# MusicBrainz Server

## Overview

MusicBrainz is the canonical open-source music encyclopedia. It's a community-maintained database that collects music metadata and makes it available to the public via a REST API.

## Key Features

- **Coverage**: 100M+ tracks, comprehensive artist/release/recording/work metadata
- **Data**: Relationships, genres, tags, ratings, ISRCs, barcodes
- **API**: REST (XML/JSON)
- **License**: GPL-2.0 (code), CC0/CC BY-NC-SA (data)

## Source

| Resource | URL |
|----------|-----|
| **Repository** | https://github.com/metabrainz/musicbrainz-server |
| **Docker Setup** | https://github.com/metabrainz/musicbrainz-docker |
| **API Documentation** | https://musicbrainz.org/doc/MusicBrainz_API |
| **Website** | https://musicbrainz.org |

## API Examples

```bash
# Lookup artist by MBID
GET /ws/2/artist/{mbid}?fmt=json

# Search releases
GET /ws/2/release?query=artist:nirvana&fmt=json

# Lookup by ISRC
GET /ws/2/recording?isrc=USEE10001993
```

## Self-Hosting

Requires PostgreSQL + Solr. Use the official Docker setup:

```bash
git clone https://github.com/metabrainz/musicbrainz-docker.git
cd musicbrainz-docker
docker-compose up
```

## Notes

- Foundation for most other music metadata projects
- Replication support to keep local mirror up-to-date
- MetaBrainz Foundation (non-profit) maintains it