---
title: "What a TrackForge rating is"
description: "A TrackForge catalogue rating treats each work as a property and the catalogue as a portfolio: a per-work survey of what is registered, where and as of when, rolled up into one letter that is never shown on its own."
image: "https://trackforge.studio/docs/img/trackforge-social-card.png"
---

> Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://trackforge.studio/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# What a TrackForge rating is

:::caution[Draft rule book, not yet calibrated]
These pages describe rule book v2.4, which is a draft under calibration on real catalogues. Its numbers are in the [method statement](/docs/certification/rating/method-statement) and can change before it is published. No rating has been issued under it.
:::

A TrackForge rating answers one question about a music catalogue: for each work the owner says is theirs, is the registration that makes money flow in place, at every society that collects for it, as of a stated date, from evidence TrackForge holds?

## A work is a property, the catalogue a portfolio

The rating borrows its shape from a building survey. Each work is surveyed on its own, and the survey has five elements, each a question a surveyor would ask of a property:

| Survey element | What it asks of a work |
|---|---|
| Deeds and title plan | Is the work unambiguously identified: one ISRC per recording, one ISWC per work, writers with IPI numbers, recordings linked to the right work, no duplicates or collisions? |
| Land registry entry | Is ownership documented, and does what the societies hold in the owner's name agree with the documents? |
| Services connected | Is the work registered, with the right shares and parties, at every collecting route where it is used? |
| Rent roll | Does the income match the usage, with nothing sitting unmatched or unclaimed, and nothing paid to the wrong party? |
| Structural and legal defects | Are there disputes, duplicate records, closing claim windows, reversions or ending agreements that could cost money later? |

The five elements are the five [components](/docs/certification/rating/components) of the rating. The portfolio rating is a weighted roll-up of the per-work surveys, so a hit carries more of the catalogue's letter than a demo nobody plays.

## Leaks, risks and opportunities

Every defect the survey finds is one of three kinds:

- A **leak** is losing money now: a work used but not registered, a share registered lower than owned, usage sitting unmatched at a society.
- A **risk** could lose money later: a competing claim, a duplicate registration, a reversion within reach.
- An **opportunity** is income not yet earned: a work registered but not yet used, neighbouring rights not claimed, a sync position not represented.

Leaks and risks move the grade. Opportunities are valued and listed, never scored. A catalogue cannot raise its letter by having good prospects, only by having its registrations in order.

## What the rating is, and is not

The rating is **a statement about registrations and evidence**, reached under a versioned rule book, deterministic, and reproducible from the stored evidence rows and the rule book. The letter is one field of a larger record, the [tuple](/docs/certification/rating/the-tuple), and no TrackForge surface shows the letter without it.

It is not a valuation, a title opinion or a forecast of income. The page [for lawyers](/docs/certification/rating/scope-and-independence) sets out what the rating asserts and what it refuses.

## Where the method stands

TrackForge's first-generation certification method (v1.1) stopped being issued on 25 October 2026. The method on these pages replaces it. Its rule book, v2.4, is a draft, calibrated by running it repeatedly on real catalogues and adjusting until the results are right, then published: its hash is timestamped on Bitcoin before the first rating under it. Each change gives the rule book a new version; a published version never changes. The [method statement](/docs/certification/rating/method-statement) sets the whole method out in words, with its numbers, and the [glossary](/docs/certification/rating/glossary) defines every term a Rating Report uses.

Source: https://trackforge.studio/docs/certification/rating/what-a-rating-is/index.mdx