Below is a table of online music databases that are largely
free of charge
The English adjective ''free'' is commonly used in one of two meanings: "at no monetary cost" (''gratis'') and "with little or no restriction" (''libre''). This ambiguity of ''free'' can cause issues where the distinction is important, as it ...
. Note that many of the sites provide a specialized service or focus on a particular
music genre. Some of these operate as an
online music store
A digital music store is a business that sells digital audio files of music recordings over the Internet. Customers gain ownership of a license to use the files, in contrast to a music streaming service, where they listen to recordings without ...
or purchase referral service in some capacity. Among the sites that have information on the largest number of entities are those sites that focus on discographies of composing and performing artists.
Performance rights organisation
A performance rights organisation (PRO), also known as a performing rights society, provides intermediary functions, particularly collection of royalties, between copyright holders and parties who wish to use copyrighted works ''publicly'' in loca ...
s (PRO) typically have their own databases as per country they represent, in accordance with
CISAC, to help domestic artists collect royalties. Information available on these portals include songwriting credits, publishing percentage splits, and alternate titles for different distribution channels. It is one of the most accurate and official type of databases because it involves direct communication between the artists, record labels, distributors, legal teams, publishers and a global governing body regulating PRO's. Many countries that observe copyright have an organisation established, currently there are 119
CISAC members, and they may be not-for-profit. The databases are typically known as 'repertory searches' or 'searching works' and may require an account while others are open to view for free as public including the USA's
ASCAP
The American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) () is an American not-for-profit performance-rights organization (PRO) that collectively licenses the public performance rights of its members' musical works to venues, broadca ...
''Songview'' and ''Ace'' services, Canada's
SOCAN
The Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (SOCAN) is a Canadian performance rights organization that represents the performing rights of more than 135,000 songwriters, composers and music publishers. The organization collects ...
, South Korea's
KOMCA
The Korea Music Copyright Association (KOMCA) is a South Korean non-profit copyright collective for musical works, administering public performance and broadcasting rights, and mechanical recording and reproduction rights. Founded in 1964, it is ...
, France's
SACEM, and Israel's
ACUM.
General databases
Music genre specific
Specialized areas
Printed music (sheets) databases
Metadata providers and distributors
Non-functioning databases
See also
*
Automatic content recognition
Automatic content recognition (ACR) is a technology to identify content played on a media device or present within a media file. Devices implementing ACR can allow the device or the manufacturer to collect content consumption information automatic ...
*
Comparison of digital music stores
Digital music stores sell copies of digital audio, for example in MP3 and WAV file formats. Unlike music streaming services, which typically charge a monthly subscription fee to stream digital audio, digital music stores download songs to the cu ...
*
List of music sharing websites
See also
*List of online music databases
*List of Internet radio stations
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Music sharing websites
File sharing
Lists of websites
Music streaming services
Sharing
Sharing is the joint use of a resource ...
*
Comparison of music streaming services
The following is a list of on-demand music streaming services. These services offer streaming of full-length content via the Internet as a part of their service, without the listener necessarily having to purchase a file for download. This type o ...
*
Comparison of online music lockers
This is a comparison of online music storage services (Cloud Music Services), Internet services that allow uploads of personally owned or licensed music to the cloud for listening on multiple devices.
Previously, there were three large services†...
*
List of music software
This is a list of software for creating, performing, learning, analyzing, researching, broadcasting and editing music. This article only includes software, not services. For streaming services such as iHeartRadio, Pandora, Prime Music, and Spotify, ...
*
List of Internet radio stations
This is a list of Internet radio stations, including traditional broadcast stations which stream programming over the Internet as well as Internet-only stations.
General
BBC
Radio France
Indian Internet Radios
* Boxout.fm
* R ...
*
List of online digital musical document libraries
*
Streaming media
Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. ''Streaming'' refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content it ...
*
Virtual Library of Musicology
The Virtual Library of Musicology or ViFaMusik (german: Virtuelle Fachbibliothek Musikwissenschaft) was funded by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft) to provide sources and materials for music and musicology. The proje ...
References
{{Reflist
Music
Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...
Databases
In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases spa ...