In an unusual collaboration for a large music rightsholder, EMI and The Echo Nest are working together to put thousands of EMI controlled songs, videos and other music-related content to app developers. This tie-up with The Echo Nest is part of EMI Music’s OpenEMI initiative to foster digital innovation and streamline music licensing.

The Echo Nest and EMI have created a ‘sandbox’ for app developers, hosted and managed by The Echo Nest, which offers creative briefs and opportunities to collaborate on building apps for EMI’s artists. The developer sandbox also includes access to The Echo Nest’s five billion music data points and developer tools including dynamic playlist APIs, open source audio fingerprinting, audio analysis, and remix software.

Developers can register for an API key, and submit application concepts. Approved apps - both free (ad-supported) and paid - will be released by EMI, with the underlying intellectual property in the app retained by the developer.