Sound Recording assets

A Sound Recording asset represents an audio recording, typically provided by a music label.

The asset has metadata like ISRC, artist, and album, and a reference consisting of an audio master recording. The artist provided for a given Sound Recording asset is connected to the artist's ISNI ID using the ISNI database.

Sound Recording assets embed Share assets representing the musical work embodied in the recording.

YouTube uses Sound Recording assets to make audio-only Content ID claims on user-uploaded videos (source). A Sound Recording asset earns revenue when these audio-only user-generated content (UGC) claims are monetized.

While a Sound Recording asset may be embedded in a Music Video or Art Track, it does not earn revenue directly from them. In those cases, revenue is shared between the video asset (Music Video or Art Track) and the embedded Composition Share asset(s).