CDDB No Longer Allows Grip Users to Connect UPDATED
Posted by
michael
on Fri Mar 09, 2001 08:54 PM
from the type-them-in-yourself dept.
from the type-them-in-yourself dept.
ezln23 writes: "I have been a regular user of Grip for CD Ripping and MP3 encoding for quite a few months now. Today when I attempted to rip a new CD I bought, I received this message. "Your CD player application is either not licensed to use the Gracenote(tm) CDDB(tm) service or its license has expired. If you are unsure what this means, please see our web site at http://www.cddb.com/lic/Grip. If you are a developer and feel you have received this message in error or wish to get your application licensed, please contact support for assistance." I guess the predictions in
this article were correct." We've also received submissions about kscd and other applications that query CDDB, so it looks like CDDB has cut off everyone who didn't pay up.Update: 03/10 02:28 PM by H : It looks like it was a short-lived thing - I can connect fine to it this morning - and I can assure you, I haven't paid.
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CDDB No Longer Allows Grip Users to Connect
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ironic: CDDB, RIAA and Napster (Score:3)
However there is an irony regarding the Napster/RIAA lawsuits if this was extrapolated out and the CDDB started restricting access to their database. In very measurable ways, the CDDB is helping the RIAA to filter Napster. Of course there is still the FreeDB (thankfully), but play along for fun.
The RIAA's injunction against Napster works by filtering file names, most of which come from the CDDB. Consistant file names make the injunction workable. Removing the CDDB would cause a large number of people to input their own names with all the associated inconsistancies, making filtering all the more difficult. I find this quite funny. It's only too bad the RIAA didn't target the CDDB and only later realize how much it was helping their jihad against their customers and themselves.
joe maller
Re:Gracenote has freeware license (Score:4)
As a side note, I wonder what this does to people with firewalls that strip/mangle/replace the User-Agent HTTP header? or is the filtering only on their cddb protocol, not http?
Economics of running a free, online DB? (Score:5)
There's a lot of non-trivial work involved with running a database like this, and it seems like it might not scale well. If FreeDB ever gets extremely wide adoption, won't the costs of running it become nearly insurmountable? CDDB can finance this because it charges fees. IMDB [slashdot.org] is (I believe) owned by Amazon, and because its data is mostly dispensed via a web site and it can slap ad banners on the top. None of these options would appear to be available for FreeDB.
I am not posting as a nay-sayer: I'm quite ignorant about a lot of the logistics & financial considerations. I'd appreciate it if somebody more intimately familiar with the workings of FreeDB -- or any similarly large, free online DB -- would comment on this.
You might be confused about the issue here (Score:3)
CDDB has a service that it provides - a database of CDs, songs, and artists (btw- a database that they built of the labor of volunteers). Connecting to their servers to get the information is at their discretion. Grip doesn't have that discretion. Grip tries to establish a connection to CDDB servers that CDDB doesn't want. The information is available elsewhere, namely FreeDB [freedb.org]. This isn't a result of a bad law, it's a result of CDDB being an ass and changing the rules of how an application can connect to it.
While I dislike CDDB and their restrictive agreements for developers and end-users alike, and while I think this action is kinda low, they are within their rights as a service provider. Would an ISP be justified to cut off a deadbeat account? This is a similar situation.
-sk
Gracenote has freeware license (Score:5)
I believe even Grip would be eligible for this, assuming it really is revenue-free.
FYI, the CDDB blockage is not targeted at Grip, but rather only allows licensed applications.
Re:Since when should EVERYTHING be free? (Score:3)
You sir, have no clue what you are talking about! This companies' database was built on the backs of people like myself who freely contributed to it, WITHOUT compensation. You are critical of us for wanting something for nothing, but turn a blind eye to the fact that the CDDB owners did get something for nothing! They didn't have to pay a soul to compile all the CD information, it was given to them, and now they expect us to pay them to get back the very same data that we contributed for free! I say screw them the same way they have screwed us! It's only fair.
Do check the facts first (Score:3)
I suppose that the software the story mentions makes use of the original CDDB1 service; Gracenote has said that they will someday terminate this service and move all of its users to CDDB2. I'm not sure that this is what happened, though.
Also, I'm not certain that Gracenote has released the CDDB2 UNIX SDK yet. The Win32 SDK has been available for quite some time now and consists of a well-defined set of COM interfaces. The Win32 SDK is well-documented and supported by Gracenote. We've been very happy with the level of support we've received (again, for free).
Provided that the UNIX/Linux SDK has been released and there are no license issues, any free software (as in beer at least) could make use of CDDB2 and Gracenote's servers free of charge.
Note that I don't touch on whether it was right of them to use the community-entered data in the first place; most discussions on Slashdot seem to center on this issue.
Hmmmm... (Score:5)
This makes me mad. But alternates exist. (Score:3)
But I guess that's why we have free alternatives like freeCDDB [freecddb.org].
Gee... (Score:4)
and the problem is?
Another CDDB alternative... (Score:3)
Re:Hmmmm... (Score:5)
And no, I don't consider it cheating, theft, or underhanded in any way. CDDB lied to the community about the purpose of the DB, enlisted help under false pretenses, and then locked off access to a DB that many people had helped to create.
If we have to change an identifier in a query to get around their fraudulent business model it sounds good to me.
Fucking assholes who're willing to sell out everyone else just for a buck...
Since when should EVERYTHING be free? (Score:3)
All of these things take resources - time, and money particularly. If there are people out there willing to do these things out of the goodness of their heart - so be it. But you should be GRATEFUL that you can run an OS (Linux) that is free. You should *not* however EXPECT it. If you want it free - then YOU setup a DB - YOU write an OS - and YOU start writing and performing songs for free.
If people (corporations) have the resources and they feel they can break even, or even make money by charging people, they would. These are called *services*. They are a primary part of our society and our economy. There are goods and services. Why does everyone on
The notion seems to be that software and data, in any form, should be free. In reality, software and data crosses that fine line between goods and services. You are really paying for the service of someone to write the software / create the data (songs, etc). But since it only has to be written once, the cost is spread over all the people who buy it. Either way, in the days before computers, neither goods nor services were free. So why should the gray area in between all of a sudden be FREE?
Bottom line: CDDB runs a service. It is not a free service. Deal with it. Companies who create commercial ripping software are willing to pay for the license, so they don't have to rely on a free service such as FreeDB. If they pay for a service, they can expect a certain level of reliability (uptime, and accuracy should be expected). This is worth something to them - and they pay for it. They, in turn, pass the cost down to you when you buy their software. If DB reliability and accuracy aren't a concern to you, use FreeDB. Communities are great, but they can't rule like good old fashion supply and demand can. Russia proved that very well.
Buy a license or don't. I don't care. But don't bitch about companies that are just following simple supply and demand.
Who's going to pay for it? (Score:3)
Werd to the fact that running an internet resource costs money.
Re:Gee... (Score:4)
Boy you've got some gall!
You don't own the names of the songs you entered -- the artists that wrote the songs do, if anybody.
Heh... doesn't matter who owns the names of the songs. If you compile a database of pretty much anything, you can copyright it. You're not copyrighting the names, you're copyrighting your collection of information. CDDB did that with their database and they don't own the song and album names any more than we do. So, if i create a list of all the tracks on an album, I have just as much right to protect that list as they do to protect their database. If they incorporate my list under false pretenses, then I should have some recourse against them.
The 60-second rule (Score:3)
You gotta read the fucking licenses. The license is everything, that's how you know what you're donating your effort to. You think just because they give you shit without paying for it it's a "free effort"? I think you know that's not what "free" is all about...
Go read at http://www.gracenote.com/terms.html [gracenote.com]:
"Proprietary Rights Information
"The contents of this Site are protected by the copyright laws of the United States and around the world, including international treaties. No use of the CDDB Content, database or other content on this Site is allowed except as expressly stated herein. All rights not expressly granted are reserved. Copyright © 1996-1999 CDDB Inc"
That's not exactly the goddamn GPL.
I'm looking around for a place on their site where they tell me what rights I have to the information that I donated to them. I don't find anything. I find obscure licensing terms which they force their applications to adhere to, like (just one example):
"End users must register with CDDB2 the first time they access the service with your application."
Here's a rule of thumb: if something is free like in speech, you will learn this within 60 seconds of visiting their website for the first time. Free projects are proud of being free. If you find yourself clicking around page after page, hoping to find some magic words about distribution rights and can't find any, that's how you know it's proprietary.
Jamie McCarthy
Re:Since when should EVERYTHING be free? (Score:4)
So make your own free *DB service.
FreeDB already exists. That doesn't change the fact that Gracenote deceived those who helped to build their product. Apparently ethics are unknown to hardcore capitalists. All that matters is the money.
submit false data anyone? (Score:3)
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
Re:Economics of running a free, online DB? (Score:3)
Re:The CDDB is a lot like Napster, or should be. (Score:4)
The real value to CDDB in particular is that they have accumulated a watershed of TOC's to CD's in the world.
When you insert that disc, it's not just dumb luck that CDDB knows it's one disc from another. As you all probably know the same "release title" can have different TOC's due to the disc mastering and pressing process.
The quaility of the CDDB service is that you all have helped make it a deep watershed of TOC inventory for every title.
In the game of matching a CD to it's meta data it's important to realize that the signature of the track offsets (it's Table Of Contents) varies from pressing to pressing. If CDDB is able to aquire the unique TOC's of the same CD release then they are better in position to give accurate data once the next query comes for it.
And so on.. so pretty soon for any given CD title, like Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon (which has over 100 different TOC's from all the pressings that it has had over the years) you're bound to be farily high on rate of successful query..
Which is what the QOS issue is about too.
CDDB has this watershed of data, and they are going to leverage it to it's maximum, which means makign deals with software/service vendors to get revenue for every player/service deal is available.
In the mean time it would be really great to just re-aim your player/system to freedb and use them.
Let freedb accumulate their database to actually be competitive with CDDB in the spirit of collecting the most CD meta data that is out there. The end result should hopefully be a viable alternative to CDDB which is free, open and really out of reach of any MPAA or similar forces.
The information is free, and needs to remain free.
This is possible and quite easy to do. Why more Napster users aren't installing a freedb plugin that will automatically "snarf" up the cd meta data from their own disc and send it to freedb is interesting.. Why people using Napster aren't already on the bandwagon is interestin. Millions of Napster users all with a plugin to feed the freedb database? Nice.
Re:Economics of running a free, online DB? (Score:3)
Why get mad when you can get even (Score:5)
Screw them anyways, use freedb.org. (Score:5)
Set your CDDB apps to access www.freedb.org instead. No licensing or patenting nazis there.
In kscd (my CD player of choice) simply click on the preferences button, set your CDDB server to "www.freedb.org http 80 /~cddb/cddb.cgi". Other CD players should have similar configuration procedures.
Problem solved.
Database copyright issues (Score:3)
Re:Gee... (Score:5)
What Gracenote did is essentially the same as the Red Cross declaring itself a for-profit agency and charging for its services, while keeping all the donations made for it while it was a non-profit.
I am looking forward to the day they go out of business and/or are made irrelevant by free alternatives. And I hope the executive scum responsible for the decision die a slow, painful death. But I'm not bitter.
Heh... (Score:4)
Re:Gee... (Score:4)
Your words bely an apparent unfamiliary with the history of CDDB (now Gracenote). At its inception, the CDDB software and database were under the GPL. Thus, it was quite reasonable for submitters to infer that their submissions would remain free.
Where exactly did it say you get access to CDDB for free, forever, because you simply typed out the names of songs that someone else wrote?
I didn't say that anyone should have "access to CDDB free, forever, just because . . ." Gracenote should be compelled to release all tracks provided by users to the public domain, however. Not the same thing. This remedy wouldn't require that they run servers "in perpetuity" (as another posted said).
A horrible analogy. What gracenote did was start charging for a useful service in the only way it can -- hitting the application builders that enhance their programs with its functionality.
The analogy is a very good one. Your saying it is horrible doesn't make it so. Had they announced plans to charge up front, no reasonable person would have had an issue with their actions. As in the hypothetical Red Cross example, this wasn't the case.
Please study economics. These "free" alternatives are only free to YOU, not to the person running them. Do you think internet bandwidth and hardware resources grow on trees? Why don't you offer to pay a monthly service fee to FreeDB to help? Nah, you just want something for nothing.
Thank you for that oh-so-enlightened ad hominem attack and "econ in a nutshell," Dr. Friedman. It dovetails so well with the rest of your completely specious argument. I don't feel the need to wear my education on my sleeve. With regard to your point about free services being unable to exist without revenue, gosh--I can't imagine that there could have been any internet at all before all that commericalization arrived. (That was sarcasm, in case it wasn't readily apparent.)
Nope, you're just SELFISH.
Thanks again.
Re:The 60-second rule (Score:3)
AOL ran into a similar thing with their volunteers. You aren't allowed to solicit unpaid volunteer effort toward a for-profit enterprise.
Because CDDB was free, and not just free to access one at a time, but free to download, while they were soliciting their volunteers, they made the expectation that they would remain that way.
Besides, they're claiming to have the copyright on this compilation. Copyrights are usually distributed among all the authors, unless those authors SIGN AWAY their copyright. There was no contract so any rights they had are still theirs.
Mirror the database! (Score:3)
Those license terms are outrageous! (Score:5)
As of yesterday, Gracenote has posted a *free* (FREE, NO COST) license to freeware developers.
There's a difference between freeware and free software [gnu.org]. The terms of the non-commercial license conflict with those of a certain popular free software license [gnu.org].
Check this out:
Note that this definition excludes computers with common peripherals such as (/me scans the back of my computer) trackballs, touchpads, drawing tablets, joysticks, floppy disk drives, Zip drives, tape drives, network cards, modems, video capture hardware, etc. (This license is useless, as floppy drives are included with most PCs, and use of a network card or modem is required to access the Gracenote CDDB® database.)The real GPL compatibility killer: "You agree not to modify or disable any Gracenote CDDB Client functions or to otherwise interfere with the operation of the Gracenote CDDB Client." Also, "The Client ID must be embedded in binary form in your Licensed Application, and must not be easily extractable by End-Users or other developers."
Or this:
Translation: "You will not modify, or allow to be modified, the hostname or IP number accessed by the software." Not compatible.Of course, there are a couple patents on using a TOC hash as a database key [cddb.com] that keep you from just using FreeDB instead.
All your hallucinogen [pineight.com] are belong to us.
Re:Gee... (Score:4)
So, I am hearby relicensing, sans notification, my submission of the CD hash and track information for all of the rereleases of the Elton John catalogue. Gracenote, you have 24 hours to pull these entries from your database or pay the newly instated license fee, which is a free license to the rest of the database for grip, mp3cddb, and any other remotly useful cddb application I have used recently but can't think of off the top of my head.