About Credits.fm

Who runs Credits.fm

Credits.fm is built and operated by Notes.fm, a music royalties platform. Notes uses the same data to help working musicians find unclaimed royalties; Credits.fm publishes the underlying identifier graph for free so the wider music industry — labels, publishers, distributors, journalists, AI assistants, and other tools — can build on top of it.

Methodology

Identifiers are imported from each source listed below, then linked into the Credits Graph, a verification graph: an ISRC connects to its ISWC via the MLC and MusicBrainz; an IPI connects to its ISNI via name and PRO registration; a UPC connects to its tracks via the release-and-track structure in MusicBrainz. Every graph link is stored with the source that produced it, so when you see a fact on Credits.fm you can see which database said so — and when. Two or more independent sources agreeing earns a “Verified” badge.

We never invent data. If a source returns nothing, we say nothing. If two sources disagree, we surface both and let the reader compare. Disputes can be resolved by contributing to the underlying source (MusicBrainz, MLC, CISAC) — Credits.fm picks up the corrected data on its next refresh.

Update cadence

• Lookups trigger live Credits Graph verification — popular identifiers are reverified within minutes of being viewed.
• MusicBrainz, MLC, and bulk index refreshes run nightly.
• Long-tail graph links (ISRC↔IPI, ISWC↔UPC, two-hop closures) refresh nightly via the graph-link enricher.
• Release dates and UPC ↔ ISRC links cross-verified daily against Apple Music for navigation links that the bulk open-data sources don’t cover.
• Coverage statistics on the homepage refresh once a day from authoritative counts.

Content sources (redistributed under CC-BY)

These are the open-data sources that populate the identifier graph we publish. Each source retains its own upstream license — see “License and reuse” below.

• The MLC (Mechanical Licensing Collective)

  Songwriter and publisher data for U.S. mechanical royalties — the authoritative source for songwriter credits, roles, and publisher relationships. (Ownership share percentages are not exposed on the public API — withheld pending MLC licensing.)

• MusicBrainz

  CC0 metadata for recordings, works, artists, labels, releases, and the recording↔work relationships that link an ISRC to its ISWC.

• CISAC

  Authoritative ISWC registry — confirms which ISWCs are registered and resolves archived codes to their preferred ISWC. ISWC data is used under CISAC's free-use-with-attribution terms; ISWC results are based on data owned by CISAC.

• ISNI.org

  Authoritative ISNI identities — names, name variants, creation roles, and birth/death dates for creative contributors.

Link sources (platforms)

Apple Music and Spotify are streaming platforms we link to so users can listen, and a source of factual metadata (recording/album titles, artist names) we use to fill records the open sources don’t cover. Those platform-origin fields are attributed to the platform and not claimed under Credits.fm’s CC-BY license; their cover art is governed by their own developer terms and is notredistributed (our API serves only open-licensed Cover Art Archive artwork).

• Apple Music

  "Listen on Apple Music" links on detail pages, ISRC/UPC lookups via Apple's Music API, and factual metadata (titles, artist names) used to fill records the open sources lack. Apple-supplied cover art appears only inline next to the Apple link — never in our OpenGraph cards, social previews, or API responses.

• Spotify

  "Open on Spotify" links on detail pages, URL → ISRC resolution, and factual metadata (titles, artist names) used as gap-fill. Platform-origin fields are attributed to Spotify, not claimed under Credits.fm's CC-BY license; Spotify cover art is not redistributed.

License and reuse

All identifier data published on Credits.fm is licensed CC-BY 4.0. You can use it commercially, build derivative products, redistribute it, and feed it to AI models — just credit Credits.fm with a visible link or attribution. The underlying source data retains each source’s own license (MusicBrainz is CC0; MLC and CISAC have their own terms).

For developers and AI agents

We publish a free public REST API at credits.fm/api, an OpenAPI 3.1 spec at api.credits.fm/_openapi.json, an llms-full.txt reference for LLM ingestion, and an MCP server at credits.fm/mcp so AI assistants like Claude can answer identifier questions natively. AI crawlers — GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, CCBot, and others — are explicitly allowed in our robots.txt.

Contact

Found an error, want to contribute, or have a partnership question? Email team@notes.fm or open an issue on GitHub.