The International Standard Musical Work Code (ISWC) is an ISO standard similar to ISBNs for identifying musical works / compositions.
According to the Wikipedia article about ISWC, to register an ISWC, the following minimal metadata must be supplied:
- title
- names of all composers, arrangers and authors, with their role in the piece (identified by role code) and their :doc:`CAE </terminology/terms/cae>`/:doc:`IPI </terminology/terms/ipi>` number
- work classification code (CIS)
- identification of other works from it is derived
MusicBrainz stores ISWCs for :doc:`works </terminology/entities/work>`.
.. seealso:: - :doc:`IPI </terminology/terms/ipi>`: a number identifying persons connected to ISWC registered works (authors, composers, etc.) - :doc:`ISRC </terminology/terms/isrc>`: an ISO standard for identifying recordings of music, developed by the IFPI - `Website of the registration authority <http://www.iswc.org/>`_ - :ref:`List of work databases <entities_work_external_databases>`, many of which contain ISWCs