EMI has announced a partnership with music apps platform The Echo Nest, which will see thousands of songs licensed to app developers. The deal includes other music-related content such as videos, photos and artwork. 

The collaboration represents the most extensive collection of licensed music and other assets to ever be made available in this way, and aims to give developers a one-stop destination to create innovative digital products for EMIs artists, says the company.

The partnership with The Echo Nest is part of EMI Musics OpenEMI initiative, which is focused on digital innovation and improving and streamlining the music licensing process for new digital applications.

The Echo Nest and EMI have created a sandbox for app developers, hosted and managed by The Echo Nest. This sandbox offers developers creative briefs and opportunities to collaborate on building apps for EMIs artists including Gorillaz, Pet Shop Boys, Tinie Tempah, Professor Green, Eliza Doolittle, Chiddy Bang, The Japanese Popstars and many more to follow.

OpenEMI also includes music from catalogue artists in the jazz and rock and pop categories, including tracks from the Blue Note Records jazz label and pop acts such as Culture Club, Simple Minds, Shirley Bassey and The Verve.

The developer sandbox offers other resources besides content – it includes access to The Echo Nests repository of music information, including over 5bn data points about music, and developer tools including dynamic playlist APIs, open source audio fingerprinting, audio analysis, and remix software.

Jim Brady, EMI group executive vice president strategy and insight, says: “Were very excited about the potential of working together with The Echo Nest and their network to develop great applications for our artists. Weve looked at how best we can improve the process of creating new music applications and the OpenEMI sandbox we have built together as a result is a fantastic resource for tapping the passion and innovation of the best developers in the world.”

“Application developers are the future of the music business – they are the creative architects reshaping the role music plays in our lives,” says Jim Lucchese, CEO of The Echo Nest. “We surveyed our community of 10,000 application developers to understand their biggest challenges in building commercial music applications. 

“Music licensing difficulties were the number one problem developers faced, with assistance in marketing applications coming in at number two. By taking on responsibilities around licensing and putting EMIs marketing muscle behind these applications, OpenEMI is directly addressing these pain points and fostering a more collaborative environment between the established music industry and its future.”  

The music fans social networking app Flowd is one example of app development working within the confines of music industry, and the companys marketing director Wilhelm Taht says he is intrigued as to how the other major labels will respond. 

“We see this announcement by EMI and The Echo Nest as a great step,” says Taht. “However, to really broaden the opportunities for apps, the developer community would like to see all major labels jump in. The approval rights matter is also interesting, since app developers naturally would like to know whether they are cleared before the apps development is finished. Its noticeable that EMI and The Echo Nest arent currently discussing how approvals will work, suggesting that they are waiting to see how the developer community react to this announcement before making any final decisions.”

The OpenEMI sandbox can be downloaded on The Echo Nests developer website. Developers can register for an API key, and submit application concepts to EMI and The Echo Nest. Approved apps – both free (ad-supported) and paid – will be released for the web, iPhone, iPad, Android, and other app platforms by EMI, with the underlying intellectual property in the app retained by the developer.

The Echo Nest and EMI will unveil the developer sandbox and provide developers with an in-person opportunity to meet with company representatives in Cambridge, MA on 5-6 November. You can register for this free developer event here.