About/Privacy Policy

Summary

1. You do not have to provide any personal data to be able to browse the contents of the MusicBrainz database.
2. You do not have to provide any personally-identifying information if you choose not to.
3. Any personal information you choose to provide will not be revealed to anyone else.

Having said that, in order to get maximum value out of MusicBrainz you must create an account and log in.

Doing so grants you the ability to: edit the database, contribute your own data, communicate with other users, and keep track of recently released music from artists in your MusicBrainz Collection. If you choose to create an account then the minimum we ask is that you: choose a unique username and password, use a web browser that accepts "session" cookies, and provide a verified email address.

If you do not create an account (or are not logged in) you will not have access to the above listed features, however, you will still have full access to browse and examine the database in its entirety.

Applicable to all users

Cookies

We use session cookies, but only if you're logged in and/or using Picard Tagger.

We currently only use two "permanent" (i.e. non-session) cookies:

1. If you download something via one of our download pages; the cookie will be used to remember your preferred MusicBrainz mirror site.
2. If you choose the "Log in permanently" option when logging in to MusicBrainz; the cookie will be used to remember your login details.

Web and FTP access logs

In a practice similar to other web sites we keep logs of all web requests made against our servers. These logs include: your IP address, your browser's "User-Agent" string, and which page you requested. Aggregate information about web and FTP traffic is made available to the public via our site usage pages.

Third-party content

The only third-party content loaded by MusicBrainz web pages are the album cover art images that are provided by the various cover art sites that have given MusicBrainz permission to do so. This means that the relevant site will know (if they want to) your IP address, User-Agent string, etc., and which MusicBrainz web page you were visiting (the one which included the cover art image).

If you have created an account are logged-in, you may opt out of cover art images if you wish.

The above information assumes that you are using "normal" web browser settings, whereby images are always loaded and HTTP referrer information is always sent.

Applicable to account holders

Account creation

When you create an account with MusicBrainz you need to pick a unique username, and choose a password. Other MusicBrainz users will know you by your username. You may optionally also tell us the URL of your "home" page, and/or a few words about yourself. Any information thus provided is made available to the public. If you want to change data stored in MusicBrainz, you need to enter, and verify your email address. We will never reveal this address to anyone. The only way in which the system can reveal your email address is if you choose to send a message to another MusicBrainz user, and tick the box marked "reveal my email address" (this box is not ticked by default).

Edits and notes

If you make any changes to the MusicBrainz database (such as adding any data, including fingerprint submissions) then the details of the changes you make are visible to everyone, and the change is associated with your username.

Subscriptions

As a logged-in user you can subscribe to one or more artists or labels (which causes any data edits made for those artists or labels to be emailed to you). By default, other users can see your list of subscriptions. However you can opt out of this, with the preference labelled "Allow other users to see my subscribed artists".

However this does not provide "perfect" privacy - in some cases, it will be possible to infer information about the contents of your subscription list, even though you have disallowed others from viewing that list directly. This imperfection arises because various parts of the system behave differently depending on whether or not an artist has any subscribers; also, the number of users subscribed to each artist is available via the artist pages. In the most extreme (possibly contrived) example, imagine that all users have their subscriptions set to "public", except for exactly one user whose list is "private". In that case, any discrepancy for a given artist between the shown list of subscribers and the total number of subscribers must be down to that one user. Thus, you can infer what artists are on that user's list.

Mailing lists

MusicBrainz has a number of mailing lists to which you can subscribe. To subscribe to the mailing lists, you need to provide your email address. This email address will not be revealed to anyone, unless you post a message to the list (see below).

Some of the lists allow you to post messages (whereas others only allow you to receive messages, for example the "Announcements" list). If you post a message, your email address will be revealed to all subscribers of the list(s) to which you posted. Additionally, all the mailing lists also have public archives. If you post, then the archives will include your email address (albeit in a form intended to provide some protection from spammer "harvesting").

Exceptions

Please note: Reasonable exceptions may apply to the above policy, for example to comply with applicable laws. The MusicBrainz server administrators (about three people in all) can of course see any information on the system they want to, but to be honest we're probably not interested enough to look.