MusicBrainz

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.

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

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

• Music metadata database
• Open source encyclopedia
• Audio fingerprinting
• Music identification
• Community-driven data

Headquarters

HQ city

Edinburg

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Offices1 record

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Software

Cost components

Personnel, Infrastructure, Technology or R&D, Operations

Revenue model

1. 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.
2. Donations: The MetaBrainz Foundation accepts donations to support the ongoing development and maintenance of MusicBrainz and related projects.
3. 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

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels5 records

Core 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.

Named customers5 records

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

Yes

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration5 records

AI capability1 record

Feature5 records

Partnerships

Eight partnerships are on record, tiered minor and core.

• BookBrainzminorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 10 September 2018BookBrainz 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.
• ListenBrainzcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 17 September 2015ListenBrainz 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.
• AcousticBrainzminorStrategic or Co-development Partner · 19 November 2014AcousticBrainz 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.
• CritiqueBrainzcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 19 May 2014CritiqueBrainz is a sister MetaBrainz project launched in beta in 2014, providing a platform for music reviews. Reviews became more integrated into MusicBrainz in 2022.
• AcoustIDcoreTechnology or Integration · 12 January 2012AcoustID 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.fmcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 7 November 2007Last.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.
• BBCcoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 28 June 2007BBC 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 ArchivecoreTechnology or IntegrationInternet 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

Emerging 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

• Xx.com/MusicBrainz
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/musicbrainz

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles4 records

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about MusicBrainz