Gracenote to get pre-release music track info

Stuart Corner
Monday, 25 January 2010 02:40

Your IT - Entertainment

Gracenote, the organisation that enables music downloaders to find the name, artist and other details of downloaded tracks, has extended its relationship with the music publishers to gain access to pre-release track information.

Gracenote says the arrangements with all four major labels - EMI Music, Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group - and with hundreds of independent labels will enable it to incorporate new music information and enriched content into its media database before many songs are released.

Gracenote will receive cover art and new release data for the creation of audio fingerprints from music labels. These data will be combined with the company's editorial content, such as genre and era, linked to enriched content such as lyrics and loaded into Gracenote's database.

"Obtaining this information prior to release means Gracenote-powered services can offer consumers up-to-the minute information and recommendations for new music once it becomes publicly available. It also provides labels and music service providers with additional ways to drive sales and capitalize on the momentum from a song debut," according to Gracenote.

Gracenote, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony, operates a global media database claimed to be the largest in the world, with more than 100 million tracks and eight million CDs from more than 200 countries and territories.

Gracenote claims that its systems "integrate the broadest, deepest, and highest quality global metadata and enriched content with an infrastructure that services billions of searches a month from thousands of products used by hundreds of millions consumers."