Edited by author 04-10-2003 10:07 AM
This value has two requirements. The first is for a unique indexed value to enable random access to the information. The second is for the expressed reverse-lookup capabilty. The ISRC provides a unique value, but does not allow for the reverse-lookup requirement.

I recommend a hash of the Artist:Work (preferably a SHA-512) That way any Artist:Work can be resolved into a fixed length value (512 bytes in the case of SHA-512) that is probabilistically guaranteed to be unique (thereby satisfying the index requirement) and readily generatable to anyone who knows the name of the artist and title of the work(which satisfies the reverse-lookup requirement).

[Technical Note: I recommend case insensitivity and standardized markup for spacing, punctuation, etc. so as to facilitate the ability of people to generate these ID’s from a knowledge of the names, not the syntax the artist imposed on the title.
i.e. All capital letters and disallow certain special characters(CR, LF, etc.). ]