MusicBrainz Identifier

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MusicBrainz is a comprehensive music database that allows people and computers to have conversations about music; however, any musical entity being discussed must be uniquely identified for a discussion to have maximum value. To this end, MusicBrainz assigns a Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) to each musical entity within the MusicBrainz Database and refers to them as MusicBrainz Identifiers (MBIDs).

MusicBrainz assigns the following MBIDs:

  • Artist MBIDs, used to identify an artist, use an absolute URI in the form of http://musicbrainz.org/artist/<MBID>
  • Label MBIDs, used to identify a label, use an absolute URI in the form of http://musicbrainz.org/label/<MBID>
  • Release MBIDs, used to identify a release, use an absolute URI in the form of http://musicbrainz.org/release/<MBID>
  • Release group MBIDs, used to identify a release group, use an absolute URI in the form of http://musicbrainz.org/release-group/<MBID>
  • Track MBIDs, used to identify a track, use an absolute URI in the form of http://musicbrainz.org/track/<MBID>

These MBIDs are also used in the tagging process by various MusicBrainz Taggers. See MusicBrainz Tag for more detailed information.

Other identifiers used by MusicBrainz

  • Disc ID: An ID calculated from the TOC of a CD.
  • PUID: The IDs used in the proprietary MusicDNS audio fingerprinting system operated by MusicIP.
  • Barcode: Machine-readable numbers used as stock control mechanisms by retailers
  • ISRC: The International Standard Recording Code, an identification system for audio and music video recordings