JASRAC, music credits and you

[Dag]

Who?
JASRAC (Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers) is roughly like the RIAA but much worse (to the point you have to ask for permission to quote lyrics).

What's relevant to our interests is that they catalogue copyright info for songs and they have an online, public database to check them.
This copyright info may include rightholder, composer, lyricist, arranger, vocalist, and so on.

Why?
Often and sadly, albums lack compositions credits, or may be incomplete (ex.- only arrangers).
Fortunately, JASRAC may have copyright info about those albums. This often includes composer info. You may get instead a generic "Capcom Sound Team" or nothing at all, too, but it's worth a try.

What?
The DB is accesible here (or here). You add some search params and get the results below.
Then you can click on the purple "details" (詳細) button to see detailed data.

Is JASRAC accurate? Well. They are "reliable". I take they are just content regurgitators, so if the original rightholder lies it's not their fault.
I've seen tracks credited to wrong people (rare), or arrangers as composers. But very often they have credits that mimic printed ones.
Just in case mark JASRAC credits as such and do some checking. They are trustable but some common sense should be applied.

How?
- Start here
- Add an album name (you don't need the full name, try different approaches) or even a track name on second row, first input box.
- Or an artist name on the third row, second input (also try third row, first input or second row, second input)
- Hit enter.
- The results should appear. Use the big buttons below to paginate if needed.
You'll need to copy & paste Japanese text to search. Sometimes romaji works but usually it's ＪＡＳＣＩＩ only.

When?
Seemingly JASRAC searches expire, so you can't link them directly.
While usually credits are monolithic, they may (rarely) add or remove credits a while after the release of an album.
It may go down at times due to maintenance too, don't panic if the domain stops working.


(TODO: screenshots with translations, more info how to search, other tricks and so on)

[Secret Squirrel]

Excellent, I've been wondering how to do this too.

[Blitz Lunar]

Thankyou kindly this will be a handy reference.

[Alcahest]

(sanodg haha <3)

[roxfan]

The main search form



Fields breakdown:
1 [条件クリア] Clear form
2 件単位 rows per page
3 sorting:
タイトル順 by title
権利者順 by rights holder
アーティスト順 by artist
作品コード順 by work code
4 [検索] search
5 作品コード work code
(完全一致) (full match)
6 作品タイトル work title
すべて anywhere
正題に限定 only in main title
7 権利者名 rights holder name
著作者 author
出版者 publisher
8 アーティスト名 artist (performer) name
9 ISWC (International Standard Musical Work Code)
(完全一致) (full match)
10 検索範囲 内外 search scope: domestic/foreign
内外指定なし any
内国作品のみ only domestic works
外国作品のみ only foreign works
11 検索結果X件(Y/Z) total results: X (page Y of Z)
12 内外 Domestic/foreign (内 domestic/外 foreign)
13 作品コード Work code (JASRAC code)
14 タイトル Title
15 著作者 Author
16 アーティスト Artist

Some notes about the fields

For 6,7,8 you can choose where to match your term:

前方一致で match beginning
後方一致で match end
中間一致で match anywhere
完全一致で full (exact) match

"work code" (5) or ISWC (9) allow you to quickly look up a specific work if you know its JASRAC or ISWC code.
JASRAC codes have format of NNN-NNNN-N and ISWC ones look like T-123.456.789-Z.

Title (6), rights holder/author (7) and artist (8) fields allow searching by:
a) kanji name
b) english/original name
c) katakana reading
d) romaji reading (often but not always)
You can select up to two terms combined with AND or OR, and for each you can choose match at beginning/end/middle or full match.

For title (6), you can select whether to match only the actual title (正題に限定), or also any sub-titles (すべて). For tracks from video games, anime or movies, the sub-titles often include the corresponding work (e.g. 西の善き魔女より（ＴＶアニメ） = from "The Good Witch of the West" (TV Animation)), so this allows you to search by anime/game/etc.

Rights holder name (7) can search in authors (著作者), e.g. composer/lyricist/arranger/etc., or publishers (出版者) - this is usually a company name).

Artist name (8) refers either to the singer or, for instrumental tracks, the composer.

Domestic/foreign (10) can be used to limit search to domestic (Japanese) or foreign works. The default is to show both.

Search results

The search results table can differ depending on what fields you use, this one shows search by title.

When searching by publisher you may also see:
権利者 Rights holder

By clicking on a title in the results table you can check additional details about the work.

Detailed musical work information



1 内国作品 Domestic work
外国作品 Foreign work
2 出典 Source [of the information]
PO(出版者作品届) Publisher work report
PJ(サブ出版者作品届) Sub-publisher work report
3 作品コード Work code (JASRAC code)
4 権利者情報 Rights holder information
5 権利者 Rights holder
6 識別 Category
作曲(=作曲者) Composer
作詞(=作詞者) Lyric writer/songwriter
補曲(=補作曲者) Assistant(?) composer, co-composer(?)
補詞(=補作詞者) Assistant(?) lyric writer
編曲(=編曲者) Arranger
訳詞(=訳詞者) Lyric translator
公編 original arranger (of the first recording)
識別不明 Unknown category
出版者(=原出版者) Publisher
サブ出版(=サブ出版者) Sub-publisher (received publishing rights in a certain territory from the main publisher)
7 契約 Contract
In case publishing rights are given only for lyrics or music (but not both), a corresponding mark appears here
詞 lyrics
曲 music
8 管理状況 Rights management
9 信託状況 Trust status
全信託 full trust: JASRAC manages all subrights on behalf of this right holder
部分信託 partial trust: JASRAC manages some subrights on behalf of this right holder
無信託 no trust: this right holder has not entrusted any subrights to JASRAC
10 所属団体 Organization
11 Subrights status
Shows status of various sub-rights for the following categories (left to right):
Public performance/Recording/Publishing/Lending/Video/Movie/Commercials/Games/Broadcasting/Interactive communications/Karaoke
12 作品名・副題(検索用名称を含む) Work name, sub-titles (for indexing)
13 番号/区分 Number/section
14 タイトル Title
15 アーティスト Artists
16 アーティスト名 Artist name

There are three main tables:

1) the top one lists rights holders known to JASRAC. For most works this includes composer(s), lyric writer(s) (if it's a song), and publisher(s). Sometimes additional info (e.g. arranger) is present.
The right part of the table describes whether and which rights and sub-rights have been entrusted to JASRAC (or other organizations).

2) Bottom left table lists the main title and sub-titles or other text for indexing. Each cell contains three lines:
a) Original (Japanese) text
b) katakana reading (for indexing)
c) romaji reading (for indexing) or English text
Here you can often find the title of the game, movie, or series where the work is from. In such case the source title is followed by the word より ("yori", meaning "from")
Some cells are marked "(タイトルの続き)" ("taitoru no tsuzuki" = title continuation) meaning that they contain continuation of the text from the previous cell and they should be concatenated for reading.

3) Bottom right table lists the artists (singers) that have performed the work, both the original and any covers.

[cal]

It seems JASRAC has finally updated their database for modern times: https://www.jasrac.or.jp/news/20/200330.html

It now has a sleek new design and direct links seem to be supported as well. By the way, the old URL no longer works.

[Phonograph]

Originally Posted by nextday

...the old URL no longer works.

I always used http://www2.jasrac.or.jp/eJwid/ to load the db page (purple bottom link)
no idea which old url you talking about

[cal]

Originally Posted by Phonograph

I always used http://www2.jasrac.or.jp/eJwid/ to load the db page (purple bottom link)
no idea which old url you talking about

The direct link slightly changed.

Old: http://www2.jasrac.or.jp/eJwid/main?trxID=F00100
New: http://www2.jasrac.or.jp/eJwid/main?trxID=F00100