The BBC Partners with MusicBrainz for Music Metadata

San Luis Obispo, CA -- 28 June 2007 -- The MetaBrainz Foundation and the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) are pleased to announce the first phase of a partnership to offer more detailed music information and personalized music recommendations on the BBC's music website.

MusicBrainz is an online database of music information, maintained by an international community of dedicated enthusiasts and managed by MetaBrainz, a US-based 501.c.3 non-profit. By working with MusicBrainz, the BBC plans to underpin its broadcasts with a data- driven, comprehensive online offering, enabling music discovery through its music websites and beyond.

Matthew Shorter, Editor, bbc.co.uk/music says: "The BBC is getting closer to its audiences by letting fans write and tag the information around the music they love. Using the MusicBrainz database to achieve this confirms the BBCÕs commitment to work more closely with external suppliers and with the wider web community."

In the first phase of this relationship, the BBC music website is using MusicBrainz data to supplement its artist profiles and album reviews with discography and track list information. BBC's /music web staff will also be participating in MusicBrainz to add and improve the MusicBrainz data.

"I'm excited that the BBC's /music teams will participate in MusicBrainz. The BBC has an amazing reach in the music space and to have their team of music experts contributing to our database truly extends MusicBrainz' reach into the music world." says Robert Kaye, Executive Director of the MetaBrainz Foundation.

Going forward, the MusicBrainz data will enable the BBC to offer more in-depth information about the music it broadcasts, thus making it's content services more easily searchable on the Internet. By embracing and integrating services such as MusicBrainz in this manner, the BBC will be sharing its unique commitment to emerging, live and distinctly British music in new ways.

About MusicBrainz

MusicBrainz is a user-maintained community music database with volunteers from all over the world contributing information about music. The MusicBrainz community focuses on concise and accurate metadata for all genres of music. MusicBrainz currently contains 5.8 million tracks by 300,000 artists and has over 300,000 registered users. The MusicBrainz community also develops tagging tools that allow music lovers to clean up their personal music collections while helping build the database. The MetaBrainz Foundation, a 501.(c).3 non-profit corporation located in San Luis Obispo, CA operates the MusicBrainz project. For more information about MusicBrainz, visit us at musicbrainz.org and for more information about the MetaBrainz Foundation, please visit metabrainz.org.

About the British Broadcasting Corporation

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a state owned public corporation granted a Royal Charter in 1927. The BBC manages networks of radio and television throughout the United Kingdom and enjoys the world's largest listener-ship around the globe. According to its Royal Charter the BBC is "free from both political and commercial influence and answers only to its viewers and listeners". The BBC's fierce independence gives it credibility around the globe that no other organization can match. To find out more about the BBC, please visit www.bbc.co.uk and to find out more about its music site, please visit www.bbc.co.uk/music.