system serves the global public interest rather than commercial agendas.

The system adheres to the RAND principle ("Reasonable and Non-Discriminatory"), guaranteeing equitable access to the registry and identifiers, which remain public domain and free for anyone to use indefinitely.

While service fees are determined locally to reflect operational costs, the framework prioritizes global consistency and stability over market competition.

Accountability is absolute: ISO retains full audit rights and the authority to reassign the operating mandate if necessary, ensuring that the ISAN-IA and its agencies remain transparent, compliant, and faithfully executed stewards of this essential global infrastructure.