ISAN International Agency or ISAN-IA is the ISAN registration authority. ISAN-IA is mandated by ISO and operates ISAN on a contractual basis and has the obligation to follow strict ISO rulings. ISAN-IA is responsible for promoting ISAN worldwide, for appointing Registration Agencies, and for running and managing the ISAN system where ISANs as well as related metadata are stored in the centralized ISAN Registry. ISAN-IA collects metadata via authorized ISAN Registration Agencies who accept ISAN applications from registrants (producers, publishers, etc…) with specific descriptive information (metadata) about their audiovisual works or related versions

What is the difference between ISAN and ISAN-IA?

ISAN is the ISO standard.   ISAN-IA is the ISAN Registration Authority mandated by ISO to manage the ISAN standard. ISAN-IA was founded in 2003 as a Swiss Non-profit organization chartered to implement the standard worldwide including a 24/7 operation of a database and XML based web service and managing Registration Agencies worldwide.