Other Databases: Difference between revisions

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#REDIRECT [[Category:Other_Databases_Relationship_Class]]
=Other Databases of Music Metadata and Information=

[[MusicBrainz]] is not unique as a database of music information. There are at least the following others:
<ul><li style="list-style-type:none">''This list is long and unwieldy. I've tried to break it up into roughly similar sites, but the groups need to be labeled by general category (cf. [[Intelligent Playlist Generation|IntelligentPlaylistGeneration]]) and license for their data (GPL, Creative Commons, proprietary, etc.).'' [[User:Dupuy|@alex]]
</ul>

===Open Data===

Free as in [[Free Documentation License|FreeDocumentationLicense]] or Creative Commons.
* [[Wikipedia]]:
*:[http://www.wikipedia.org/ http://www.wikipedia.org/] - ''It's possible to [[Link Wikipedia And MusicBrainz|LinkWikipediaAndMusicBrainz]].''
* [[FreeDB]]:
*:[http://www.freedb.org/ http://www.freedb.org/] - ''[[MusicBrainz]] supports importing [[FreeDB]] data''
* Discogs:
*:[http://www.discogs.com/ http://www.discogs.com/] - ''commercial site, switched to a public domain license for its data in early 2008.''
* [[AudioScrobbler]] (Last.fm):
*:[http://audioscrobbler.com/ http://audioscrobbler.com/] - ''currently uses [[MusicBrainz]] data''
* [[MusicMoz]]:
*:[http://www.musicmoz.org/ http://www.musicmoz.org/] - ''imports data from [[MusicBrainz]]''
* [[Open Directory|OpenDirectory]]:
*:[http://www.dmoz.org/Arts/Music/Bands_and_Artists/ http://www.dmoz.org/Arts/Music/Bands_and_Artists/] - ''also lists other directories at [http://dmoz.org/Arts/Music/Directories/ http://dmoz.org/Arts/Music/Directories/]''

===Data available at no cost===

Free as in "Free beer, if you drink it in my bar".
* [[All Music Guide|AllMusicGuide]]:
*:[http://www.allmusic.com/ http://www.allmusic.com/] - ''commercial site. Part of content is freely available.''
* [[Band Booking Genius]]:
*:[http://bandbookinggenius.com/ http://bandbookinggenius.com/] - "Band Booking Genius streamlines booking live music for Concerts, Festivals, Corporate, Special & Private Events.Search by Event Date, Budget, Genre, Band Name, Location, & and other search filters for over 80,000 bands. Photos,MP3's & descriptions provided for each band."
* [[Gno D|GnoD]]:
*:[http://www.gnod.net/ http://www.gnod.net/] - ''nifty little engine that deals with relating artists to each other; the database doesn't appear to be publicly available, but the service is free and in a very usable state''
* [[Web Music Database|WebMusicDatabase]]:
*:[http://www.webmusicdb.com/ http://www.webmusicdb.com/]
* Music City:
*:[http://www.music-city.org/ http://www.music-city.org/] - ''"Collaborative" music and artists DB. Has content from Amazon and no copyright statement (see also [http://www.music-city.org/forum.php?thread=3 thread in their forum]). Beta. Does not seem to be very active as of June 2005.''

===Proprietary===

* Predixis [[MusicMagic]]:
*:[http://music.predixis.com/ http://music.predixis.com/] - ''proprietary, fingerprint based; automatically analyzes music files to create lists of similar songs, artists and albums''
* [[Fix Tunes|FixTunes]]:
*:[http://www.fixtunes.com/index.php http://www.fixtunes.com/index.php] - ''proprietary, analyzes MP3s and corrects tags''

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===Others===

The following is still unsorted
* Music Plasma: [http://www.musicplasma.com/ http://www.musicplasma.com/] - ''very pretty related artist mapping database with audio clips; very little documentation so not sure where their data comes from''
* UPC Database: [http://www.upcdatabase.com/ http://www.upcdatabase.com/] - ''database of [[Barcode|BarCode]]s including music CDs (as well as DVDs, nappies and other assorted goods)''
* The Covers Project: [http://www.coversproject.com/ http://www.coversproject.com/] - ''building a database of cover songs (songs performed by an artist other than the original performer)''
* Second Hand Songs: [http://www.secondhandsongs.com http://www.secondhandsongs.com] - ''a database of cover songs'' containing ''76422 songs (18172 originals, 56538 cover songs and 1712 songs with samples)'' (2008-06-24)
* coverinfo.de: [http://www.coverinfo.de/ http://www.coverinfo.de/] - ''large database that lists more than 50000 cover songs and samples, main site and interface in German, but there is also an user guide in English''
* Daz.com - ''Seems to mainly source data from freedb''
* [[BPM Data Base|BPMDataBase]]: [http://www.bpmdatabase.com/ http://www.bpmdatabase.com/] - ''database of dance music tracks with their bpm for DJs'' - Slowly dying in 2008 due to spam submissions and no non-spam submissions.
* Wolf's Kompaktkiste: [http://www.kompaktkiste.de/ http://www.kompaktkiste.de/]
* The Free Track Info Xchange: [http://www.threetix.net http://www.threetix.net] - ''works with the Microsoft Deluxe CD Player, and also has a "universal" data converter (PLC)''
* CDArchiv: [http://www.cdarchiv.de http://www.cdarchiv.de] - ''German site, database supports the Hitbase application''
* [[Gracenote]] (formerly [[CDDB]]) - ''who inspired us to start by stealing all the public data''

(please add any more you know of)

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The above are all general purpose music databases that we have considered working with (well, not Gracenote!). There are probably hundreds of specialist ones like:
* [[Christian Music Place|ChristianMusicPlace]]: [http://www.christianmusic.org/cmp/artists/ http://www.christianmusic.org/cmp/artists/]

Examples of a more tightly-focused database that is crying out to be built on top of a [[MusicBrainz]] foundation:
* Sample FAQ: [http://the-breaks.com/ http://the-breaks.com/] - ''tells you "who sampled what from who", irregularly updated and with a hand-tooled vibe but very interesting''
* Commercial Breaks & Beats: [http://www.commercialbreaksandbeats.co.uk/ http://www.commercialbreaksandbeats.co.uk/] - ''UK television advert music database''
* Songtitle.info: [http://www.songtitle.info/ http://www.songtitle.info/] - ''US television advert music database''
* Some random guy's CD collection: [http://www.ludd.luth.se/users/h-son/cd/info.html http://www.ludd.luth.se/users/h-son/cd/info.html]

I think a certain type of person would love to have their CD collection info on the web, all nicely hyperlinked and with daft statistics. Maybe listing recent additions to the collection on their weblog like people list books they're currently reading or what they're currently listening to in iTunes.

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The main site currently has a [http://www.musicbrainz.org/engine.html Search Links] page that links to the main pages and search features of some of the databases listed above, as well as others; it's pretty obscure (hidden in a second level [[Site Menu|SiteMenu]] entry), out-of-date (doesn't include recent additions like [[MusicMoz]]), and broken (www.allmusic.com search doesn't work). It does, however, include a number of links to lyrics sites, which might be problematic if [[MusicBrainz]] could be considered to be a contributor by linking to sites that infringe the copyrights on lyrics.

It is in this context that we should consider the comment that [http://lyrictracker.com http://lyrictracker.com] is missing (from the list above, as well as the [[Search Links|SearchLinks]] page), and the following note from somebody associated with [http://www.songtexts.net http://www.songtexts.net]:
<ul><li style="list-style-type:none">I've got a Lyrics Database available with XML streams right now. Do you think it might be something for the future to add these pages to [[MusicBrainz]]. It's possible to look up certain lyrics from an artist? I'd be interested in working with you guys in the future.
</ul>

==Defunct Databases==

* Echo Cloud: [http://www.echocloud.net/ http://www.echocloud.net/] '''[not working]''' - ''database of related artists (if you like xxx then you might like yyy) based on crawling P2P networks'' - Down as of 2008-03.
* Cover Songs Database: [http://slicks.ulyssis.org/coverdb/ http://slicks.ulyssis.org/coverdb/] - ''similar to above, but also tracks usage in samples'' - Down as of 5/24/07
* Music Recommender: [http://recommender.ipsi.fhg.de/music/cds.aspx http://recommender.ipsi.fhg.de/music/cds.aspx] - ''database of related CDs (if you like xxx then you might like yyy) based on crawling music playlists'' Down as of 2008-03.
* [[Mood Logic|MoodLogic]]:
<ul><li style="list-style-type:none">[http://www.moodlogic.com/ http://www.moodlogic.com/] - ''proprietary, fingerprint based. mood and genre matching'' "Effective March 3, 2008, Macrovision announces the end of life (EOL) of the Moodlogic music management and recommendation software."
</ul>
* [[Music Match|MusicMatch]]: Their database was taken offline in September, 2007, when Yahoo! aquired them. Yahoo! has since discontinued the [[Music Match|MusicMatch]] software and database completely.

[[Category:To Be Reviewed]] [[Category:External]]

Revision as of 01:15, 1 March 2010