MusicBrainz
MusicBrainz is a community-maintained, open-source encyclopedia of music metadata operated by the MetaBrainz Foundation, serving music fans, developers, and commercial music platforms with a freely licensed database of artists, recordings, releases, and works.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2000
- HeadquartersEdinburg, United States
- Headcount1–10
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingSoftware
What MusicBrainz does
MusicBrainz is a community-maintained, open-source encyclopedia of music metadata, founded on July 17, 2000 by Robert Kaye and operated since 2005 by the MetaBrainz Foundation, a California-based 501(c)(3) tax-exempt nonprofit. The platform stores structured data on artists, releases, recordings, works, labels, places and events, with the core database released into the Public Domain under Creative Commons Zero (CC0). Data is contributed and curated by a global community of more than 1.3 million registered editors using a peer-review voting system that has produced 142.9M+ edits at a 99.1% approval rate.
The technical stack centers on a PostgreSQL database with a Solr-powered search layer, the AcoustID open-source audio fingerprinting system for recording identification, and an XML web service plus REST-style API that expose the data to external applications. Products include the MusicBrainz Database, MusicBrainz Picard (a cross-platform desktop tagging application), MusicBrainz Server, the MusicBrainz API, the Live Data Feed for replication, and the MusicBrainz for Android mobile app, alongside sister projects ListenBrainz, BookBrainz, CritiqueBrainz, Cover Art Archive, and Event Art Archive.
MusicBrainz's business model is a freemium nonprofit construct. Core data is free for any purpose under CC0, while supplementary data is available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 for non-commercial use, and commercial data licensing and Live Data Feed subscriptions are sold directly by the MetaBrainz Foundation. Revenue is supplemented by donations and sponsorships. The platform serves three primary segments: music fans and enthusiasts who contribute and consume data, software developers building MusicBrainz-enabled applications, and commercial music services (including BBC, Last.fm, Amazon and MetaWeb) that license the data for metadata enrichment, with a stated industry pain point of more than $261 million in unpaid royalties linked to missing or incorrect music metadata.
MusicBrainz firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- MusicBrainz
- Legal name
- MetaBrainz Foundation
- Website
- https://musicbrainz.org
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2000
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 1–10 employees
- Short description
- MusicBrainz is a community-maintained, open-source encyclopedia of music metadata operated by the MetaBrainz Foundation, serving music fans, developers, and commercial music platforms with a freely licensed database of artists, recordings, releases, and works.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
MusicBrainz industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Music Metadata Database
- NAICS
- Sound Recording Industries (5122), Software Publishers (5132)
- SIC
- Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Music Recognition, Lyrics & Metadata Platforms (MPAIADAK)
- akta.pro secondary industry
- Recorded Music Metadata, Fingerprinting & Anti-Piracy (CID/Content ID) (MPAIAAAJ)
Keywords
Where MusicBrainz is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Edinburg
- HQ country
- United States
- HQ region
- North America
Offices1 record
Markets served
MusicBrainz business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Software
- Cost components
- Personnel, Infrastructure, Technology or R&D, Operations
Revenue model
- Data Licensing: Commercial licensing of MusicBrainz data for business use. The foundation licenses data commercially to generate income that supports MusicBrainz operations and developer salaries.
- Donations: The MetaBrainz Foundation accepts donations to support the ongoing development and maintenance of MusicBrainz and related projects.
- Live Data Feed Subscriptions: Commercial and non-commercial users can subscribe to Live Data Feed replication packets to keep their local databases synchronized with MusicBrainz.
Pricing tiers
| Model | Billing | Price |
|---|---|---|
| Freemium | Others | Free access for non-commercial use |
| Other | Others | Commercial data licensing |
Go-to-market motion1 record
Distribution channels5 records
Marketing channels5 records
MusicBrainz product offering
Product offeringCore offering
MusicBrainz operates a community-maintained open music encyclopedia that collects and publishes music metadata on artists, releases, recordings, works, labels, and events. It provides a public-domain database, an XML web service and development libraries for programmatic access, and a free desktop tagging application (MusicBrainz Picard) that uses AcoustID audio fingerprinting to automatically identify and tag audio files. The platform is licensed primarily under Creative Commons Zero 1.0 (Public Domain) for non-commercial use, with commercial data licensing available through the MetaBrainz Foundation.
Product overview
MusicBrainz is an open music encyclopedia operated by the MetaBrainz Foundation, functioning as a community-maintained open source database of music metadata. The core offering consists of the MusicBrainz Database (released primarily under Creative Commons Zero 1.0 Public Domain license), the MusicBrainz Server web interface, and the MusicBrainz Picard desktop tagging application. Supporting products include the MusicBrainz API (XML web service with development libraries), Live Data Feed for commercial replication, Developer Resources, and the MusicBrainz for Android mobile app. The ecosystem also encompasses third-party taggers including AudioRanger, Mp3tag, and Yate Music Tagger that integrate with MusicBrainz data. MusicBrainz integrates with AcoustID for audio fingerprinting and the Cover Art Archive for album artwork.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Brands
- MusicBrainz Picard: Free file tagging application for digital music collections
- MusicBrainz Server
- MusicBrainz Database
- MusicBrainz API
- Live Data Feed
- Cover Art Archive
Products and services
- MusicBrainz Database The core music metadata database storing information about artists, releases, recordings, works, labels, places, and events, with the majority of data released into the Public Domain under Creative Commons Zero 1.0 license. Used by commercial music services, developers, and music enthusiasts.
- MusicBrainz Picard Free, open-source cross-platform desktop application that automatically identifies and tags audio files using MusicBrainz data and AcoustID audio fingerprinting, used by individual music collectors to organize their digital music libraries.
- MusicBrainz Server The server software that powers the MusicBrainz website and web interface, providing search, browsing, editing, and access tools for the community-maintained music encyclopedia.
- MusicBrainz API XML web service and development libraries that enable software developers to build MusicBrainz-enabled applications and programmatically access the music metadata database.
- Live Data Feed Replication packets licensed to commercial and non-commercial users that allow them to keep their local databases synchronized with MusicBrainz, available under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 for non-commercial use.
- MusicBrainz for Android Mobile application for Android devices that allows users to access MusicBrainz data on the go, including browsing artists, releases, recordings, and tagging functionality.
Quantifiable outcome
- Over $261 million remains unpaid to artists in 2024 due to missing or incorrect metadata - MusicBrainz helps address this by providing accurate, standardized music identification.
Companies that use MusicBrainz
Customer profileNamed customers5 records
Segments3 records
Ideal customer profiles3 records
MusicBrainz technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- Yes
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
Integration5 records
AI capability1 record
Feature5 records
MusicBrainz partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Eight partnerships are on record, tiered minor and core.
- BookBrainzminorBookBrainz became an official MetaBrainz project in 2018 after several years as a community-driven project. It aims to create a comprehensive music metadata-like database for literature.
- ListenBrainzcoreListenBrainz is an open source, open data alternative to Last.fm launched in 2015. Alpha version went live in September 2015. It tracks what music users listen to.
- AcousticBrainzminorAcousticBrainz was launched in cooperation with the Music Technology Group at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in 2014. It aimed to crowd-source acoustic information for music. Project was discontinued in 2022.
- CritiqueBrainzcoreCritiqueBrainz is a sister MetaBrainz project launched in beta in 2014, providing a platform for music reviews. Reviews became more integrated into MusicBrainz in 2022.
- AcoustIDcoreAcoustID is an open source audio fingerprinting solution developed by MusicBrainz community member Lukáš Lalinský. MusicBrainz added AcoustID support in 2012 alongside PUID for identifying recordings by their acoustic properties.
- Last.fmcoreLast.fm signed up with MetaBrainz in 2007 and started using MusicBrainz data for music identification. Last.fm is one of the major music streaming platforms and a key reference customer for MusicBrainz data quality.
- BBCcoreBBC became a MetaBrainz customer in 2007 and started using MusicBrainz data for music metadata. BBC launched dynamic artist pages based on MusicBrainz data in 2008. BBC is a significant commercial partner that validates the platform's enterprise-readiness.
- Internet ArchivecoreInternet Archive hosts the Cover Art Archive and Event Art Archive, which store album artwork and event images for MusicBrainz. The partnership ensures long-term preservation of music metadata assets.
Scale indicators5 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights6 records
MusicBrainz competitors and assessment
Company assessmentEmerging players
- Rate Your Music (RYM): Rate Your Music is a community-driven music catalog and review platform with strong editorial and genre-tagging focus. It overlaps MusicBrainz's community curation model and artist/release catalog but emphasizes reviews and ratings.
- Songkick: Songkick is a live-music events database with artist-to-concert linking, overlapping MusicBrainz's recently expanded Events entities and Cover Art/Event Art archives. Both serve as community-curated music reference sources.
Others
- MusicBrainz Picard / AcoustID (open fingerprinting stack): AcoustID is the open-source audio fingerprinting project tightly integrated with MusicBrainz since 2012. It is more an ecosystem enabler than a competitor, but it represents the open alternative to proprietary fingerprinting services like Shazam/Chromaprint.
Direct peers
- Gracenote: Gracenote (Nielsen-owned) is the dominant commercial music metadata, identification (CDDB-derived), and content recognition service. It is the primary proprietary alternative MusicBrainz positions against, with overlapping artist/release/recording data plus rich commercial SLAs.
- AllMusic: AllMusic is a long-running, professionally curated music metadata, review, and biography database. It competes with MusicBrainz for editorial-style music information and is similarly used as a reference source by media and applications.
- Last.fm: Last.fm is a music listening-data and metadata platform (and a MusicBrainz customer since 2007). It overlaps MusicBrainz on artist/track metadata and is the product ListenBrainz was created to provide an open alternative to.
- Discogs: Discogs is a community-maintained music database and marketplace covering artists, releases, and labels with crowd-sourced contributions. It directly overlaps MusicBrainz's core artist/release/recording catalog and serves similar hobbyist and developer segments.
Broad incumbents
- Shazam (Apple): Shazam (Apple-owned) provides audio fingerprinting-based music recognition at global consumer scale, adjacent to MusicBrainz's AcoustID integration. Both compete in the audio-to-metadata identification layer, with Shazam far larger and Apple-funded.
- Spotify (music metadata/matching): Spotify operates a large proprietary music metadata and audio-matching stack supporting its streaming catalog. As a platform MusicBrainz targets as a potential licensee, Spotify's internal infrastructure competes with MusicBrainz on coverage and integration quality.
Regional players
- Open Library: Open Library / Internet Archive's metadata infrastructure parallels MusicBrainz's open-data model and houses the Cover Art and Event Art archives. It is more adjacent than competitive but represents the same open-community metadata philosophy MusicBrainz extends into BookBrainz.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat6 records
Key risks6 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
MusicBrainz social profiles
Digital presenceMusicBrainz financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
MusicBrainz leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles4 records
MusicBrainz funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds
Investors
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
MusicBrainz M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about MusicBrainz
What does MusicBrainz do?
MusicBrainz operates a community-maintained open music encyclopedia that collects and publishes music metadata on artists, releases, recordings, works, labels, and events. It provides a public-domain database, an XML web service and development libraries for programmatic access, and a free desktop tagging application (MusicBrainz Picard) that uses AcoustID audio fingerprinting to automatically identify and tag audio files. The platform is licensed primarily under Creative Commons Zero 1.0 (Public Domain) for non-commercial use, with commercial data licensing available through the MetaBrainz Foundation.
Is MusicBrainz a public or private company?
MusicBrainz is a private company. It is classified as nonprofit foundation owned and is currently operating.
When was MusicBrainz founded?
MusicBrainz was founded in 2000. It employs 1 to 10 people.
Where is MusicBrainz based?
MusicBrainz is headquartered in Edinburg, United States, in the North America region.
How does MusicBrainz make money?
Three revenue lines are on record. Data Licensing is the primary driver. The others are donations and live Data Feed Subscriptions.
Who are MusicBrainz's main competitors?
Emerging players on record are Rate Your Music (RYM) and Songkick. MusicBrainz Picard / AcoustID (open fingerprinting stack) is listed as an others. Direct peers are Gracenote, AllMusic, Last.fm and Discogs. Broad incumbents are Shazam (Apple) and Spotify (music metadata/matching). Open Library is listed as a regional player.
Does MusicBrainz have an API?
Yes. MusicBrainz provides an XML web service and development libraries that allow software developers to create MusicBrainz-enabled applications. The API enables programmatic access to the music metadata database. Developer documentation is at musicbrainz.org/doc/MusicBrainz_API.
What industry is MusicBrainz in?
MusicBrainz's product category is Music Metadata Database. Its primary akta.pro industry code is MPAIADAK, Music Recognition, Lyrics & Metadata Platforms, with a secondary code of MPAIAAAJ, Recorded Music Metadata, Fingerprinting & Anti-Piracy (CID/Content ID). Its NAICS code is 5122 and its SIC code is 7370.