I Want to Find Pieces and Data
Work out first whether you want to listen once or use the file — the two routes differ completely
"I want to find a piece" means two entirely different things: I want to listen to it, and I want to use the file. The routes, the costs and the cautions differ. Mixing them up is the usual source of trouble.
What you are trying to do here
Pick one:
- A: I want to listen — the goal is one piece to hear
- B: I want to use it — the goal is putting the file into your own project
- C: I want to look it up — the goal is accurate information about a work, composer or source
If you pick B, read the licence section before going further. It is not boilerplate; it directly affects whether you can publish.
Where to read: three routes
Route A: I want to listen
- Dataset overview — sources, licences and download entries
- Track details — look up a work
- Onsite: the Chinese music market's own path — how to browse by source
- Onsite: the music industry map: where the money is — see how music is organised
Route B: I want to use it (in my own project)
The rules on this route are all in the licences, so read these three first:
- How many rights sit on one song — the most basic piece: one song carries more than one layer of rights
- The CC licence family: reading six combinations — the C1/C2/C3 difference is here
- Open music data and licensing — how to use a dataset legally
Where to get the data:
- Dataset overview — per-track licensing; this site does not alter the original terms
- Archives — packaged downloads
- Audio — audio and sample resources
Route C: I want to look it up
- Track details — era, composer, scoring per work
- Offsite: composers · music history — both still skeletons
- Offsite: glossary — terms (short of its plan)
The licence tiers: one thing to remember
Everything on this site uses the same four-tier labelling (C1 / C2 / C3 and public domain). The differences:
| Tier | What you may do |
|---|---|
| C1 | commercial use and adaptation, with attribution |
| C2 | non-commercial use and adaptation, with attribution |
| C3 | study and research only, with attribution |
| Public domain | no attribution required |
"With attribution" is the common floor across all tiers. What tier each track falls into is stated on its data page.
⚠️ This site does not alter the original licence. Where a source demands stricter terms, the source's own statement governs — open music data and licensing explains this in full.
A common mistake
"I can download it" does not mean "I may use it". Downloading is a technical act; authorisation is a legal fact. They are separate.
A whole section of this site exists for that misconception: copyright myths: ten claims, ten answers.
What is not built yet
Four honest notes:
1. The track-details site is not built — you can currently only search the dataset overview by title, not by composer, period or genre 2. There is no "recommended by difficulty or occasion" list — the dataset holds over 133,000 works, but there is no filter to narrow them 3. The composer and music-history sites are still skeletons — the "look it up accurately" route currently depends on external sources 4. The glossary is not sufficient for verification — term definitions should come from it, and it is still a skeleton
Points 1 and 2 are genuine gaps: 133,000 works with no retrieval layer is a warehouse without shelving.
Next
- The site-level view: what each of the thirteen sites is for
- Understanding music itself: listening hub
- The full licence picture: the fourteen pieces in copyright and licensing
- Back to the home page
Sources
- 本页为导航页；许可档位与曲目数量以 midicn-lib 台账为准（v1.23 · 133,667 首 · 21 源）
Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.