The metadata alone is incredibly valuable for researchers. Having 186 million ISRCs catalogued with associated genre, tempo, and popularity data is a goldmine for music analysis that doesn't even require touching the audio files.

  I've always found it interesting how streaming services have become the de facto music library of record, yet they can and do remove content at will. When Spotify pulled out of Russia, entire catalogs became inaccessible. Physical media and personal archives suddenly matter again in ways we thought were obsolete.

  The copyright discussion is complex, but from a pure preservation standpoint, I'm glad someone is doing this work.