How to check your songwriters’ registrations: three ways
“Are my songs registered?” usually means two questions: is the work registered at all, and is it registered to the right writer, under a name and number that reach them. Here are three ways to answer both, depending on what you are holding.
Published 2026-09-26.
About 1 in 3 songwriters in rights registrations have works filed under another spelling or IPI number.
Songlinks sample of 280 writers drawn from registration lines, September 2026: 92 of 280, ±5.5 points. Groupings are statistical and unverified.
1. One writer at a time, by name
Look the writer up by their registered name, usually the legal name. Songlinks groups every registration it can join to that person, under every spelling and number, and lists their works. If the name is shared, add one song they wrote and the right writer comes first (songwriters with the same name).
- Best for: one writer, or a writer whose IPI name number you do not know.
- What you learn: every registration grouped into them, the IPI name numbers they carry, and how many works sit off their main number.
2. A list of IPI name numbers
Paste the numbers into a writers check, up to 50 at a time. For each writer it shows their total works, the works on the number you gave, and the works registered only under another spelling or number. One number on its own goes straight to its writer’s page.
- Best for: a roster you already hold numbers for.
- What you learn: which of your writers have works split across registrations, at a glance.
3. Straight from a CWR file
If you deliver registrations as CWR files, CWR Check checks the file itself — its format, its records, its IPI name numbers’ check digits — and then the writers in it, against Songlinks. Its own guide covers the details: checking your writers’ registrations from a CWR file.
- Best for: publishers and administrators, before or after a delivery.
- What you learn: whether the file will be accepted, and which of its writers need a closer look.
Keep checking without starting again
Save the writers you look after to a free Songlinks catalogue: up to 50 per team, shared with the people you work with, read live each time you open it, and downloadable as CSV.
If something is not where you expected
- Works under another spelling or number: how to get them fixed.
- Nothing found at all: the work may not be registered yet, or may be registered under a name you did not try. Why a songwriter may not be listed.
Songlinks reads a snapshot of public registration data that does not state its own date, so a very recent registration may not be in it yet. Its groupings are made by a model, and no person has checked them. Songlinks is in beta.