The Null Device
Posts matching tags 'gracenote'
2008/4/26
Remember Gracenote, the firm that bought the user-contributed CDDB database and locked it up, locking open-source clients out of it? Well, they've just been bought by Sony. I wonder what this will mean: with Sony BMG being a pillar of the RIAA, will owning a database which receives a notification every time somebody rips a CD be a useful weapon in the War On Copying? And will Apple keep using Gracenote for iTunes now that it's controlled by a rival?
2002/10/7
When the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra sent out a promotional CD recently, they were horrified to discover the song titles replaced by pornographic descriptions of sex acts. It appears that this occurred when some helpful volunteer uploaded their version of the track listing to commercial CD database cddb.com. Yes, the same cddb.com which took a free, volunteer-collected database, fenced it off and locked out free clients, and which relies on unpaid submissions from users to build up its proprietary database. As they say, if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys.
Apparently the New Zealand police are looking into it, and various parties are crying "hacking" and looking for someone to prosecute. Is it a crime to volunteer incorrect data to cddb.com?
2001/3/10
Scumbags in action: Remember CDDB? The free online database of CD track listings assembled by volunteers from all over the Net, that was bought by some company who promptly declared it proprietary information? Well, now they have blocked "unlicensed" applications from accessing it. What does an application have to do to be licensed? Well, it needs to show ads for CDDB, prohibit the use of any other CD databases, and not allow the data to be exported to other applications. The Slashdot thread is here.