The online Web-based platform for the French CNRS – Musée de l'Homme audio archives offers access to about 30,000 published and unpublished recordings of traditional music from all over the world. Implemented as an archive database, its represents a collaborative scientific tool for the dissemination and production of knowledge. This article introduces these digital audio archives while dealing with issues of preservation of audio recordings, the intellectual property rights and ethics. It also deals with the new technological developments implemented to embed music archive into contemporary documentation and research dynamics.