The MetaBrainz team, which runs MusicBrainz and ListenBrainz, writes about open music data, service changes, and the problems of running these projects.
HN links it for open alternatives to Spotify's API changes and for its post on AI scrapers straining the service.
Updating FreeDB clients to use Musixbrainz used to be as easy as changing the API URL, but unfortunately Musicbrainz deprecated their side of that interface a year or so ago: https://blog.metabrainz.org/2018/09/18/freedb-gateway-end-of-life-notice-march-18-2019/
Listenbrainz[0] looks like an interesting project for building better (or at least more open) recommendation systems[1].
[0] https://listenbrainz.org
[1] https://blog.metabrainz.org/2020/12/24/playlists-and-personalised-recommendations-in-listenbrainz/
Metabrainz hosed?
> There has been a critical error on this website.
> Learn more about troubleshooting WordPress.
https://blog.metabrainz.org/2025/12/11/we-cant-have-nice-things-because-of-ai-scrapers/
> De-enshittify by any means necessary!
Damn straight! https://blog.metabrainz.org/2024/11/28/pissed-off-by-spotify-enshittifying-more-api-endpoints-we-can-help/
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42266735
https://blog.metabrainz.org/2024/11/28/pissed-off-by-spotify-enshittifying-more-api-endpoints-we-can-help/