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CDDB Joins The Bad Patent Club
An Anonymous Coward writes: "Today I received a very ominous package from GraceNote, owners of CDDB. Already infamous for turning a wonderful open project into a quagmire of heavy contracts, licensing fees, forced user registration and anti-competition clauses, the package from GraceNote contained one thing: copies of their patents, freshly awarded. "Don't even think about using FreeDB", the packaged seemed to silently imply, "because we own the patents, period." That patent? "Method and system for finding approximate matches in a database." Ouch. Thanks, USPTO." Scary: I use freedb constantly. I'd hate to lose it.
CDDB was originally GPL right? And FreeDB still uses the original GPL code before CDDB changed their licence. The GPL states that if patents are granted they must be freely licenced. It would be interesting to see a court test this one out.
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enterfornone - logging in for a change
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Ever heard of the EFF?
Pro Bono?
Better me than them; I don't have much to lose...
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
What you describe is certainly what the American patent system has come to, but it was not the intention. The patent office, until recently, researched the claims in a patent with considerable care and accuracy. In principle they still have duty to do so, and frequently reject the initial patent application with examples of possible prior art, usually from other patents. Whats changed is that patent exmaminers are now encouraged, by the way they are payed to pass everything, and the patent office has poor records of the existing prior art for many fields in which they are issuing patents, especially softwate and business models.
I'd tend to agree that civil servants are not the appropriate people to determine obiousness or novelty, but, due to the great expense of challenging a patent, nor are the courts. The existing system allows patent holders to exploit their competitors for licensing fees as long as these remain below the expenditure needed to challenge the patent.
If you're going to have a patent system, and especially if you're going to allow patents in so many fields, wouldn't the appropriate thing to do be to allow challenges by interested parties during the examination process, as most European patent offices do ?
That has nothing to do with every other database on the planet...that would be ludicrous. This is actually something that they more or less "invented" and can patent it. As for the prior license stuff, I dont pretend to know squat about that. But have no fear that this patent is trying to stop all database searches or anything like that. That would just be obnoxious and overturned in two seconds...But then again I may just be talking out of my ass. I have a habit of that.
//FIXME: Bad
This patent doesn't actually read like its gonna hurt too much. I mean, I could be completely mistaken, and (oh god... about to use my first /.ism) IANAL (that hurt), but it seems straightforward enough.
Here is the abstract:
Entertainment content complementary to a musical recording is delivered to a user's computer by means of a computer network link. The user employs a browser to access the computer network. A plug-in for the browser is able to control an audio CD or other device for playing the musical recording. A script stored on the remote computer accessed over the network is downloaded.
The script synchronizes the delivery of the complementary entertainment content with the play of the musical recording.
All this does is cover the use of the browser to run an embedded plugin which grabs information from a database to show data related to the cd (or music recording). The only way this would be really bad is if they tried to claim control over non-physical recordings as well. (mp3s vs cd's)
In any case, unless your freedb access is done via a plugin in your browser, we seem to be ok.
Don't worry -- I patented that.
Got friends?
What is claimed is:
1. At least one computer program stored on a computer-readable medium, embodying a method of searching for a match in a database of a plurality of records, where the records in the database include length information and number of segments for recordings corresponding to the records, comprising:
calculating approximate length information for the records in the database and for a selected recording having a number of segments;
and determining at least one approximately matching record in the database for the selected recording based on the number of segments and the approximate length information.
Hmmm... a computer program stored on a computer-readable medium. Yup. Printouts of code don't work that well.
A database of a plurality of records. Sure, that means more than one record, because one record does not a database make.
Calculating length information for a record... I might be able to get this:
select sum(a.track_length)
from record_tracks a, records b
where a.record_id = b.record_id
and b.record_name = 'The Wall'
and b.artist_name = 'Pink Floyd';
So, if I'm working for a client that has timing information in a database with more than one record, and I need to calculate total times, I'm going to have to pay CDDB to write a basic SQL query? Fuggedahboutit!
Eric
It's unfortunate that the term for "legal work for a good cause" sounds just like a term meaning perpetual copyright: Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act[?], the act that extended the term of all subsisting and new copyrights by 20 years and set a precedent that every 20 years, 20 more years are added.
Will I retire or break 10K?
"Entertainment content complementary to a musical recording is delivered to a user's computer by means of a computer network link. The user employs a browser to access the computer network. A plug-in for the browser is able to control an audio CD or other device for playing the musical recording. A script stored on the remote computer accessed over the network is downloaded. The script synchronizes the delivery of the complementary entertainment content with the play of the musical recording."
They go on to talk about what they are really claiming to have invented, which is basically a way to simulate (via the internet) a group of people in a room with a stereo. And multimedia content. (Glorified karaoke.)
Reading the "Summary of the Invention" section of the patent application, here's how I interpret it:
1. Contolling a CD player remotely (there was a Winamp plugin that did this a few years ago.)
2. Linking multimeida contet via internet
3. Assigning a unique identifier to a musical track. (Windows' CD player did this. Was that after CDDB?)
4. Adding background music to a chat room. (There are dozens of scripts for mIRC that do this. No doubt a few 10 year olds are now guilty of "stealing" their invention.)
Not only am I not a lawyer, I have no idea how lawyers' minds work. When they talk about things like a web browser, IRC, and HTML documents, are they effectively restricting the scope of the patent, or are they just giving examples?
Let them try.
I want to see them sue every library in existence.
(I think we'll have some prior art here.)
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pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Assuming that this applies to FreeDB (which I don't think it does) I think that there is prior art. The patent was applied for in 1999, and I think FreeDB existed before that time.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.
Heck, there's already an ANSI standard for this. How can you patent a function performed by an industry standard?
SELECT Product, Company
FROM AllDatabasesEverMade
WHERE Feature LIKE "*SQL*" OR Structure="Relational"
ORDER BY DateProduced;
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Good judgment comes from experience.
Experience comes from bad judgment.
Even if they could hold it up, it's too specific to be any good.
First, the describe using a browser to access the network and then a plugin for that browser being used to download complementary content. I think you could make a strong case for a CD player not being a browser, but instead a database client or application. And if it includes the CDDB like feature as a base part of the feature set instead of a plugin...
Then, a "script" is downloaded from the remote computer and syncronizes the delivery of the complementary content with the playback.
Except that in the case of a CDDB like system, all you have to download is an XML (or whatever) data stream (basically the content itself) and there is no "script" at all! It's the application itself that is responsible for syncronizing the content with the playback. In case you DID actually want to have some dynmaic control pver presentation stored on the server, you could simply have a Java class file (not a script, but a small application) that's downloaded and then controls synchronization.
I don't see who this patent would affect apart from the music industry wanting to do some synchronized web/music stuff in future CD"s.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
As we know, patents are the ultimate definition of what is is. That copyright, etc. are used as large clubs by those with the $$. As the recent sillyness in Florida has demonstrated, deep pockets can keep courts buys for a long long time. Unless you are willing as a company to go mano a mano with the other folks funding, its hard to enforce rights you may have. Unfortunate, but that is reality.
I'm not sure what you are saying here. I think you may be confusing copyright and patent law. Or you may be raising a very interesting question regarding the operaton of the doctrines of waiver, estoppel, and/or an implied in fact or implied in law patent license.
Assume you invent something. The invention is embodied in software. First, you have a copyright on the writing -- i.e., the code. You then -- as and only as a matter of copyright law -- grant a license to others to copy and modify the code. It could be the GPL, BDS license, whatever.
Further assume that -- perhaps unknown to everyone -- you apply for a patent on your invention. The patent is awarded. Does the fact that -- again as and only as a matter of copyright law -- you licnesed others to copy and modify your code effect the validity of your patent? No.
However, the fact you licensed others to copy and use your code may effect the enforceability of your patent -- at least against your copright licensees. A court may say that you have waived any right to obtain damages against such copyright licensee. A court may find you are estopped from obtaining any damges from them for past use. (I would certainly hope, and expect so.) Whether it would prevent you from obtaining injuctive relief regarding future use is an interesting question. A court may find that you have waived such relief, are estopped from seeking such relief, and/or that you granted an implied in law or implied in fact patent license when you granted the copyright license. Again, an interesting issue.
They don't claim to own the information. They don't claim to have a copyright on the information. They don't, as far as I know, even claim to have a copyright on any particular database. They are claiming a patent on a method of operating, utilizing or making a database. Again, it is important not to confuse patent law with copyrhight law.
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
How does that patent you linked have anything to do with freedb (or cddb's current services, for that matter)?
Personally, I'm just waiting to see when Disney decides that 95 years for copyright protection isn't enough since Mickey Mouse will be close to entering the public domain yet again.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
Doesn't this mean that RIAA should be suing them for keeping a database of illegally copied data from their CDs?
Who Wants To Date A Norwegian?
nope, sorry. Regardless of whether or not cddb can claim to own the accumulated data (and I think they could probably get away with that), the patent is on a process or a technique. They might hold a copyright on the data, but they hold a patent on what they do with the data. Now, I agree that what they're patenting (essentially, a way to provide content based on what CD you're listening to) is pretty shaky, but that has nothing to do with the CDDB data.
BTW, back before CDDB was "CDDB.com", it was under a "free-to-use but restricted" license. IIRC, the fellow who came up with it got "implicit consent" from you when you submitted the data. Just because they're giving something away doesn't mean they can't patent it, either.
~wog
It's that thing in the installer that you never read but just click "agree".
Sorry, that's ridiculous. How can you raise ire about a patent title when the abstract describes what's actually in the patent? There is nothing in the actual patent text which has anything to do with SQL LIKE queries, which is what RDBMS vendors would be "in an uproar about." You didn't read the patent, you rushed to post something that you thought was pithy, and now you're trying to defend your uninformed posting with an unbelievably spurious argument. I didn't have to "read into" anything; I merely "read" what you posted.
The title and abstract describe what you perceive to be "two utterly different things" because you are coming after this from a semi-technical perspective. To the patent lawyers, "approximate match" may mean "related match" (i.e. a music video of a given CD, as described in the abstract), or any number of other things which do not necessarily coincide with what "approximate database match" means to you.
Language exists to provide a conduit for sharing ideas between people who have a shared world of discourse. The patent was written for patent lawyers (who have their own world of discourse unrelated to yours), not for you. That's why you seem to think that the patent title and abstract are describing different things.
~wog
If I read that right (could happen), it's talking about the technique of identifying an audio CD by matching the list of track lengths, which a) is necessary because (I guess) the audio CD format doesn't contain any other identifying metadata, and b) is nearly-enough unique across albums to provide a pretty good fingerprint of the album. Is that a fair translation? If so, then regarding:
I can't recall anyone using this method on CDs/DVDs before CDDB.
What about Apple's audio CD player software, which I believe came pre-loaded on my first Power Mac (a 6100/60 purchased in 1995)? That program has a window visually resembling a CD player's control panel, and beneath that, a CD title field and a list of track title fields. Initially, those fields say "Audio CD 1" and "Track 1", "Track 2", etc., but they are editable, allowing you to type in the information from the CD case. The application stores this information in a database, so that when you next insert that same CD, after having ejected it, done something else, etc., it recognizes it and displays the information as you had typed it. I don't know for sure, but I have always assumed that it did it by associating the user-defined information with some unique information -- probably the track lengths -- from the CD.
If I'm right that that's how they do it, then it would appear to constitute prior art, no? As far as I can tell, the only new things about CDDB are doing it over the internet and combining entries from many users, so they don't each have to enter the information by hand the first time.
Also, even if Apple didn't use exactly the same method to identify the CDs, I can honestly claim that it was the first solution that occurred to me when I first thought about it. That it, when I first noticed that the progrm had that feature, my thoughts went something like: "Hey, it remembers what I typed for this CD before! I wonder how it managed that. I know the CD itself doesn't contain the information, or why would I have had to type it the first time? It must have saved what I typed and associated it with some unique identifying information that is on the CD. It's probably keyed on the vector of track lengths -- that's not guaranteed to be unique, but an exact duplicate seems pretty unlikely. Clever." If it occurs immediately to a first-year CS student, which I was at the time, doesn't that qualify the technique as "obvious"?
David Gould
David Gould
main(i){putchar(340056100>>(i-1)*5&31|!!(i<6)<< 6)&&main(++i);}
Just reading through some of the comments here made laugh and laugh and laugh. Why? Everyone seems to jumping up and down about something that they haven't read properly, or only skimmed the abstract. This is just how over reactionary some /. readers are.
So lets give this some context. Firstly, the patent is for operating over HTTP or protocols to supplant or improve HTTP (section 1 of the aforementioned patent), so for all those that suggested prior art in the form of local copies, or it preventing local copies, ba-baam. Wrong answer.
As for relational databases and fuzzy matching. Wrong again.
The patent covers ways to identify unique identifiers for CDs based on the lengths of the tracks on the cds, and method for retrieving information from a network (preferably the web), based on this information. Another section of the patent is to distribute music to all users of an IRC chatroom at the same time.
So, the prior art that we are instead looking for is firstly, where there is a database containing the tracks, length, and so on, which can be identified by a unique identifier based on the time of the recordings. The last part, the unique identifiers based on the time would be the hardest part. But perhaps a music company somewhere around the world had already implemented something like this on an internal network, or a radio station with a huge cd library.... The second part of the prior art one would be wanting is something related to chat rooms, and trying to send this music to everyone at the same time. Something I know nothing about so I will leave it to someone else to think about this.
So our ingenious patent law allows somebody to invent something, and then impose arbitrary new licenses on those to which it had previously licensed the unpatented technology, with the one provision that it may not exact previous "damages".
So, then, basically a company can license technology to people it doesn't particularly like, or those it wants to control, then wait a while, while those people produce major products, then WHAM, obtain a patent, and now those people are under your control? Seems like by licensing something, you've *already* given away some rights under contract, and you shouldn't be able to just arbitrarily force others under a new license because you've now patented something that you've licensed to them.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Hmmm, 'number of elements', 'length of element', 'find match'... So a CDDB lookup - obligatory guff about 'a computer program stored on a computer' aside - is really similar to what you do when you stand in front of a locked door, with a bunch of keys in your hands:
So, next time I come home in the dark of night and stand there fumbling with that keyring, I'll make sure no lawyer is watching me or I'll have to pay GraceNote? Or is the addition of that 'a computer program stored on a computer' condition really all the innovation needed to get a valid patent?
--frank[at]unternet.org
I'm all for protecting intellectual property (no flames please) but geez! how do you sell that! It's isn't intellectual property anymore than using a spatula to flip pancakes is!
It really amazes me that /. readers never seem to realize that patents, even technical ones are written for and approved by lawyers, not for technical people. That's why patent titles never seem to make sense, folks. (HHOS)
~wog
Where does the GPL state this. I just took a look and I didn't find anything of the sort. If this was written into the GPL, it would be unenforcable, because the owners of the copyright are not bound by any licensing agreement. Hence, they're still free to patent things.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
They must already have their own database, which they search, right? I'm sure they have had one for a long time. They may have even used it to see if this patent already exists!
IANAL, but I just talked to the corporate patent lawyer. Get your own lawyer for legal adivce.
In the US you have one year from the time an invention is first published to file for a patent. In every other country you must file before publication. I'm unclear if by filing after publication you no longer have rights to the patent in other countries.
If you get a patent in the US, every other country will honor the date of filing for a patent when you go to file in their country, meaning that if someone in Germany violates a US patent you can file for a German patent, and then once it is granted sue the German company. If nobody in Germany violates your patent you don't need to file for one there. NOTE that not all countries honor patents.
Couple of problems. Since the original developers licensed the program that had cddb code in it under a fairly free license, doesn't that mean, that they can't later revert it?
Second, the actual database itself is composed of submissions. Unless, I explicitly disclaim ownership of the submitted data, how can cddb claim to own it? As far as I know, you need to explicitly give away rights, they cannot be taken. Also, none of the CDDB programs have any sort of EULA about this?
I don't claim to be a lawyer (sorry, IANAL sounds weird) but this doesn't seem like it holds a lot of water.
p.s. don't bother making (Funny +5) comments like "I'm going to patent breathing or whatever" We've heard it before.
----------------- "I have a bone to pick, and a few to break." - Refused -------------------
This insanity has got to stop, and it falls on us geeks to do something.
Your average citizen doesn't realize how software patents affect them (and will affect them). All they see is higher prices and less innovation, but they don't know why.
Write to your elected representatives, to industry leaders, and to news organizations. We need to make people aware of how patents are stifling innovation instead of rewarding it. If you're too lazy to do any of that, please please please at least join EFF. They even have student rates.
Put the sites outside of the United States and Japan. In any other country that does not accept Software Patents.
There-fore use the Power of the NET.
Canada or Mexico sound like good starting points. Else only the people in Software Patent Free Countries are free to use it.
Anonymous Coward
What was the first database system? db? How about all those relational databases? I know of a few for the Atari ST that existed back in 1987.
Then count the near-databases. Excel's a virtual database because of how it stores cells (it doesn't do a bulk sheet, it allowicates one at a time.) Most any database with a search function would qualify. Oh, and don't forget the first file system!!! What was that, back in the 1970's?
This patent died the day it was born.
--
WolfSkunks for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.keenspace.com";
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
I noticed that Ti Kan's name is on the patent. Kan wrote xmcd, the GPLed Motif/Lesstif based CD player. CDDB grew out of the xmcd database.
The patent is on a system that matches CD tracks inexactly. (Inexact matches are nothing new, but the inexact match of a cd's timing record may be novel). The proponents of CDDB claim that this sytem (called CDDB2) enables them to aggregate multiple pressings of the same album, even if the new pressings are slightly different.
Is this capability substantially different from the algorithms in FreeDB enabled players? More to the point, is it substantially different from the original xmcd code-- which was released under the GPL.
Gracenote, the company that controls the CDDB patent has already used the CDDB algorithm to authenticate owners of David Bowies "Bowie at the Beeb" album. Owners of that album were able toa ccess an extra track (Ziggy Stardust remix). To what extent does this conflict with similar "authentication" algorims used by my.mp3.com?
like it or not, patents have evolved into a corporate weapon, under the current model, how can anyone fault cddb, or amazon for patenting anything they can.
If you are sick of this model, then why not send your congressmen a letter (a *real* letter, one you wrote on paper!). Until the laws regarding copyright are changed, we are just going to see more of these patents rewarded.
Haven't seen links posted yet, so here they are
http://www.delphion.com/details?pn=US05987525__
http://www.delphion.com/details?pn=US06154773__
http://www.delphion.com/details?pn=US06061680__
The following are excerpts of a cddb howto from an early 1998 document by the authors of cddb, found at http://mp3.musichall.cz/download/source/informatio n/cddb.howto. Its neat what you can find with google. It seems to raise license issues.
The CDDB data format and the CDDB servers are designed to be open, and are now used by many other client application software requiring CD information. The list of CDDB-capable applications is growing rapidly and a current list of these applications is available via the CDDB web site: http://www.cddb.com/
The xmcd package and the CDDB server software are both released as free software under the GNU General Public License, and we would like to foster the concept of free software. Moreover, the public CDDB servers all run on sites that have graciously volunteered their disk space, computing and network resources, not to mention occasional maintenance and support chores, all for free.
Given this, we provide full assistance to freeware authors who desire to incorporate the use of CDDB into their software. In addition, shareware programs are also supported, because it is our understanding that shareware authors, like freeware authors, usually develop their software because they enjoy doing so, and they rarely make significant enough money from their shareware programs. Users of CDDB-capable freeware and shareware applicationa may use the public CDDB servers for free.
Commercial uses of CDDB data and/or servers are subject to negotiations with the CDDB Project. Write to us at cddb-support@moonsoft.com for information.
The xmcd and CDDB server software are both released to the public with full source code. You may inspect the source to see how it works. but please be aware that the source code to both of these packages are released under the terms of the GNU General Public License. The full text of the GNU GPL is in the COPYING file in each of these packages.
The patent description is actually more specific than some of the drivel the USPTO has granted (like one-click shopping). It clearly applies to multimedia content (e.g., music), and linking "complementary entertainment content" (e.g., most anything including ads, metadata, external links, etc.).
Yes, boys and girls: they've applied for international patents as well under the EU and WIPO. So, don't plan on getting relief from moving offshore. Although a naive (aka reasonable) point of view would think it's more expensive to pursue non-US infringers by US patent owners, in fact WIPO makes it (a) cheap; (b) biased; and (c) fast.
has that ever happened before?
-Reid