“Where can I find a listing of the ISRC codes to plug into Masterlist CD? I’ve heard that some CDR duplicators can’t copy CD’s with mixed country codes. Is this true and if so, why?”
In the US, ISRC codes are administered by the RIAA. They are 12 digit numbers representing four distinct pieces of information about a recording. There is the country code, registrant code, year of reference, and a designation code. An ISRC would look something like this example:
ISRC US – Z03 – 99 – 02112
The “ISRC” at the beginning is the code identifier, which defines what the code is. US is the country code for the United States (more on that in a minute), Z03 is the registrant code, which defines the registered producer or owner of the recording (Mercury records in this case), the 99 is the year of reference, and the 02112 is the designation code. The designation code is a lot like a serial number and is generally chosen by the registrant.
The country codes used come from the ISO. The specific agency is ISO 3166, and there is a list at their Web site, along with forms for registration and such. Each CD can have one ISRC code, and since there is only a two digit space in it for the country code I’m not sure what you mean by “mixed country codes.” I have never encountered a CD duplicator that cared what information was contained in the ISRC subcode space, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t one somewhere. With DVD’s country codes are encoded to control distribution of movies. A DVD encoded with the US code may not play on a DVD player purchased in another country.