Music Industry Unveils Sales-Tracking Tag

A music industry trade group launched electronic identity tags to keep tabs on Internet music sales in a bid to compensate musicians and songwriters as more of their works become available online.

The Global Release Identifier, or GRID, is a code akin to the bar code found on a CD or cassette tape. The aim is to track each time a record label, online retailer or distributor sells a song in the form of a Web stream or download.

Resellers would be charged an annual fee for which they could issue an identity tag to millions of songs sold online. International Federation of Phonographic Industry and the Recording Industry Assn. of America developed the standard.