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Rara (service)

former UK-based music streaming service

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionFeb 19, 2026
Entity authorityQ7294465 ↗
Source-derived summary

rara was a music streaming media service. It operated between December 2011 and March 2015. It offered ad-free, on-demand music streaming from a range of major and independent record labels, including Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, EMI Music and Warner Music Group, global rights agency Merlin and independent digital distributors The Orchard, INgrooves Fontana, Believe Digital, [PIAS] and VidZone Digital Media.

Launched in December 2011 by British company rara Media Group Limited, the service featured an initial music catalogue of approximately 10 million tracks. As of October 2013, the catalogue offered 22 million tracks and was available in 32 countries. The system was accessible on both PC and Mac via the web with apps for Windows 8, iOS, and Android. A rara "web" subscription provided unlimited music streaming via the web to PC and Mac while a "premium" subscription enabled access to rara mobile apps as well as offline access to music.

In between February and March 2015, rara stopped accepting new subscribers and announced that the service was up for sale. Music streaming stopped on 29 March.

Features

rara had a catalogue of over 22 million tracks licensed.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Rara (service)” as former UK-based music streaming service. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2011, 2015, 2013—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 2011-01-01. The account is most persuasive where Rara, service and former can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as former UK-based music streaming service. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7294465. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2011, 2015 and 2013.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Rara (service) primary sources, Rara (service) archive and Rara research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Rara (service)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.