ISAN is ordered by ISO Standard, 15706-1&2.

The ISAN Standard was prepared within ISO Technical Committee (TC) 46, Subcommittee (SC) 9 which is responsible for ISO International Standards for the identification and description of information resources.

ISO spent over seven years developing this standard with contributions and feedback from dozens of media companies, producers, authors and collecting societies, as well as broadcast standards organizations. The ISAN ISO Standard is the fruit of a consensus of the Audiovisual Industry: ISAN has been made by and for the Audiovisual Industry.

In 2002, the first International Standard that forms the basis of the ISAN system was published as ISO 15706, Information and documentation -- International Standard Audiovisual Number (ISAN). Afterwards, in order to adapt ISAN to the different needs of the distribution audiovisual chain, in 2006, the ISAN Standard has been extended to support version identification with ISO 15706-2.

Both parts of the standard are available for purchase , in separate English and French editions, from the ISO web site