Yes, I made a mistake and the only way to fix it is to cancel the release on all music streaming services and set it up for distribution again. As an independent artist, one of the things that I handle is my music publishing. This includes taking care of the metadata of each song, which is valuable information for accounting purposes in the music business. If one number is assigned incorrectly, the tracking of streams and distribution of royalties can be messed up.
Good News:
"Search Your Soul" still be available on YouTube (not YouTube Music) and on SoundCloud, because I am uploading it directly to those places. But there will be a short period of time in which "Search Your Soul" will not be available on streaming services like Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Tidal, etc.
What was the mistake?
I assigned the wrong ISRC Code to "Search Your Soul".
What is an ISRC Code?
Each song needs to be assigned a code called ISRC, which stands for International Standard Recording Code. This code identifies the song and lets it be tracked. It is used to track plays and sales and to distribute the corresponding royalties.
"Each ISRC is a unique and permanent identifier for a specific recording, independent of the format on which it appears (CD, audio file, etc.) or the rights holders involved. Only one ISRC should be issued to a track, and an ISRC can never represent more than one unique recording" (US ISRC Agency, https://usisrc.org/about/index.html)
The ISRC code contains 12 characters. First two letters are the country. The following three Characters are the Registrant Code. Next two numbers are the year. And the Last 5 numbers are the ones that correspond to the sound recording on the database.
US _ _ _ 22 _ _ _ _ _
In the United States there are different ways to assign that code to a song:
Have an ISRC Manager to assign it for you.
or
Obtaining a Registrant Code portion of the ISRC code from the US ISRC Agency and assigning it to your own recordings, which is what I'm doing as the owner of my own music publishing company Ketsyha Music & Entertainment.
How this happened?
In 2021 these were the ISRC codes assigned to my music releases.
You Love Me Like I Am USF5G2100001
Take It Slow USF5G2100002
Thank You 4 Ever USF5G2100003
Everything Is Gonna Be Alright USF5G2100004
Move On USF5G2100005
In September 2021, when I was planning the release of "Search Your Soul" I assigned the following number in the sequence:
"Search Your Soul" US-F5G-2100006
Two months later, I decided to release the Music Video version of my song Move On along with the music video on November 5, 2021. By mistake, I assigned to that release the same code! US-F5G-2100006. I forgot that I assigned it to Search Your Soul on September in my database.
The day of the release of Search Your Soul, I was preparing a landing page with all the links to stream the song with Found.ee. They ask you for the ISRC code to locate all the streaming services links so you don't have to do it manually. When I entered the ISRC code, the cover art of Move On (Music Video Version) appeared! That's how I noticed it. Can you imagine? The same day of the release! Yes, you can imagine my reaction. I suspected what that little mistake was going to cost me. So I took a deep breath. 12:10am in the middle of the night. Next day I confirmed what I suspected, I needed to cancel the release and submit it again with the correct code. I waited a few days before canceling and summiting it again. Now everything is in order. I double checked everything and we are good to go!
My apologize to everyone who have save it to a playlist or have looked for it and haven't found it. As soon as a receive the notice that is live again on streaming platforms I will let you know. If you want to receive a notification about this, make sure you are signed up to my email list.
Lesson learned:
Always Double or Triple check all the metadata on music releases and keep the spreadsheet with all the info for every song updated and handy.
Fun Fact:
For the new release I added a new circle to the artwork so I can know where they have made the change with the correct ISRC Code.
Want to receive a notification when "Search Your Soul" is live on streaming services again?
Sign up to my email list here: https://www.ketsyha.com/join