About MetaBrainz

MetaBrainz Foundation Inc.

The MetaBrainz Foundation is a 501.(c).3 tax-exempt non-profit based in San Luis Obispo, California that operates the MusicBrainz project. The non-profit company was founded to provide a legal entity for the MusicBrainz project that had been operating as a private project. Robert Kaye managed MusicBrainz as a private project from its inception in the fall of 2000 until the project was turned over to the new company in December 2004.

The creation of the non-profit does not change the goals of the MusicBrainz project in any shape. The project will continue its mission, but now with a solid legal footing required of a project that is growing and taking on more donors and customers. All financial information of the MusicBrainz project will now be listed on this site.

The MetaBrainz Foundation continues the MusicBrainz tradition of transparent finances and will hopefully continue to be cashflow positive as MusicBrainz has managed for its entire existance before incorporation. Like MusicBrainz, the MetaBrainz Foundation continues to collect donations from the general public. The non-profit offers licenses of the MusicBrainz live data-feed for commercial use, in order to support further development of the MusicBrainz system. Our customers page lists our customers who have taken a license to the MusicBrainz data.

Board of Directors

Our board of directors consists of:

• Director Cory Doctorow, Sci-Fi author and editor of the Boing Boing weblog.
• Executive Director Robert Kaye of the MetaBrainz Foundation
• Director Derek Sivers formerly of CD Baby
• Director Carol Smith of the Google.
• Director Brian Zisk of the Future of Music Coalition.

and

• Director Emeritus Lawrence Lessig of Stanford Law School and Creative Commons
• Director Emeritus Joichi Ito of Neoteny Co. Ltd.

Officers

The officers of this company are:

• President Robert Kaye of the MetaBrainz Foundation
• Treasurer and secretary Carol Smith of Google