What is CWR?

The Common Works Registration (CWR) is a standardized format and protocol created by CISAC to make life easier for everyone in music publishing. Instead of each publisher, sub-publisher, administrator, or society inventing its own way of exchanging information, CWR provides a common language that all parties can use to register and manage musical works.

At its simplest, a CWR file is a structured text file that follows strict formatting rules. Inside, you’ll find all the metadata that defines a work: identifiers like the ISWC or society codes, the names and IPIs of contributors, their roles (Author, Composer, Publisher, etc.), and the ownership and collection shares that determine who controls which rights and where. These are the exact same data points you manage in the Rights section of Reprtoir — which means once your catalog is set up, it can be exported as a valid CWR file without duplication or missing pieces.

CWR has become the backbone of communication in publishing.

• Societies rely on it to register works and mandates.
• Publishers use it to declare new works.
• Sub-publishers use it to establish local rights.
• Administrators use it to represent catalogs across territories.

Without such a standard, the industry would be a patchwork of proprietary formats — leading to mismatches, duplicates, and delayed royalty payments.

Another key part of the workflow is the Acknowledgement file (ACK). Whenever you send a CWR file to a society, they return an ACK that tells you whether your submission was accepted or rejected. But it’s more than a receipt: it often contains crucial new identifiers, such as the official ISWC or the society’s internal codes. In Reprtoir, you can upload these ACKs to enrich your catalog automatically with the official identifiers assigned by societies.

CWR isn’t perfect. Its flat-file structure is strict and sometimes hard to read, and societies don’t always interpret the standard the same way. Adoption of the latest versions (2.1 and 2.2) also varies. But despite these challenges, CWR remains the global standard for rights data exchange — and Reprtoir ensures you stay compliant. Once your catalog is entered, you can register works worldwide with confidence, whether for publishing, co-publishing, sub-publishing, or administration.