About us

MusicTrace GmbH was founded in August 2004 as a spin-off of the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS in Erlangen. Among other things, this institute is famous for its work on the standardisation of MP3.

We are a technologically oriented company based in Erlangen which collects information about the use of music and advertising in broadcasting and on the Internet, analyses it and transmits it in edited form to its customers. Our business fields include both broadcasting monitoring and the licensing of audio watermarking technology.

In the area of broadcasting monitoring, MusicTrace has been the leading service provider in the sector in Germany, Switzerland and Austria for many years. Since September 2015, we have been providing the “Official German Airplay Charts” of the Bundesverband Musikindustrie (BVMI, Federal Music Industry Germany). We have been providing the Official Swiss and Austrian Airplay Charts already since 2006/2013 on behalf of the relevant country representations of IFPI.

Our watermarking technology provides inaudible transmission of additional information in audio signals like music, audio books and advertisements. We license globally to customers like promotion platform operators, audio book platform operators and establishments for books for the blind.