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

References

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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 ...