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CDDB No Longer Allows Grip Users to Connect UPDATED
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.
From reading the notes, I doubt this will affect many people. I just ripped a few CDs tonight from SoundJam and it worked fine.
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
So make your own free *DB service. I'm sure everyone will appreciate it. I'm sure the submissions will be flowing in hot and heavy and in a few months you'll have more than Gracenut has.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I've heard a lot of people allude to the story of CDDB at one time being free, supported and built up by volunteers entering information, and then at some point turning evil and proprietary. Can someone recount the story in a bit more detail? For instance, how did a company gain control over what was once a volunteer effort? At what point did it become clear that they were going to make everything so painfully commercial (patents, licencing, and other ugliness...)?
--
From memory, to write an applciation that uses CDDB, you must:
1) Advertize for CDDB. You must put their logo on your application somewhere. There were some restrictions about size/placement/visability/etc.
2) Use CDDB exclusively. You cannot allow users to enter a different server name, such as freedb.
3) You must not store or redistribute the data you get from cddb. This is including, but not limited to submitting the data back to freedb. I believe caching is allowed, at least for local use only. Not sure about putting the data into ID3 tags and the like.
4) You must agree that all data submitted becomes the exclusive property of gracenote.
5) I think commercial players have to pay a license fee, but free ones don't.
Note: I read this a long time ago, and can't be bothered to look it up. The license may have changed, or I may be mistaken.
It's not the content they are selling, it's the bandwidth delivery mechanism, which someone has to pay for, else their ISP (apparently globix.net being at least one) would pull the plug for non-payment.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Oh sure, paint yourself into a corner...
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
Some cds do, theres a track title format already in place, it works on a few very new cd players and very new cds, I've seen a couple ... but on the whole the industry has no desire to make it htat much easier to make mp3s ...
Free Techno/Jazz/DNB/MI Music by guys obsessed with monkeys!
Since the CDDB database is searchable via their webpage why doesn't everybody just copy 'n' paste as many entries possible and submit them to FreeDB. Since all the entries were user-submitted is copyright an issue here?
There are thousands (millions?) of people reading this article and comment, think how many submissions could be added to FreeDB tonight alone.
"I am a man, and men are
animals who tell stories."
"The meek shall inherit the earth, the rest of us shall go to the stars." Isaac Asimov
The proxy can get the data from cddb (that users entered) and submit it to freedb.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
However, the free (beer) license is still nasty, as it requires you to use cddb exclusively. So if you let you users have a choice between freedb and cddb, you can't be licensed. Also, you have to put their logo on your program.
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?
So Gracenote appears to be exercising judgement in what it believes to be authorized/unauthorized MP3 players (didn't recognize Sonique, did recognize Realjukebox), presumably to make the burning of copy-protected CD's less convenient. I especially like the we-dont-really-care-if-your-player-really-is-licen sed-but-not-on-our-list wording: "That application does/does not appear to be a licensed CDDB-Enabled Application."
But what about people coding their own MP3 players or CD players, for release as a new product? I see Gracenote offers a "Non-Commerical developer's license" for such a situation, but it's limited to 100 end-users until Gracenote validates the license.
Yet what really stinks is how Gracenote is currently featuring an MP3 encoder (N2MP3) that apparently incorporates the LAME open-source MP3 codec, even tho LAME itself is not on the CDDB list. I.e. you can't use LAME itself with CDDB, but you're more than welcome to buy this commercially distributed rehash which does.
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 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.
Do domain names matter?
No, only the versions that you put under GPL remain so. If you create a new version, you don't have to put it under the GPL as well.
Only if they are either outside the US or create a completly new piece of software. Otherwise the draconian "derived work" part of US copyright law would appear to apply.
You could always:
connect to cddb server as fake client
pick random 32 bit integer
does it match ? yes: copy to local db
no: pick random existing entry from local db, write as new entry
What would Lemmy do?
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. 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
As of yesterday, Gracenote has posted a *free* (FREE, NO COST) license to freeware developers. As long as your application makes you no money directly or indirectly, then you won't have to pay anything to use the CDDB service.
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.
...
Buy a license or don't. I don't care. But don't bitch about companies that are just following simple supply and demand.
Well, you've got it. Basic consumer nature: pay less. Basic business nature: get more. It's not an either-or thing, it's both, and the tension is what makes the free market work.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
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.
Shop Smart, Shop S-mart!
Ok, first off, if the issue is why pay for something when you can get it for free, then you should do your patent searches at www.uspto.gov instead of Delphion.
Second, Patents 5987525 and 6154773 are for syncronizing an audio CD with a web site via a plugin, which doesn't apply here.
Third, Patent 6061680 is the one which covers database lookup. It was filed in July 1999. CDDB had been around a lot longer than that, and thus similar programs existed concurrent with the early days of CDDB. One such was a project called Disco that was programmed by an Apple employee and had clients on multiple platforms. This was in use at least by 1997. CDDB was small and independent in the beginning, and they didn't think to file a patent in time to really cover the database, at least if those 3 patents you site are the only ones they hold.
------
WWhhaatt ddooeess dduupplleexx mmeeaann??
This sig intentionally left justified.
We're using Gracenote's CDDB2 service in one of our commercial applications and we don't pay Gracenote a dime. You only have to pay Gracenote if you charge for your software and have a very large number of users (more than 250,000 or something like that). There is a "free" license that states that if you don't make money off your product in any way (including but not limited to banner advertising), you don't have to pay, no matter how many users you have.
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.
-- David Polberger Computer Science major, University of Lund, Sweden
Considering Grip uses FreeDB by default, it shouldn't affect too many people.
I freely submitted to their database many of my "offbeat" CD titles a few years ago thinking this was a cool idea. Last I checked, those submissions are still there. Now the assholes want to charge for information they sucked from the community?
Dipshits!
satire, n: 1) witty language used to convey insults or scorn; 2) a form of humor lost on most slashdot moderators.
But I guess that's why we have free alternatives like freeCDDB.
and the problem is?
Seems to me if the government wants to keep making more laws...they should start making more laws protecting fair use. i.e. you cannot discontinue service to users if their actions do not violate fair use. Under a law like this, CDDB could be held accountable for disallowing users of Grip and any other ripping/burning software that are legal in and of themselves.
God forbid, of course, that the US might actually pass a law protecting consumers.
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
The point of having two is that we can choose to use the free one, instead of supporting people who took publicly contributed data and made it proprietary.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If you go to their web page and search for:
:)
Linux/Unix, All applications that encode/play mp3
the search form kindly informs you:
"For Unix/Linux:
There are no players that meet that description."
In other words, use linux? switch to FreeDB please
I hope this will put a dent in there buisness, and they might consider rethinking there buisness plan? Specialy after all the contreversy about who owns what, and didnt -I- give them the information they are charging for now?
-- Chris Chabot
"I dont suffer from insanity, i enjoy every minute of it!"
So you do it slowly over the course of a year or so... maybe they won't notice. :)
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
As mentioned before, they are now checking if the application is "licensed." Since XMMS is not licensed with them, it no longer can access their database.
XMMS defaults to FreeDB, but in my experience CDDB has had a lot more of my discs than FreeDB does. So it's a shame I can no longer use it.
Times are going to be interesting; people will soon likely rewrite their CD database apps to allow users to arbitrarily specify the application's ID string. Lynx, wget and Konqueror already allow this when it comes to web pages. Gracenote's response to that behavior ought to be interesting.
You idiots! All you /. people ever scream is FREE FREE FREE. You want the world and you don't want to pay for it. I want a free OS - I want free music - I want a free database. Well, FU all - someone has to write the OS - someone has to write and perform the music - someone has to setup and maintain the databases (as well as machines, Internet connectivity, etc.)
/. think that all services related to computers should be free? You don't expect to get a haircut for free do you? (Maybe you do...but then what kind of quality do you expect?)
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.
Werd to free music. Werd to free information. Werd to the people.
Werd to the fact that running an internet resource costs money.
"And like that
Look, nobody is pissed that CDDB wanted to make a profit. People are pissed because CDDB deceived people in order to build their product.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
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:
"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
Jamie McCarthy
jamie.mccarthy.vg
It is in any case ridiculous that cddb.com has decided to do this, and we should definitively support the freedb.org efforts by entering data for CDs that aren't already in the database -- now if only there was an official procedure for 'correcting' freedb entries :-)
For the author, derrivative works need not be released under GPL because the author was not bound by GPL, only the people who accepted the work under GPL are bound by it.
Except that, as far as I understand US copyright law, the author of a "derived work" is NOT the copyright owner.
But only an entity representing the copyright owner can licence the code.
The only appearent exception would be where both programs are created by the same entity, which would appear to be impossible in the case of CDDB.
Use this to find Unix/Linux apps that ARE okay with CDDB
I'd like to make a few points here. According to the CDDB lic Grip should have free access to the DB with out cost to anyone.
This is the Non-Commercial License and Database Access Agreement. Please read this Agreement carefully. It permits non-commercial use of the Gracenote CDDB® SDK with certain types of computer software applications listed on Schedule B, referred to as a Licensed Application.
Now if you are a commerical user CDDB will charge you if you make money off your app basiclly CDDB wants a cut. Honestly I cant blame them I run some servers myself and I imagine keeping a large datbase running with all those users AIN'T cheap.
Now about CDDB2. The orignal database was the one that the users created. CDDB2 being the new version is supposed to have added support for not just song names and artists but lyrics and a bunch of extras that are explained here.
As for whats happening to GRIP its a bum deal. Being an open source project the creator is obvisouly making no money off his project. Which in reality may mean that CDDB broke thier contract and that they may be open to a court case (IANAL).
From the looks of it Grip was probaly removed becasue of the type of software it is however last time I checked it is still not wrong to rip a CD and make MP3s but who knows what tommorw will bring.
For a detialed version of the FREE agreement click here.
Don't kill me for spelling im lazy!
"Don't mess with him, he taunts the happy fun ball."
I don't belive this got posted. Yeah it's stupid that CDDB doesn't work with grip, but afaik, it does use freedb as a default. I just ripped a track a minute ago. I guess it is news for nerds, but not very important......
Gorkman
just a thought. is cddb still allowing users to submit data? if so wouldnt it be nice if everyone submitted false data. a database full of bad data doesnt really sell that well.
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
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.
Better yet, pollute the CDDB with alternative names. CDDB identifies CDs based on the number of tracks and their playtimes. Most of the time this is unique to a CD, but every once in a while you'll be asked to select which CD is the one in question. This is because two CDs happen to have identical numbers of tracks with identical playtimes. So, how about we start making up alternative names ('Meta11ica' is an earlier example cited on SlashDot) and submitting them to CDDB. Then when someone is ripping a CD, they can easily select one of the alternative spellings for the filenaming. This also has the salutatory effect of hosing the CDDB, which appears to be richly deserved.
CDDBURL=http://freedb.freedb.org/~cddb/cddb.cgi
Oh, and if you simply have to use abcde with Gracenote's database, do this search and replace:
s/$NAME+$VERSION/xmcd+fuckyougracenote/
Abcde's default database will change to FreeDB in the next release.
those that don't pay the extra fee can have the servers blocked. I don't see why it should be any more than a couple bucks per month, but any ISP would make it more than necessary.
Definitely this. I would refuse to use an ISP that charged extra across the board due to Napster and the RIAA. I don't use Napster or view streaming videos or any of that shit, why should I pay for everyone on my ISP doing so? Rather, I should pay a lower fee because a.) I'm not using up so much bandwidth and b.) I'm not getting copies of the RIAA's materials, so I don't owe them a fscking dime.
I much prefer the pay-per-bandwidth model, which I believe will be getting more accurate in the future until finally it will be metered as commonly and ubiquitously as power service is now. I can only hope that in the future all the bandwidth isn't controlled by AOL or its subsidiaries, who seem to be gobbling up every small ISP in sight... (sigh)
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
Considering Grip uses FreeDB by default
FreeDB infringes U.S. Patents #5,987,525; #6,061,680; #6,154,773, and other patents issued or pending, and foreign counterparts. See also non-commercial license terms schedule C.
All your hallucinogen are belong to us.
Will I retire or break 10K?
We all know what's next. They'll be awarded a patent for the "delivery of CD title and track information over a networked service" and attempt to shut FreeDB down.
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
Today when I get this licensing error, I check the list of "approved" CDDB 1 readers for Windows, and Notify CD Player is listed! So then I send e-mail to their listed contact.
I get a polite but firm "fuck you". When I go to reply to them that they still have it listed as a "supported" application, surprise!, it's been removed.
Since I can't seem to contact the orignial developer, I guess I'll switch to the other database, but this is really fucking annoying.
Somedays it's just not worth chewing through the restraints...
this is like any big project that is used by alot of people. the kernel for example has hundreds of mirrors. in fact i'm looking at freedb right now to see if i can setup a mirror on our server at school.
use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that
-- john
Freenet was designed for this kind of stuff...put it on Freenet, give Freenet it's first real app. At the same time we guarantee that the database can't be "cease & desisted" out of existance due to Freenet's uncensorable nature.
do they still allow additions and fixes to the DB? start fixin' it wrong... Enough mad people get even and no one will use such an ureliable service anymore.
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.
Meldroc, Waster of Electrons
I know that there was a bill in congress to change the law on this a couple of years back, but at least as of a few years ago, it was completely legal to copy a database wholesale, as it did not constitute a creative work. CDDB is clearly not a creative work, so perhaps someone can just setup a sneaky bot to download their entire database and move it to FreeDB.
Grip has been using freecddb for as long as I've been using it, and that's where I've been sending all my CD info when I run across the rare one that they don't already have in the database.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
But be sure to copy their DB to FreeDB first... or else it would be a karma packback for the community too.
Aparently XMCD and a few other GPL clients have licenses to use the CDDB. Why not just use their license and call grip a derivitive of XMCD?
Gracenote are the same fuckers (sorry but I'm just pissed now ) who shut down lyrics.ch. I really am getting tired of people fucking up the internet. I think all the big corporations are pissed now that the bubble has burst and are looking for any way possible to get money back. I still say something like Hak Nam (Idoru) or the Walled City (All Tommorow's Party) is the only thing that's going to save those of us who have been using the internet longer than these punkass corporations. Maybe freenet is the answer.
Now everyone make sure you support FreeDB and tell these bastards that we don't need them.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
I'm not saying I *like* the idea of having my bandwidth monitored, but I don't see any options that aren't considerably worse. The internet is a new thing, it's still in flux, but I see it settling down as another "service" that everyone will want to have in his house.
The American Dream has been updated: Now it's not only a house in the suburbs, SUV, 2.2 kids, a dog and a wife, it also includes broadband internet access.
So if bandwidth is going to become a commonplace service, I'd MUCH rather pay for what I'm using instead of being forced to subsidize the RIAA just because I "might" download their stuff.
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
If we keep mirroring the database, then we'll never be fully under their thumb. Download a copy from one of the existing mirrors, and keep the movement alive.
I don't see that at all. What people are complaining about is when the rules of the game are changed midstream. If they want to charge money for the database, that's certainly their right, and I say more power to them.
However, when I spent my precious time typing in song names and sending them up to their database, there was no indication that one day I would no longer be able to freely use it. The only right thing for them to do is to look at the timestamps on each record when deciding whether or not a client needs a license code to retrieve it. If something was entered before the change in terms, then it should be available to everyone. If, on the other hand, someone entered song titles under the new terms, those records could fairly be covered by them.
Anything less is outright deception, it's shoddy business, it's biting the hand that fed them. I can only hope the hand doesn't stick around for more.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
As of yesterday, Gracenote has posted a *free* (FREE, NO COST) license to freeware developers.
There's a difference between freeware and free software. The terms of the non-commercial license conflict with those of a certain popular free software license.
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 that keep you from just using FreeDB instead.
All your hallucinogen are belong to us.
Will I retire or break 10K?
It's possible for the developer of a free client to get a license to use the commercial server. You just have to agree to this itty bitty license. All 14 paragraphs and four schedules of it. If anybody can figure out how to write a Linux client that adheres to this monster of a license is truely a master of both code and law.
When I entered data into the CDDB database years ago, it was under the assumption that the license was the GPL. I don't recall anyone contacting me to ask me if the bits I entered could be licensed under any other license. I also have to wonder if they've merged the GPLed FreeCDDB database back into theirs at any time. Could a class action suit against them result in them having to remove all user submitted data?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Basically what you want is a system for hierarchical distribution of resource data, right? So use DNS! It's already set up to do caching, and bringing up secondary servers is as simple as doing zone transfers. Each CD hash could be it's own sub-domain, and individual tracks would be hosts within the sub-domain (same goes for title/author/etc.) Instead of everything having "A" records, liberally apply the use of "TXT" records.
Setting long TTLs on records would cache queries on your local name server, so if you listen to CDs a lot on your computer, they might live in your resolver's cache for a long time. Or if you're really hard core, like a school, just set up a secondary for data.freedb.org (or even individual sub-domains to mirror your personal CD collection) and stuff will be cached and updated automagically.
They'd still need to operate a HTTP server to get around l4m3 firewalls, but if the majority of CDDB users are academic (dunno anything about demographics) or home users, DNS would be very available.
Heck, you wouldn't even need to actually make changes to FreeDB to get this to work, one would just have to write a pump that would extract the relevant data and create the BIND data files.
Rev. Dr. Xenophon Fenderson, the Carbon(d)ated, KSC, DEATH, SubGenius, mhm21x16
I'm proud of my Northern Tibetian Heritage
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