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Gracenote Sues Roxio Over Switch to Free Song Database
macsforever2001 writes: "Those l00z3rs at Gracenote are suing Roxio because they switched to freedb from CDDB. I think I will buy Toast 5 just to support them." Gracenote's press release is informative. Apparently their claims include one that switching to freedb is "violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by offering products that circumvent Gracenote's technological measures to obtain access to an unauthorized derivative of the CDDB copyrighted database."
From the "definitions" section of fortune:
Godwin's Law (prov. [Usenet]):
Gracenote (nice name) says:
"Roxio is trying to get for free what other people pay for. It's our valuable intellectual property that's underlying all this.
Considering how much time I spent feeding "their" database while it was still free, it seems to me that Gracenote stole the "intellectual property" of thousands of users. (Question for Gracenote: how does public domain information constitute IP?)
It would be sad if any more such blantant rip-offs were to occur anywhere in the Open Anything spectrum. This one really rubs salt in the old wound.
That's odd. I saw a stack of cddb.com servers the last time that I was at the San Jose Abovenet colo facility, and they were - you guessed it - Cobalt RAQs running Linux. Maybe it's time for Gracenote to upgrade to some "professional servers" themselves.
m od e_w=on&site=www.cddb.com
http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph?mode_u=off&
Hell folks, we control the routers when you really think about it. Perhaps a "do not route to Gracenote" week will humble the fucks a bit. This can be done via firewall or routers so let's do it 60's style instead of bitching on Slashdot...
Now that they have closed access to the database, can I request that all the submissions from XfreeCD be removed from the database? I'd certainly like to do so. My program is under GPL, and so is any data that it generates (if that's possible -- Hell, I wrote it, so I say so) must be accessable to anyone who wants it.
Brian Lane
Homepage
PS. XfreeCD hasn't been updated recently, and probbly doesn't work with newer kernels or GTK+ versions. I'll fix this when I have the time.
The patent process is intended to reward inventors for releasing their information by allowing them to gain reward for the use of their invention.
Gracenotes seems to liscense access to the cddb. The terms seem to be: if you use the cddb, you must only use the cddb. No cost for no-cost software.
This is from memory from when I considered writing a cd player.
-Yarn - Rio Karma: Excellent
Except that FreeDB accepts user submissions. How can it be assured that Gracenote hasn't intentionally poisoned FreeDB's database with such signature data?
- A.P.
--
Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
--
Forget Napster. Why not really break the law?
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Note that there's a double-whammy effect here. The wealthier individuals and corporations have access to better lawyers, improving their chances for a decision in their favor. It also happens that these high-priced lawyers are, well, high-priced. The little guy has less of a chance to win and has to pay more if he doesn't!
--
At best, Joe Schmoe might be able to convince and equally high-powered lawyer to fight his case. I suppose in that event J.S. will have a good chance of winning if the case is solid. But there's always a chance for a loss. As long as that possibility is there, J.S. is at a disadvantage.
And yes, of course he's at a disadvantage in the current system. I'm not trying to justify how things are now, but rather point out how a proposed fix may not be as nice as we'd like to think.
--
Your Nazi-like attempt to censor discussion will not be tolerated.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Geez. And I was so happy when I found that one of my CDs wasn't in there. I put the data in, feeling so good that I was helping fill in the cracks.
I feel your pain. I had that good feeling just a couple of days ago, entering the tracklist for an All Living Fear album that they didn't have. And now this happens.
Well, next time you find yourself in that situation, type up some old bullshit, and submit that. Then hook up to freedb and enter the real data.
The most telling part of that press release was a comment from Dave Marglin, General Counsel for Gracenote: "We spent a great deal of time, energy and money developing the CDDB Music Recognition Service."
I'm sure everyone who ever contributed info to the CDDB prior to the Gracenote buyout will be happy to join with me in offering a hearty "FUCK YOU !! " to Marglin, and everyone else at Gracenote.
All CDDB does is generate an ID number based on the following data: length in time of the overall CD + starting time offset of each individual track. The idea is that although CDs don't come with ID numbers on them, the chances are almost nil that two different CDs would have the same exact length, down the the second, and the same exact starting time offsets for each track. So those numbers may be used to create a unique ID for that CD. Why do I know what the format is? Because despite their lies to the contrary, the CDDB info database was DONATED to them by the work of thousands of people on the net who typed in the data when they bought CD's. CDDB doesn't do a lick of work to create their large database. It's a very sound, good idea UNTIL they start claiming exclusive ownership of that information that was vounteered to them. Now when an alternate free competitor does the SAME EXACT THING that CDDB did to get started, cddb gets all pissed off at them for it. Forking hypocrites.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Difference being that MS isn't quite that stupid. It's not a coincidence that they've stayed alive for this many years :)
It's true, they do have a patent on that. I'm not sure if there is prior art for that or not (although i suspect there is). But even if it is a valid patent, it still doesn't explain why they're suing Roxio instead of freeDB. Any ideas on that one?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
but he also sent threatening letters to those who were customers of this thief, informing them that they were committing contributory infringement.
This is a new one on me. I know what contributory infringement means in relation to copyright, but I've never heard it used in relation to patents. What law covers such a thing? Seems to me that if he believes someone is violating his patent, he should sue them. These other companies buying products from his competitor have no way of knowing whether the patent covers those products or not until it is decided by a court, at which point your friend either recovers damages from the competitor for the products it sold, or finds out his patent doesn't cover their products. I don't see how the other companies have anything to do with the dispute. Seems like legal scaremongering to me.
To me, there should be plenty of examples of prior art for something like this, possibly even an example lurking in a Computer Science textbook somewhere...
I'm thinking the same thing. Any CS student could come up with a hash like this. The matching algorithm might be slightly tougher, but it's still just a matter of determining criteria and boundaries for the matches. Might take a bit of trial and error to get it working well, but the solution itself seems obvious. I too have a very hard time believing this sort of thing hasn't been done many times in the past.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Technological countermeasures? What the ring-tailed-rambling fuck is Graceless smoking, and can I have some?
Prediction: Roxio asks the judge to throw it out as a frivolous lawsuit, and he does...
Fervent hope: ...but not before bitch-slapping Graceless into the next millennium with punitive damages. This suit isn't merely frivolous, it's malicious. Were I the judge, I'd do as much research as possible to see if I could also add words like "barratry", "malicious", and "RICO" into said millennial bitchslap, and I'd tell Graceless to get the fuck out of my courtroom and never come back until they'd acquired some clue, to say nothing of some manners.
I'd go a step further: I'd instruct my bailiff(s) to chase the plaintiff and their lawyers out of the room, out of the courthouse, and down the street, hitting them over the head all the while with the largest dildo I could find. Maybe it's just me, but that seems fair.
You can, however, copyright the layout of your phonebook.
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
Genre should be an attribute of a track.
Only one CD allowed for each discid/genre.
I believe multiples are allowed, it just brings up a selection box when you search for a cd that has a dupicate.
All that said, yes, the original CDDB system was very hacked together, I even downloaded their server code once to look at it (it was available in source form in the past, possibly even gpled).
"Hot lesbian witches! It's fucking genius!"
Hollywood of monkeysvsrobots.com
Large print giveth, and the small print taketh away
there's never been a public copy of CDDB available to have been somehow copied by the freedb folks
Early versions of xcd or whatever it was called included, in the source tar, a copy of the cddb database, and instructions on how to email in your updates.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
it appears to have been written for SMAC. A google search turns up references to it only in the context of SMAC, and it is always attributed to the game character.
If Gracenote wins this lawsuit, it sets up a very interesting, and dangerous precedent for using the DMCA. What it suggests is that ANY competitor to ANY company in ANY field can be sued similarly.
Think about it. Say I have a company that sells word-processing software (eg, Microsoft). This lawsuit would suggest that I could sue another company (eg. AbiSoft or Corel) for providing a service that directly circumvents my (Microsoft's) methods of copy protecting. Or say I have a company that sells CPUs (eg, Intel). Say another company provides the exact same, drop-in replacement service (eg, AMD). This lawsuit would suggest that Intel can sue AMD for providing a method of circumventing Intel's copy-restriction methods.
What this lawsuit basically says is that the DMCA can be used to prevent people from using competing products - especially if the competing products are free! But regardless of the price...
FreeDB is a separate entity from Gracenote, uses it's own database and it's own servers. In all respects, FreeDB is merely a competing company. According to the DMCA, is competition a federal crime now?
Perhaps the sticking point is that FreeDB is a "free" alternative. However, this suggests that hostels and homeless shelters can be sued by, for example, Hilton, because the homeless shelters provide a free replacement for Hilton's services.
This, is truly creepy.
If they believe the database infringes then shouldn't they be suing the freedb.org people?
Suing an open source group generates bad press.
Suing a successful company generates investor interest.
Karma karma karma karma karmeleon: it comes and goes, it comes and goes.
Bullshit. When nVidia started up it had patent problems up to wazoo, and look at them now. Roxio == Adaptec, they have a history and this junk is unlikely to kill them. However, my only experience of "Roxio" software was Easy CD Creator which was a pile of poo, so if you were looking for an excuse not to buy shares in them that is a far better reason. I feel sorry for the family members of the guys at Rambus and Gracenote who act like this, can you imagine how they act at Christmastime?
Because this posting dates back to 02/04/1998
Vermifax
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Even better one from 95 here
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s/flashlight/laser pointer/; U.S. Patent 5,443,036 "Method of exercising a cat" speaks of using a laser.
This could set a rather disturbing prescedent...
If I go to a CD store (Let's say Borders, for sake of argument) with a pad and a pen (or a palm), and physically write down the album title, artist, track titles, copyright date, publisher, etc... what I've done is perfectly legal (although I might get some weird looks while I'm doing it) because this information is publically available.
Is my list on my pad considered a database? It could be. (a very crude, rudimentary one, but a database nonetheless) If I'd done it on a palm, I'd certainly consider it a database.
Now, I take this database of publically available information, and type it into/upload it to my computer, and import it into a MySQL database.
I've still done nothing wrong. I've gone and gathered publically available information, and I'm storing it in an easily searchable format.
Now, I make a web interface to search it. I can now go to this webpage and search for any artist, album title, publisher, track title, etc... and get any matches that might be in my database.
Still nothing wrong - all I've done is add an access method.
Well, I decide that as complete as my listing of CDs is, it doesn't include every CD out there (Borders could have been out of a certain album, or might not carry foreign CDs). So, I make a web interface to allow other people to add the information from the CDs in their collection (or that they've gained in a similar method, going to their local CD shop, and gathering information). I publicize my database on a few mailing lists, my website, Slashdot, etc... and people come to my site, and add their collections.
Pretty soon, the DB is rather large, and a lot of people are using it.
Now, Gracenote would like to say that what I've done is wrong. That people can come to my site and get CD info for free, whereas people would have to pay to get it from Gracenote.
I made mine using publically accessible information, and grew it with information from the public. Nothing in my database couldn't be obtained for free by visiting the appropriate cd store, or contacting the appropriate CD publisher.
Gracenote acquired a similar, open project, and closed it up. Does that somehow give them a monopoly on publically available information? I don't think it does.
I'd say this wouldn't hold up in court, and could EASILY be thrown out. I'd agree that it's main purpose was to damage Roxio's reputation, and possibly deplete their resources to the point that they could not stay in business. I'd even go so far as to say that Gracenote KNOWS they have no chance of winning in court - this is a rather ludicrous lawsuit.
Otherwise, disseminating publically available information for free becomes a crime.
Conceivably, it could be considered illegal for me to tell my friend the title of track 1 on a given CD - as Gracenote sells that information, and me giving it for free would be "wrong".
Complete bull.
It's our valuable intellectual property that's underlying all this."
valuable intellectual property largely built for free, by volounteers donating their time to enter track listings. Don't you get a warm fuzzy feeling adding to the CDDB?
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
So if what you say is true, Gracenote hasn't a gangrene infected legal leg to stand on.
Chris Cothrun
Curator of Chaos
Bleh!
And, yes, Gracenote does not have a chance to win this lawsuit. What they are hoping for is that the people at Roxio will back down instead of taking this to court.
- Sam
The secret to enjoying Slashdot is to realize that it should not be taken too seriously.
i'm not sure about the patent issues; they may very well be (legally, not morally) valid, but this is not copyright violation. freedb is using their own server with their own entries. if freedb were to let users query gracenote's actual entries through a freedb server, then it might be considerable under the dmca, but not as it stands.
.. At least under Canadian law. I think the US has a similar law.
Anything that involves "blood sweat and tears" can be copyrighted.
Of course, if you independently produce your own phone book, that's okay.
Long sample story:
There's a "phone book" of lawyers in Canada. I forget the names and such. The meat of the story is that 2 partners produced the "lawyer phone book". Partner A sells his 50% interest in the business to partner B. Later on, he produces an identical phone book (complete with identical errors) and sells it.
Partner B sues partner A for copyright violation. Partern A argues that you can't copyright a listing. Partner B wins the lawsuit, because assembling all those names required "substantial effort".
--
--
#include <malloc.h>
free(your.mind);
Gracenote contacts.
But do it nicely. Try not to sound like a raving lunatic.
Talking points:
Much of the data, and the interface, were at one point publicly available, so they can claim no proprietary rights.
You would be willing to support them if they offered better service than competitors, but these attacks on competitors make you have serious doubts about continuing to use their services.
Etc...
Much more likely to see a case like this brought against Samba.
http://windows.scares.us
Added gracenote dns entry pointing to freedb :) Now everyone is giving everything to freedb and nothing to gracenotes crappy DB. I sent them a note to that effect also. :)
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
I guess the DMCA makes it illegal to have
competing databases?
Grow up, CDDB people.
More than you know... In fact, the data is stored in text files, 1 file per cd, keyed on the CD ID. The file contains nothing more than the data you described. Sure it has provisions for notes and lyrics, but it's not much more than a giant cdplayer.ini in the sky. Most applications use tcd or something like that, which makes a local mirror in .cddbslave in your home directory.
You are somewhat incorrect. The CDDB.com database was a community project at one time. During that time the CDDB server and database were made available for regular mirroring. When CDDB.com went private, freeDB.org opened up using the latest unencumbered version of the DB and server. Now they have added more to theirs.
If, in fact, CDDB.com has a patent on the CDDB process, they illegally subverted prior art. You cannot patent a process which is obvious. The REASON this is obvious is because the CDDB protocol (the generation of unique ids) was part of the redbook specification. On top of that they patented a process that was already implemented in software that was released freely, not covered under patents or encumbered licenses.
CDDB.com would like for all the work that the original group did, go away. But it won't, it can't, and they don't have a way to stop it.
Also (as I've pointed out elsewhere) dosen't windows CD-Player do this? I seem to remember it storing CD Information in a ini database.
It'd be nice and ironic to use a MicroSoft product as prior art to invalidate a patent.
Actually it is in regards to a patent violation.
:)
But interestingly enough, the the patent was filed in May of 1999. In the US, you can get a patent for up to 1 year after the release of information, so they could have released all the way back to May 1998.
Wasn't CDDB published before this? Also, wasn't Windows CD player using this (they store it in an ini database I believe) before this?
It would be nice and ironic to use windows software to show prior art for a patent!
(usual disclaimer, this is just my understanding of things.. IANAL)
If it's so easy to get the information why is CDDB the only one who did the work to actually do it?
They didn't. The information in the database was submitted by users. That's why people were so upset when gracenote decided they owned copyright on the database.
0 1 - just my two bits
I think it's pretty clear that unless FreeDB actually copied the data from CDDB, mistakes and all, that Gracenote has no grounds for the data.
Or maybe Gracenote is filing suit because the wire interface for FreeDB is exactly the same as CDDB, so that all Roxio had to do was change a constant somewhere. CDDB was also trying to foist a new advanced DCOM-only interface to replace the http-based one, but nobody seems to use it. Anyway, I am pretty sure than emulating an interface or protocol is not going be enough for Gracenote to claim damages. If mere emulation is enough to let Gracenote win, it will have a chilling effect on the ability for anybody to independently provide the same service as somebody else. And that's not good for the growth and use of web services.
If the use of cddbp is in fact a problem, I would advise the FreeDB people to implement the interface to their service in terms of SOAP instead.
All your vernacular are belong to us.
Work is for people who lack the imagination to play.
Although your post was clearly meant as a lighthearted joke, this is as good a place as any to point out that Goodwins law is a piece of intellectually bankrupt deficant.
It basically boils down to this: "Let's take a widely known event with philisophical, political, and moral implications and lessons which resonate with nearly everyone who has lived any portion of their life in the 20th century, and make it off-limits to any discussion of said topics, regardless of how much light it might shed on a subject, either through direct comparison or juxtupostion."
Those who embrace the notion are IMHO idiots who can't be bothered to author even the tritest of rebuttals, or, alternatively, are those who are actively trying to engineer the entire experience of the holocaust, with all of its lessons of history, out of the public consciousness. Goodwin's Law indeed. Hrmpf.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Except, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread (and in this article) the patent was applied for several years after the source for cddb was released. Either patent shouldn't have been granted to begin with, or FreeDB doesn't infringe on it.
...
--
I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations
And I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners.
Berke Breathed
While this was happening, Escient (later called Gracenote), became more and more predatory. They require programs to not allow use of FreeDB and they've teamed with Napster to identify copyrighted tracks.
Gracenote isn't simply trying to protect their software, they trying to take back what the original CDDB developers gave. And they're trying to make money off of us poor fools who helped them populate the CDDB database.
So, I say support FreeDB and anyone who fights Gracenote.
...
--
I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations
And I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners.
Berke Breathed
I respectfully disagree - if it's just about patents, why is GraceNote bringing the DMCA into this? The DMCA is about distributing tools that circumvent access procedures to a copyrighted work. It sounds like (in addition to patent claims) they're also making the argument that a tool using freedb could be used to also access CDDB without authorization. Which it could, of course, but the whole point of freedb is to not access the CDDB, so in a sense the copyright portion of the suit is pretty frivolous.
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
I stand somewhat corrected. A version of the DB was available to people, but presumably on the grounds that they could freely make use of it. xcd was quite a while back, wasn't it? The current CDDB that GraceNote claims to have ownership of has never been publicly available for download, has it? It's not like owning the copyright to the current database automatically gives them copyright to earlier (very different) versions of the database which were distributed under considerably different terms.
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Well, the FreeDB folks have/are doing it too. And you're right, it is pretty easy - just point your CD player, xmms, etc. at freedb.org.
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
As others have pointed out more wisely than me above, it's probably not a valid patent, since it was published under the GPL prior to any sort of patent process. Shame on the USPTO for not catching this ahead of time, though.
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
So let me get this straight: You seized control of a user-generated database, locked the users out of it, forced them to create their own truly free database, and are now suing any company smart enough to realize that supporting the free alternative is a better long-term solution than being dependent on your lame system? The mind boggles.
And how exactly is freedb a derivative of CDDB? As far as I know everything's been re-entered from scratch into it; there's never been a public copy of CDDB available to have been somehow copied by the freedb folks. I'm not even touching the issue of how CDDB's collection of user-provided track info (contributed under the reasonable assumption that CDDB wouldn't do anything this asinine (Heck, a few years back I couldn't even imagine anything this asinine)) could possibly give them status to sue over the CDDB -- that way lies much teeth grinding and throwing stuff at my coworkers.
On the bright side, I've got an idea who Microsoft can acquire the next time they need to get more arrogance in-house :)
Caution: contents may be quarrelsome and meticulous!
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
- Gracenote is going around bullying people, starting lawsuits they clearly don't mean to end in anything other than an out-of-court-settlement, and claiming in press releases that freedb is an illegal copy of their product.
- However, freedb is clearly not illegal, and as yerricde has mentioned above the content from Gracenote's product is used under liscense.
- Therefore, the FreeDB project can sue Gracenote for slander/libel, as Gracenote is going around and publicly and in the press spreading lies about the freedb product as a way to scare away customers from a competitor.
Is there any reason this isn't the least bit valid? I don't really think there is.The Rambus thing earlier this week was really a revelation to me, and it should have been to most of the rest of the slashdot population, in that, hey! If a company commits fraud, you can actually sue them for fraud! You aren't limited to just sitting around and bitching on public webboards! Isn't that wierd? Why didn't that occur to any of us earlier?
Btw.. Freedb is, imho, a really stupid name.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Pick one: are you an industry standard, or are you a patent-supported monopoly? To suggest that anyone can be both, is an insult to everyone and a perversion of the definition of "standard."
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As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
I don't know from American Law but don't y'all have something called a class action lawsuit where a lot of people get together to go after someone? Perhaps there would be a case to be made for all the contributors to Gracenotes database getting a share of the profits. If nothing else, at least try to get each individual's work removed from the db and Gracenote is left with nothing...
*sing* I'm a karma whore and I'm okay....
I work all night and I post all day
In Soviet Russia, hot grits put YOU down THEIR pants.
Intel sues AMD for circumventing their ability to make money from selling x86 processors. Microsoft sues Linus T. for circumventing their licensing agreements designed to protect their OS sales... Marvel sues Penny Arcade for providing free comics that take away from their sales... Ford sues feet for providing free transportation... Phillips sues the sun for providing free light and disrupting their lightbulb sales... Et cetera Et cetera Etc...
Actually, Solaris has an x86 version, as do all of the BSD variants (FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD and BSDi). QNX is also x86, and for that matter so is BeOS, which wasn't on the original list.
I disagree. Being a monopoly is I believe, and ought to be, having control over an industry. It should not be related to market share. But in agreement, it has nothing to do with your competitors.
Having an opressively large market share does give you control over that market by definition. If you control 90% of the market, it is very difficult for anyone to break in. It leaves very little revenue for anyone else, which is probably why Linux is about the only thing that has been making any headway against Microsoft.
I strongly disagree. Microsoft cannot control any industry, despite its best efforts.
If Microsoft doesn't control their core markets, then I think that nobody has ever controlled a market and there is no such thing as a monopoly.
They tried to kill Netscape Navigator, and what happened?
Netscape had to be bought up by AOL and Sun in order to survive? Internet Exploder controls 75% of the browser market? Probably more than that on Windows, as most of the remaining Netscape users are us stubborn Linux (or other *nix) or Mac users...
NS is still in heavy use,
If only that was true.
Mozilla was created (soon to be the dominant browser)
I hope you are right about that, but as long as Microsoft can force feed Windows onto 90% of the world's desktops, and as long as they can force feed IE onto all of those desktops, then Mozilla will have a huge uphill battle, even if it beats IE in every technical area.
and Konqueror has gained ground.
I like Konqueror, but realistically, it is only for KDE users, and they aren't even a dominant fraction of the *nix user base.
Beyond that, their properitary extensions to HTML were summarily rejected by the W3C and are basically depreciated in the real world.
Whether that is true or not, and I don't think it is as true as you'd have us believe, it doesn't mean that Microsoft hasn't been very effective at using their OS monopoly to extend into the area of browsers.
Other markets, for example, the Big One (Desktop OS's). How have they affected/controlled the market?
In the way that matters at the bottom line. They ship on better than 90% of the machines.
Can you buy desktop OEM machines with more or less OS choice than ten years ago? More.
Wrong. 10 years ago you could choose things like Amiga that aren't even around anymore. 15 years ago there were dozens of alternative architectures to choose from.
They have failed to eliminate choice, and force Windows on consumers. Can OEMs choose new/alternate OS's? Yes.
Highly misleading. It is only due to governmental anti-trust actions that this is true. Prior to that, Microsoft had forced all the major PC vendors into per-processor licensing or exclusive pre-load agreements that effectively excluded them from shipping any machine with an alternative OS or even without an OS at all. Even now, it is virtually impossible to buy a machine retail without Windows, and more difficult to buy a machine by mail without Windows than it should be if Microsoft wasn't able to twist vendors arms.
I always think that if you don't like a company, or its New Speak, you shouldn't use their software.
I go out of my way to avoid Microsoft products.
Case Example: I hate Larry Elison - I think he's a pompous jack ass.
The reason I don't like Microsoft is not because I think that Bill Gates and Steve Balmer are jerks, although I think that is true... While Larry certainly wouldn't be my poster boy for niceness, Oracle as a company plays a lot nicer with the industry than Microsoft does...
Even though Oracle controls a huge majority of the database market I don't use their software.
I have used Oracle's database, and it is a good product, although it looks like we are going with a competing product for the project I am working on right now.
I use alternatives. Even though there are fewer db makers, and even though they are very popular, they aren't a monopoly.
Oracle doesn't come anywhere near 90% of the database market, and they have a lot more serious competition than Microsoft faces in the OS or office suite markets. There is Microsoft MS-SQL Server, IBM's DB2, Sybase, etc. Oracle would also be a lot more dangerous if they controlled the OS platform and development tools markets as well as the database server markets, so it is not really a fair comparison to pit Oracle against Microsoft.
They can't control an industry (change prices arbitrarily across multiple vendors, products).
Microsoft does all that, and Oracle comes pretty close.
That remains to be seen, but remember... if the original premise that MS is a monopoly is false, then everything they did was 100% legal.
Actually, they've done a lot of thing that are certainly unethical and look to be illegal even for a non-monopoly...
It all hinges on the monopoly finding.
One of the problems with the DOJ-vs-MS trial was that the DOJ did a very poor job of pushing forward all of the other dirt on MS. They kept the focus too narrow.
Bill Gates may be a bad man, MS may be a bad company who makes bad expensive closed software, BUT it still doesn't make them a monopoly in Desktop OS's
No, but pretty much by definition, 90% market share does.
How long do you think the government would let GM have a 90% share of the auto market? How long do you think they'd get away with telling dealers that they couldn't sell any competing brands? How long do you think they'd let GM tell dealers they couldn't add any customizations to their cars? Microsoft basically has done all that and worse... I think they get away with it only because the government doesn't understand the computer industry.
Crap. Missed a damned closing italic tag... :-(
Kind of like Microsoft and Linux. MS is a monopoly, until you put Linux in the picture.
:-(
Microsoft still holds monopoly positions, even with Linux in the picture. Having a monopoly doesn't mean not having any competitors at all. It means having an overwhelming market share. Microsoft has over 90% of both the desktop OS market and the office suite market. Even though there are competitors to them in both areas, they still have monopoly powers and use them in ways that are in my opinion both unethical and illegal.
Microsoft would like to redefine the word "Monopoly" in such a way as to make it such a narrow term that it doesn't apply to them, but we shouldn't let them do it. We also shouldn't let them get away with redefining "innovation" and other words the way that they do.
What it comes down to with CDDB vs freedb is that Gracenote is trying to use patent law as a way to try to get a legal monopoly and actually exclude anyone else from being able to compete with them at all. This is actually worse in some ways than what Microsoft usually does. Let's hope that Microsoft doesn't add this dirty trick to their playbook... they already have just about every other one in there...
So wouldn't CDDB be confinded to the same laws of using their monopoly to snuff the competition?
You'd certainly hope that was true... But it is starting to look like Microsoft is going to get off with little more than a slap on the wrist... not because they didn't honestly lose their case, but just because the judge said too much.
I think that if Microsoft can get away with blatant violations of anti-trust law as they aparently are going to, then I am afraid it will be like declaring it open season for every other company to start playing dirty all the time. That is a bad thing for everyone.
Shouldn't he be going after accountants for royalties? They make a living by counting beans, after all, something they owe directly to the Count.
--
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
Nope. If the loser is going to pay and you have a case with good merit, a high-priced (and presumably better) lawyer would still take Joe Schmoe's case against Big Bad CorporateCo. No matter what, SuperLawyer is going to get paid; why would he care who he is representing?
-jon
Remember Amalek.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
Would this apply to Amazon or CD now giving a list of CDs they have available for sale?
Such a list would be a freely available database much like your example.
I don't actually exist.
It is my (and your) intellectual property that underlies their database. I have inputted a couple of discs into CDDB over the years.
I propose a class action lawsuit to reclaim our IP. I reccomend we sue for five dollars per entry and whatevers left after the sharks get their cut we donate to charity. What do you think.
I looked on their website for an email address to send a revocation request to but haven't found a good one.
I submitted the data for one of their entries back when CDDB was free and I want it removed.
"The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance." -Thomas Jefferson
An Australian band called Frenzal Rhomb actually wrote a song a long time ago, which must have been based on premonitions of this very case:
You Can't Move Into My House.
Just be careful - Frenzal Rhomb are very liberal with their use of the F*** word and derivatives.
I wonder who was the poor fool that GraceNote suckered into creating the entry for that album in the CDDB.
You should look at Lexis/Nexis. They are most well known for their legal search and citation tools which use a custom indexing format to number and cite legal documents. IANAL, but from what I understand, Lexis/Nexis is the de facto standard for legal citations and that they used to charge a bloody fortune for access (it appears that their prices have dropped recently, though). (Legal folks; any comments?)
From what I understand, they've keep a stranglehold on the industry and have quickly killed off all competitors, even though logic would suggest that the US government should provide the same service for free ("What, I have to pay a 3rd party to search documents made by the US courts?!?")
-- "I am disrespectful to dirt. Can you not see that I am serious!"
It's similar to the Princeton/SDMI affair: by using the law to restrict speech, the RIAA have created a situation where it will be very easy to turn the tide of legislative and legal opinion against the DMCA.
So a few more boneheaded lawsuits like this and we stand a good chance of getting the DMCA overturned. It's a shame that in the meanwhile the people and the courts have to suffer while the lawyers get rich (note; I have no anti-lawter bias, as both my parents are lawyers).
-- "I am disrespectful to dirt. Can you not see that I am serious!"
Shopping elsewhere is now a circumvention, eh?
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
They cannot sue freedb.org, because it's a German project which means that US patent laws do NOT apply.
It appears that most of Gracenote's bitching is about the "unauthorized derivative" status of FreeDB. They're claiming that FreeDB is using data from their servers, and acting as though FreeDB were still somehow reliant on the CDDB system. Is this in any way true? I like FreeDB, but I can see Gracenote's point if there's actually a link between FreeDB and the CDDB database.
;-)
freedb.org started with the last archives of the former free cddb that've been floating aroung. As the archives have been distributed with a GPL'ed program (xmcd) chances are that those archives are under the GPL, too
With this initial database, freedb.org did never rip (or even tries to) cddb's database, freedb.org got all their entries from usersubmissions.
Kind of like Microsoft and Linux. MS is a monopoly, until you put Linux in the picture.
Not really...there's lots of other OS' and manufacturers (Sun, IBM, Be, QNX, BSD, etc). All with varying degrees of acceptance on the desktop.
Umm....ok. I've used Toast since it was in the 3.x versions (and still made by Adaptec), and I've never had any problems with it. In fact, if you can find a better cd recording program for Mac, I'd be damn suprised....
"In case of emergency, break glass. Scream. Bleed to death."
Gracenote's patent blurb is below. I'm wondering what happens if a company releases software under the GPL but then they turn around and patent the activity that the software provides. Freedb was derived in part from CDDB, but it sounds like Gracenote may have the patent on the technology. W/O paying royalties could freedb get in trouble?
--
METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR FINDING APPROXIMATE MATCHES IN DATABASE
U.S. Patent No. 6,061,680, issued May 9, 2000, relates to a method used to find title and track information in a database by calculating approximate length information based on the number and length of tracks on a recording.
I think Gracenote's sueing Roxio to give their public offering a bad start. Whether their lawsuit has merit or not doesn't matter; Roxio will forever be tainted as "that company that had legal problems," and will be worse off in the end.
What is far more interesting is that the disclosure occurred over a year before it was filed (corporate welfare might have increased this time limit in recent history), thus the patent would likely be held invalid. Gracenote is clearly hoping that Roxio will get scared and settle rather than defend.
Hey, Roxio, I don't own a Windows machine, but I'll buy a license to Easy CD Creator (retail) directly from you if you guys countersue them for fraud.
-jhp
/. -- the Free Republic of technology.
this is exactly why the bsd license sucks.
heh heh heh heh heh
;)
No, it wouldnt really be _worth_ a patent because you've obviously already thought about the idea.
The fact that you dont have the faintest clue how to go about it, or that any way you might think up would require the processing power of the entire world doesnt really prevent you from patenting the idea of 'algorithmically analyzing waveforms to determine greatest match with currently available recordings' tho. Because the USPTO would probably grant it anyway and then you can just lean back and sue when someone else does the actual work.
That is corect, (UK wise at any rate) however...
The act of compling the data into the database is protected. So, whilst Gracenote cannot stop anyone else from makeing a database with the same information in it, the can stop someone taking Gracenotes database and selling it on.
Legally, a database is more than just a collection of data. Which is fair enough, if you've spent time and money compling the DB, you don't want all that effort pinched. However, if someone else puts the effort in, you can't stop them profiting of the results.
For legal advice, see a lawyer in your own juristriction.
--
Especially if you ship across the border.
UPS hasn't got a clue.
That patent was filed in 1999 according to whats there. There is *NO* way that patent is valid, I implemented a program in Java to create the CD ID more than 3 years ago. If they published the information before 1998 they are screwed, they have 1 year after publication in the U.S. to file the patent. (in most countries the publication would invalidate the application immediately.)
Actually you're allowed to copy the phonebook in its entirety. In fact most phonebooks are just a complete rip off of the regular phonebooks. (If you don't believe me check for errors, they'll be similar. And check when you get the alternative phone books, it's always 2 or 3 months after the regular one.)
You cannot collect names otherwise. Think about it, where is a complete, public-domain copy of the list of number available? No where and the SBC's, QWests, and Verizons of the world have no interest in publishing such a thing. Feist v. Rural Telephone Service Company gave Feist permission and legal protection to COPY the other's phonebook, regardless of the others objections. There was simply nothing they could do. Since a phonebook cannot be copyrighted, there is nothing to prevent the direct copy, (minus the intro and conclusion material, which is copyrighted.) Read this to get more information.
But either way this is not an issue in this case, because both databases were generated independantly and not a copied, since CDDB did everything to prevent a copy of their free and open database from the start.
> Wow, how sloppy can you get? If you want to win an argument with someone, the first thing you have
> to do is convince them of your point of view. If they have committed
> logical or factual errors in arriving at their conclusion, it is your responsibility to point
> them out, and in addition provide reasons why they should accept your conclusion
> instead of theirs. But if all you're going to do is name a popular fallacy and say "ha! I got you,"
> you're as likely to convince them to grow wings and fly to the moon. And, you
> will lose the argument. Since you aren't even positing an argument of your own, all your
> "invocation" contributes is noise.
And if the best comparison that he can make is to the Nazis, what point has he made?
Almost every discussion on slashdot has at least one person crying "Nazi". I was simply pointing out the humor in his description of lawyers as part of a group who viciously slaughtered several million human beings.
I'll be the last person to defend lawyers, but isn't that a little unrealistic, even for a person as logical as you claim to be?
My logic isn't sloppy; I simply pointed out a falacy in the poster's assumption that lawyers are Nazis, which they aren't. They are no more Nazis than vegitarians are Nazis (through the term "Vegi-Nazi", which we have all heard).
I'm sure that there are other people who could be accused of unethical behavior before the Nazis. Godwin pointed out that to use the Nazis as an example in *anything* was tantamount to an admission of defeat, because it meant that one party had run out of ideas.
Slashdot too often cries "wolf!" (or "Nazi!" in this case).
---
"He may look like an idiot, and talk like an idiot, but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot." - Duck Soup
> it's Godwin's Law. And it was pretty darn funny, I thought. Dude, relax 'n' shit.
A voice of reason on Slashdot?
I'm amazed.
---
"He may look like an idiot, and talk like an idiot, but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot." - Duck Soup
> This is a brilliant (dumbshit) move on Gracenote's part. Why, with all the attention
> they've paid to fairness and equitable behavior in the past (screwing CDDB users), you
> can be sure that this is a case of Gracenote spending time trying to uphold a piece of
> legislation that is necessary and supports freedom, equality, and ethical behavior (for
> Nazis).
I invoke Godwin's law. You lose.
---
"He may look like an idiot, and talk like an idiot, but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot." - Duck Soup
" ...you're upset because someone's trying to make a profit off of something you made without compensating you for it? Almost like... Napster?"
No. Nobody cares that Gracenote is trying to make a profit. People care that they are restricting our freedoms. These freedoms include the right not to have a fat ugly ad cluttering up our screen, and the right to choose a different CD info provider. Any questions?
Become a FSF associate member before the low #s are used
Gracenote DID NOT spend time and effort collecting their database. It consists of entries contributed by the USERS. All they provided was the infrastructure. Roxio is not using their infrastructure OR their IP. FreeDBs database is constructed from it's own users not from CDDB.
So Gracenote doesn't have a leg to stand on.
Well, I don't think that the actual database is copyrighted... no, you can't do that, it is free to copy...
However, the algorithm for determining a CD's unique ID to store in the database (as well as look up entries in the database) is patented. I don't know how Roxio could possibly be liable for using an alternate data source and using a patented algorithm to do lookups - when previously they were using a non-copyrighted data source with the same algorithm, and they were in compliance with the law.
I do think that the algorithm should be patented, though. I just don't like the company that holds the patent. Plus, it's a de-facto standard now, so there should be some sort of compulsory licensing solution for it. Gracenote will still make money hand over fist that way, but they can't squash competition with it...
I dug up an old version (v 1.51) of the notify CD player by Mats Ljungqvist (mlt@cyberdude.com). The readme file dated 2/10/98 in this mentions that CDDB support was added in version 1.50 (the prior version).
This was certainly before May of 98, therefore proving the patent was filed too late and is completely unenforceable.
A little web digging came up with this directory at freedb.org:
http://www.freedb.org/software/old/
This leaves no question as to the invalidity of the patent. The first date mentioned is december of '96.
True, it is pretty weak and ineffective attempt to damange their reputation Roxio does a far better job damaging their own reputation...
I just don't get...if it is illegal to circumvent any arbitrary "anti-circumvention" device that somebody doesn't want you to circumvent...why the hell even have the extra law anyway? Why don't they have a law that says it is illegal to break locks, or remove a taped piece of hair from a dresser drawer. It's illegal to view this post because I ROT26ed it. You might as well rule that it is illegal to do illegal things.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Exactly. It's a topic that's so emotion-laden, that it shuts down people's higher-level thought processes as soon as they hear it.
Of course, this discussion is already stuck in never-never land, so there's little point in discussing it, but ahh well...
--
You cannot copyright a database. Their copyright will not hold up if challenged in court. Copyright is only valid for "creative works of original authorship." No logic ordering of items can be copyrighted. Databases, recipies and phonebooks are all uncopyrightable.
If you don't believe me see FEIST PUBLICATIONS, INC. v. RURAL TELEPHONE SERVICE CO., INC. The Supreme Court ruled "Alphabetical listings of names, accompanied by towns and telephone numbers, in telephone book white pages held not copyrightable; thus, nonconsensual copying of listings held not to infringe on copyright."
FIRST they disconnected my service, then on a Sunday the owner called me and chewed me out. It did sound like he thought I was reselling service (which isn't true--unless you think I was reselling service to myself). I repeatedly apologized for allegedly violating the TOS, and wanted to make it right. "How much for 'Servers OK' DSL?" I asked, "I don't know," the owner of the ISP replied.
What a load. It sounded like he didn't know what a DNS server was, and came across as a total MBA ignoramus. So I told him that I'd be happy to work with him because I wanted to keep them as my ISP (formerly MN Inter.net) because they treated me nicely in the past (read: left me alone), but that if they weren't willing to be reasonable (read: not disconnect first, ask questions later), I would be happy to find another ISP. He hung up on me.
That settled the matter, as far as I was concerned until I got the bill.
Also, if you look at their DSL prices, the price for "servers OK DSL" is $19.95/mo. I was paying $20.95/mo. That is what I referred to on my hastily written response at the bottom of their first bill.
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
Of course, they could always block port 80 by default and enable it for people paying them their protection money. It's certainly technically possible, and they had port 23 blocked for "security" purposes the tenure of my account with them so I know they're willing to do such things. If I was taxing their bandwidth or causing other "problems" by running a server, wouldn't they have discovered my server earlier? Yes. They just want my money.
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
That's the same argument my former ISP used to justify discontinuing my service when they got a letter from the MPAA and "discovered" that I was running my own webserver.
They said I was violating their terms of service, but see if you can find anything prohibiting or even mentioning servers for DSL users. The owner called me up at home and insinuated I was trying to "get away with something" by running my own server instead of paying them for hosting. So, with that twisted logic, they decided to bill me for 18 months of web hosting I didn't ask for or recieve. I called a lawyer.
Here's my documentation on the issue, and, needless to say, if you're in MN, avoid this place.
The moral of the story is because this is a capitalist country, it is a crime to avail yourself of a free service if someone is willing to charge you for it.
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
To be honest, I'd think the RIAA would have a better case than CDDB does.
After all, it's the RIAA that holds the copyright to the song titles etc.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
Wow, that was a close one for me!
While I was writing my post about how Roxio isn't trying to get access to Gracenote (the thing Gracenote does own) for free, but is trying not to access Gracenote in order to use freedb (the thing Gracenote doesn't own) instead.
I almost said "One of these things is not like the other, Dave, one of these things does not belong."
And on that note, how the fuck can Roxio be said to be circumventing Gracenote's access control mechanism under DMCA, when the whole point is not to access Gracenote at all?!?!
I really don't think the landsharks at Gracenote realize that freedb and CDDB aren't the same thing.
But if they don't know the difference, why aren't they suing freedb? (Oh yeah, it's because they can't... or maybe it's because they really don't know the difference, and think they'd be suing themselves! ;-)
No, Intel suing Compaq for selling CPUs with AMD in them.
> Microsoft sues Linus T. for circumventing their licensing agreements designed to protect their OS sales...
No, MSFT suing Slackware for giving Linux away.
> Marvel sues Penny Arcade for providing free comics that take away from their sales...
No, Marvel suing you for reading Penny Arcade.
> Ford sues feet for providing free transportation...
No, Ford suing your local shoe store for selling Nike.
> Phillips sues the sun for providing free light and disrupting their lightbulb sales...
No, Phillips suing you for installing a sunroof.
> Et cetera Etc...
Bottom line: If Gracenote asserts ownership of the database, they should be suing freedb, not Roxio.
But they can't, of course, because they don't own freedb database. They only own the Graceless database.
Unless Roxio had a contract with Graceless to use their DB, suing Roxio for switching to a competitor doesn't make sense. (And even if they did, the suit would be for breach of contract, not a DMCA charge.)
DMCA doesn't enter into it. This is a business decision, made by one company, to stop using a for-pay product, and to start using a not-for-pay product.
Technological countermeasures? What the ring-tailed-rambling fuck is Graceless smoking, and can I have some?
Prediction: Roxio asks the judge to throw it out as a frivolous lawsuit, and he does...
Fervent hope: ...but not before bitch-slapping Graceless into the next millennium with punitive damages. This suit isn't merely frivolous, it's malicious. Were I the judge, I'd do as much research as possible to see if I could also add words like "barratry", "malicious", and "RICO" into said millennial bitchslap, and I'd tell Graceless to get the fuck out of my courtroom and never come back until they'd acquired some clue, to say nothing of some manners.
Apparently, being a Gracenote customer/licensee is just like being in the Mafia... except without all the pasta. You dare leave the family and they 'sic a bloodsucker on you.
Now, what exactly is Gracenote claiming is their IP? The database data itself or the method of access? Roxio ain't got none of the former (neither does freedb.org IIRC) and the latter is what is technically known as a database string query.. which is apparently so Super-Elite-Mondo-Sekret! that we'll all contract herpes and a stutter if we dare trespass upon Gracenote's Divine Right to Screw Everyone.
Do not taunt Happy-Fun Ball
IIRC one of the most common features of early WWW sites was a page that included a database of music
usually labeled "my record album collection" or something similar. No CDs at the time, same priciple.
I love it. A company takes a database that they didn't create, resells access to it, and then complain when someone tries to create a competing product. Can we sue them for taking info that is provided by the users and reselling it without our permission?
In late breaking news today Sesame Street's Count ha filed a class action patent lawsuit against the world claiming that people from all walks of life are infringing on his works.
"While counting to one two, I teach kids how to learn to make it in life, yet these kids turned around and made programs which have made more money than I have. What happened to due process?" stated the Count.
So what's at stake here? Its simple numbers via ways of 0's and 1's combined constructed together form marvelous works earning companies millions. The Count is claiming patents on the numbers one and zero, which would give him sole ownership of the internet as we know it.
Employees of IBM, Sun, Microsoft, and other heavy hitters have released brief statements claiming to have never watched Sesame Street.
Stay Tuned
Want Root?
With lots of new CD's being produced, how long before gracenote's database will go out of date because less and less people are submitting entries.
---
If the writers of these windows apps have to pay for using gracenotes db, why won't they change to freedb ?
---
Yeah, and I hear the major grocery store chains are going to sue homeless people for going to soup kitchens to get food that everyone else has to pay for.
> Enhance your Windows Experience .. hmmm.. now how would you do this?
.. at leasts it's stable. (Haven't blue screened in months :)
Use Win2K
Now if Visual C would stop HOGGING the cpu when it's linking, I'd be happy.
Cheers
OS/2, Solaris x86, QNX, DR-DOS, SCO-UNIX, QEM, novell
...
Most have professional interfaces, and some are even user-friendly.
-Michael
I don't see how this has anything to do with Linux v.s. MS.
CDDB collected a set of information (IP) and sells access to it. They're basically getting paid for their hard work (as far as I can tell). Yes, someone can go to the record store and get that info.. But someone can also drive to a city to see what the night-life is; doesn't mean it's not useful enough for someone to pay someone else to compile that info.
Linux, on the other hand was written from the ground up, after simply looking at the functionality of other OS's, including ones that were already open.
The real question is whether the CD-informtion was stolen from CDDB; since they did, after all, spend time and money collecting it (free rider problem in economics). If not, then CDDB has no recourse. (shouldn't at least)
-Michael
-Michael
God Bless Corporate America!
-Ben
PS: Anyone else tired of this shit?
Say what you mean, mean what you say! But please know what #$@% you are talking about!
You're just fine doing everything that you mentioned above. The catch is that Gracenote holds a patent on generating a unique key for the database. The whole reason why CDDB and freeDB are so cool isn't that they have big lists of song titles it's that your album is recognised when you put it into your CD drive and the correct information is downloaded.
________________________
I don't want free as in beer. I just want free beer.
LOL - too funny =)
LRJ
With all the current FUD that's being passed around from MS saying the GPL could never be a viable business alternative.. this is a pretty ironic turn of events.
All capitalist economies are based on one sole fact: competition. Capitalism simply doesn't work without it. In essence, it's like Gracenote is saying , "Hey, no fair! They offer the same thing we do, but for free! We can't make money off that! We have to protect our [lack of] intellectual property!".
Looks like the GPL has got corporate america shaking in it's boots =).
-------------------
arcane for life
When you ask Gracenote to remove your data, don't forget to cc freedb.org and Roxio's legal department. It's likely to make an interesting submission at trial.
This has been pointed out before, but some people never get it. The mere existance of a competing product does not define whether someone has a monopoly not. What defines a monopoly is the amount of market share, and possible how difficult (b/c of practices by the monopolistic company) a new competiter would have entering the market. MS is a monopoly, even though there are many competiters (unix, linux, macos, vms, etc).
Anyway, the problem with gracenote is not whether it is a monopoly at all. It is with their belief that they 'own' the data. I don't see how they have any claim to individual records, nor do i understand how they can say the db as a whole is thiers. Even if that is possible, freedb probably don't have all the records cddb does, so how can they claim freedb is allowing access to cddbs content? I don't even know how anyone that puts together a pile of information and claim it as their own. It seems to me that if someone else can easily compile such data, no one person/company can lay claim to it.
Since the Sherman antitrust act i believe...or one of its later modifications. IIRC, the SAA was enacted around the 1930s.
They always said that he who does nothing illegal has nothing to fear from the DMCA, but now you can see that this is not true.
Hey Dave, how much did you pay for those track entries again?
The National Center for Biotechnology Information, home of Genbank and the public draft human sequence, is run by the National Institutes of Health. They're not gonna get DMCAed any time soon, especially since the participating public centers generated the data. The public sector Human Genome Project data is free for anyone to use...even Celera.
(Disclaimer: I work for one of the HGP sequencing centers.)
Wait a minute, they patented the query method? Isn't it just a little CGI? The patent office needs to have someone at a desk shredding applications for trivial, non-original patents.. wait aren't they supposed to be doing that?
:)
Well, freedb will live on, because of its openness. It is mirrored, and any word of it shutting down, I'll fscking mirror it
VOS/Interreality project: www.interreality.org
"valueable intellectual property"...
psst..
don't tell them it can be obtained by going into a cd store... shhhhh.
Or at CDNow, CDUniverse, Cheap CDs, Buy.com, Amazon.com.....
-----
"Defenestration" is to throw out of a window; what's a word for throwing 'Windows' out of something?
Besides, "their" database doesn't belong to them, they didn't even make it. WE made it, myself and everyone else who contributed to that POS. Jesus, who the fuck couldn't design a simple cddb type program and then let everyone else do the real work. The work they did isn't worth shit, the real work was done by us.
Grrrrr... stupi.. mothe.. fuc... sons of bit....!!!
Sometimes I think violence is the BEST answer to problems ; ) (disclaimer: I'm joking, please don't take that seriously)
I think a class action suit is in order for tricking thousands of users into freely contributing to what was supposedly a FREE database. Any lawyers care to comment on this?
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
The real issue - is why are they allowed to copyright their database? It's just a collection of publicly available information. It is not a creative work. If this database weren't copyrighted they wouldn't be able to use the DMCA at all.
So an example of why this is insidious... the human genome is supposed to be free for mankind to use... but what do you want to be the database that holds the information about the entire sequence will be copyrighted by someone? And anyone who tries to provide a free version will be DMCA'd to death?
Collections of facts don't qualify as expression to me. Especially just a giant list of cds. Can I copyright my grocery list? How is that different? People will pay to access a database if it provides a worthwhile service. If there is an equivalent database being maintained by volunteers, there is no utility gained by paying the commercial enterprise. And especially when the cddb began as a community volunteer effort, the company that emerged to take it over has no grounds to complain when new volunteers emerge to replace the community service that had previously existed. There was obviously community interest in this before (leading to cddb) and there is still obviously community interest - if this company failed to realize that and based their business plans on the community just abandoning the project (with no particular reason to believe this to be the case) then they deserve the ultimate Darwinian punishment.
Exactly - it would seem to me that, unless Gracenote could prove that freedb.org is violating their copyright, this lawsuit hasn't a chance to pass. So I would bet that a large portion of the suit will be trying to do exactly that - attack freedb.org as copyright infringers. They couldn't sue freedb.org directly, but they can sue someone else, and make the issue whether freedb.org infringed. It gets the case in a US court, where it is relevant, but lets a US court rule on a non-US company.
Bastards.
Any technology which is distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
Quality control? What's that?
Only thing of theirs that I installed on W2K Pro was the Windows Media Player CD burner add-on; what a nightmare that was. Didn't lose my system like some people did (nice to know they'll refund you the cost of the faulty software, right?), but it sure as shit made it unstable.
Can't speak to how (well) their half-assed software works (corrupts?) *nix installations, but let's just say that they and leprosy are, for all intents and purposes, adjacent in my prayers.
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
>something like 70% of Slashdot visitors use MSIE
I'm not going for sympathy, I'm just giving a little warning to the 70(plus)% of the people who come here and use Windows.
Also, as long as we're making cheap digs, the people who use a real OS until they dual-boot to that fake OS because they want to play some real games. Also, my sincerest sympathies go out to anyone who's in *nix 24/7 and using the web.
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
If I ever decide to go out and buy a Mac, I'll be certain to keep it in mind, seeing as how Mac seems to have problems releasing their own CD burner software.
Also, Microsoft Word for Windows 2000 is really great; does that make Microsoft Word for Mac suck any less?
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
Enhance your Windows Experience .. hmmm.. now how would you do this? Any takers?
--
Azrael - The Angel of Death
posted with: Mozilla (0.9+)
File a motion for summary dismissal of the case. The original database is GPLed and it's very explicit what you can do under that license. This is nothing more than legal harassment by a company with a very thin business model.
I wonder if I can sue Gracenote to have the songs I entered into their database removed, since I did so under the understanding that the database was GPLed, so any additions to the database after I made my entries are a derivative work....
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I entered Dimanda Galas' "Masque of the Red Death" CD and a couple of otheres I can't recall. It burns my butt to see those assholes use the fruits of my labor under a license I didn't agree to and then pull this shit too! I want my work OUT of their database! I wonder of the FSF would be willing to contribute a lawyer to this...?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
IANAL but I did work in a law office (tech guy). The reason their data base is so good is not the data it contains but the refrences it makes to other case law. If case B cites case A and is successful then case A will have a mark put in it saying that it was used a a precedent(sp?) and is more usefull. It also shows which laws and cases effectivly overturn previous ruleings. They spend a good deal of money poring trhough the documents and preparing the citations
.sigs suck, thus nothing here.
Except that they have one big problem: even if whatever you develop is indeed patentable, if you make it public *before* filing, you have only 1 year after publication to file for the patent and otherwised you hosed. This is in the US; in Europe, just the act of publication makes the invention not patentable. The patent was filed in 1999, and the "patented method" had been documented extensively in the CDDB technical documentation for years before. This is an awfully fragile patent.
One would think that the unique 'catalog number' for each CD would be available in CD-TEXT or some related format on all new music CD's...
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
It is my (and your) intellectual property that underlies their database. I have inputted a couple of discs into CDDB over the years.
As I understand it, what you entered was not your intellectual property, unless you made up names to enter. The song titles, artist names, and album names are the IP of the artist (or whoever they gave the rights to in their contract). What you contributed was work in entering this information. Very different.
And the IP they are referring to is the whole concept of getting song/artist/CD info from a central database. Not that the concept is theirs either, but that is what they are refering to.
You know, this really irks me. They (Gracenote) posted the whole spec and everything you need to write a app that would read and write from the CDDB. I even had downloaded intending to code a player in VB that used it. Now, if that was patented technology, then why were he specs on the web for all to see??? Makes no sense to me! Also, they make it sound like the paid hundreds of monkeys to put cd's in their drives and type in thousands of entries! Those monkeys were us! We did all of the work, all they did was write the DB code and documented how to write a client. Did gracenote ever release their own product using cddb?? Not the last time I checked!
Gorkman
Why are they suing Roxio? They should be suing the Free DB folks if they are infringing on the patent. The reason their are suing Roxio is that if competing GPL'd software infringes on a trademark, who do you sue?? The webpage owners? The developers? The hosting company? There's no money in suing the developers. They have none, or it would be very hard to find everyone. Roxio is an easy target who has money. Also, Gracenote kind of reminds me of Apple in this situation. Suing everyone for no apparent reason after they shot themselves in the foot. Well, I dunno if Apple shot their foot, but they still like to sue or threaten everyone who has something or uses something that even looks like theirs.
Gorkman
The key difference, though, is that not only do Gracenote and freedb work similarly, but also they rely on the same fundamental algorithm for taking the contents table on the CD and generating the 64-bit unique disc IDs which are used as keys into their respective databases. Granted, the algorithm isn't exactly rocket science, but it looks like it was Gracenote who came up with it first.
(Now, if Gracenote had only patented the algorithm... :) )
my plan
GROGGS: alive and well and living in
Oops-- and, as someone pointed out, it looks like they did. Why this should mean they want to go after Roxio about it, though, is beyond me.
my plan
GROGGS: alive and well and living in
Roxio has posted a (very brief) response to the lawsuit.
M
my plan
GROGGS: alive and well and living in
If Gracenote wins this lawsuit send them a bill for your time in adding information to and supporting the CDDB. Afterall we helped build their intellectual property shouldn't we see some compensation? Class action status would be nice.
People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot that kicks them
I recall that Microsoft's CD player would accept track names and stuff, and remember them the next time you put the CD in the drive. Does anyone know how that worked? I assume that it's pretty similar--the only difference I can think of is that since there are no bandwidth issues they didn't hash the TOC. Would this count as prior art? It certainly predates CDDB.
Monopolys are not illegal, only the abuse of power as a monopoly. Although sueing customers who choose to use a compeeting product seems like abuse to me. A monopoly in and of it's self is just fine.= \=\=\=\
=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\
=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=\=
not at unheard of as as you might think. NAFTA has made it possible for for corporations to sue entities including governments over lost (potential) profit. things in the americas are only going to get crazier if/when the FTA passes into law. corporate republic, here we come.
-- Hail Eris
You have given Gracenote a gift. They are free to do whatever they want with it. You have zero grounds to sue.
All kings is mostly rapscallions. -Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
A month or so from now: RIAA Sues gracenote for cddb use. They are using RIAA song names and artists in their database.. SO why not? Geez.. Its a sue everyone world these days.. I want my peice!
Hrm loving these
Agreed. I wrote a simple Perl script to translate the output of "cdparanoia -vsQ" into a CDDB-acceptable email submission template, and discovered the same limitations.
In addition to the above, I would make one fundamental change: send complete track timing information, instead of simply making a hash of it.
An algorithm could be as follows: Send a series of 32-bit integers, each representing timing information (the offset, in frames, from the start of the leadin track). Send the timing of Track 1, followed by Track 2, and so on. Send the timing of the leadout after the final track, so the length of the final track won't be lost.
This would give exact timing information, eliminating the many hash collisions that exist in CDDB. For a 99-track CD, the total data would only be around 400 bytes or so -- small enough to fit in a single packet! And this would help render Gracenote's silly hashing patent irrelevant.
Super eurobeat from Avex and Konami unite in your DANCE!
Dr. Demento On The 'Net!
My dad is an EE and has a few patents to his name, and we got into a discussion about the patent system. (He thinks its the screwiest thing on the planet too) But he explained how it works and I was ready to bomb it off the face of the earth. Not only do they NOT have a guy whose job it is to shred the stupid patents that come in. The patent engineers' performance ratings are based on how many patents they APPROVE!!! Additionally the salaries there are dick, so anybody with 1mw of brainwaves is going to find a real job.
The end result? An office of monkeys that stamp 'APPROVED' on anything that crosses their desk. Investigating a patent application, or doing ANYTHING other than just approving it on sight would lower their performance review.
I love America, but some days its pretty disgraceful to be American. (Like oh...every day Dubya opens his fucking mouth!!)
------
"Godwin's Law" has been misinterpreted by the masses to man "You can't make a comparison to Hitler or Nazis or you lose", when it actually says "By the time somebody's pissed off enough to make a comparison to Hitler or Nazis, a rational debate has degenerated to name-calling." Not that you're wrong about the above poster misinvoking it, but I don't think it's "Intellectually Bankrupt" either.
--Fesh
--Fesh
Kill -9 'em all, let root@localhost sort 'em out.
People shared files, thereby providing napster with free content. Napster planned to make a profit, through subscription fees or advertising. I see no difference, please illuminate me.
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
If one expects to be compensated for recording a song, but not for typing in cddb entries, then that makes Napster even more objectionable, not less.
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
Sorry, thanks for playing though. Napster is a corporation too.
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
...you're upset because someone's trying to make a profit off of something you made without compensating you for it? Almost like... Napster?
The only "intuitive" interface is the nipple. After that, it's all learned.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
If they win, I bet M$ tries to use this argument against linux..
Need a website host? Try out http://WebQualityHost.net
Back when I was one of the early users of CDDB it wasn't uncommon at all for me to be the first user to play a specific CD. I recall that on a few of the entries I submitted, I did put a message in the notes stating that I held the copyright on that particular entry.
Maybe McdoDonald can sue me when I enter in a Mcdonald and decide to go in a Burger King after...? uh?
Btw, what's up with Delphion moving to a non-Free service?
Delphion will be adding new services and charging at least $75 per month (out of consumer price range) per user. The U.S. patent collection will remain available for free under a New York Times-style deal, although it will probably be more complex than simply $url =~ s/www/archive/
Will I retire or break 10K?
Delphion is effectively dead for casual use; long live USPTO. Here's a link to the patent on a .gov site.
Will I retire or break 10K?
That said, it seems to me that this case hinges on CDDB proving that freedb have simply copied their database.
The CDDB database was originally released under the GNU General Public License. The FreeDB people originally seeded FreeDB with a snapshot of CDDB from back when it was under the GPL. Because there is no language in the GPL allowing an author to revoke it unilaterally, FreeDB is in the clear copyright-wise.
Of course, nothing you see on Slashdot is legal advice.Will I retire or break 10K?
The lawsuit claims that Roxio is infringing on Gracenote's patents
Any conforming implementation of the CDDB protocol will infringe Gracenote's patent on hashing a CD's table of contents. Look at U.S. Patent 6,061,680 and foreign counterparts. (N.B.: Legalese 'record' != vinyl. 'Record' is short for 'phonorecord,' a copy of a sound recording.) This patent is on shaky ground, as it was filed in July 16, 1999, when a working CDDB system (i.e. prior art) was presumably already in wide public use.
Will I retire or break 10K?
http://www.gracenote.com/retail.html Send email to their retailers and affiliates telling them that you don't like whats being done. The best way to change someones mind is to hit them with a bigger stick than they can hit you with!
This is really odd! Adaptec owns Gracenote, Roxin is a spin off company of Adaptec. Adaptec shareholders are the ones who will be given stock in Roxin. Is it me or is this a lose/lose situation for Adaptec, or did someone high up Adaptec/Gracenote get left out of the spin off deal and is piss off because of it?
From the Press release:
"Gracenote (formerly CDDB®), a content delivery platform provider specializing in music recognition services, today announced a lawsuit against Roxio, Inc., at present, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Adaptec, Inc."
Mike Glenn
Sounds to me that gracenote is upset that somebody is using a competeing product. IF they do happen to go threw with this case and if gracenote wins. It should be a slap in the face to lawmakers to realy look closely at the DMCA. if it can be used to stiffle competition by either legal means, or threat of legal action something needs to change.
who sez death can't be funny....www.endlesssorrow.com
Adaptec doesn't have any mention of it on their website either. No mention of Gracenote in their PR database.
Gotta admit though - That would be pretty damn useful. How often have you wondered "What the hell is that tune?"?
Surely even if they do find duplicated errors they then have to prove that freedb.org didn't get them from the same user who entered the CDDB entry? I know if I had any locally stored entries that I'd fired at the CDDB I'd now send them to freedb as well.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
As far as I can see, this is a remarkably creative way of twisting the DMCA. Seems to me that they've taken the phrase "circumvent an Access Control System", as applied to cddbp, and extended it (from the obvious meaning of getting data from GraceNote over cddbp without paying a licence fee) to include the meaning "use an Access Control System to gain access to something other than what it originally accessed"
I like reductio ad absurdum. So, let's say ABC corp (gracenote) has a website to which I (roxio) have an account accessed by username and password submitted via an HTML form (cddp protocol). Now let's say I go to XYZ corp's (freedb's) site and create an account there using the same UID and pw as I use at ABC corp. Have I now "circumvented ABC corp's access control mechanism" by using that same mechanism (UID/pw, cddbp, take your pick) to access XYZ corp? Can I circumvent an access control system without ever attempting to access the controlled resource?
It sure looks that way to me...
TomV
The world won't end in darkness, it'll end in family fun, with Coca-cola clouds behind a Big Mac sun.
Why is everyone pointing out the problems in their lawsuit? Everyone here agrees, it's idiotic. But you're all writing these long carefully drawn up logical arguments against a bunch of lawyers who aren't even going to read them.
--
And . . . there's something to be said for brevity.
Another major part of this issue is the claim of breach of contract. That one may be valid, depending on what kind of contract Roxio had signed. I agree completely that this is a really crappy situation, but Roxio might have a little more leverage than we think.
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
Roxio is trying to get for free what other people pay for....said Dave Marglin, general counsel for Berkeley, Calif.-based Gracenote
OK, there's several ways I could go here, so I'll just list them all and let you all decide:
1. Yeah! Shame on Roxio for having the business sense to use publicly available material to get an advantage over others! That's un-American!
2. Translation: Someone has discovered that our entire business is based on publicly available information that anyone with enough time and resources could obtain and organize. Our best hope to defuse this situation is to desperately attempt to associate this with Napster as much as possible.
3. Competition? What, me worry?
I wouldn't buy it until they have certain *ahem* issues worked out with their Win2k version of their CD burning software.
--
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
I'm pretty sure those God-fearing folk at Gracenote only did it to protect the children and the American Way! After all, we all know that Roxio is just a Lord's name spelled backwards and then encrypted using some Chinese satanic rituals.
-----
Roxio believes that this lawsuit is baseless and without merit and will take whatever actions are necessary to vigorously defend itself. Damn, Roxio sounds like a typical Slashdot poster.
Even if it is only in it for the profit, it is nice to Roxio sticking it CDDB. I have hated those bastards after they closed off their list of songs. I know that I submitted some of them believing that they would be available to other people who typed them in as well. If anyone from Gracenote is listening, go to hell.
~~ What's stopping you?
I don't even own a machine that can use Roxio's product, but I'm buying a copy just to support their use of freedb.org.
Yeah, we really need to support Roxio and freedb.org on this one. I have never used a Roxio product, so I can't speak directly about them(but I have heard only good things from other people). I have been using freedb.org since I heard about it. The site is really great, and very open. This information should stay free to everyone.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
I hope that the free services have fixed that problem...
I was wanting to write a Java client to their CDDB. Well, they made this impossible in MULTIPLE ways. First, in order to get a look at their API (just the documentation, not even the libraries!) I needed to sign a *16-page* document that enjoined me to do all sorts of ridiculous things like never switch to a competitor's product.
Now, their original interface, CDDB-1, was a simple and reasonable socket interface. Even though all the clients I'd seen were using their CDDB-1 API, they would not allow documentation for this out under any circumstances, instead forcing new users to use CDDB-2, a DCOM(!) interface.
When I asked them how I was supposed to use this DCOM interface from Java and my Linux Cobalt server, they said I should be using a professional server (which I took to mean Windows) to do my work. When I indicated that I wasn't going to migrate to a Windows server, could I please see the CDDB-1 documentation, they ceased to reply to me.
I was completely disgusted with them and can't imagine ever doing business with such people.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
IANAPL but I have had patent lawyers _attempt_ to explain this to me. I could have got it completely wrong :-)
(This is changing/might have changed)
In the US a patent application cannot be challenged by a third party until it is granted. The patent office itself can reject the application etc.
Once the patent is granted it is then fair game for challenge _BUT_ the courts will assume that the patent is fair and valid unless the challenger proves otherwise.
Here in the UK interested parties can object to the patent office about a patent before it is granted. I have no idea quite what happens if someone does challenge.
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
No problems here, and running on Win2k. I haven't installed their latest 5.01s update though, but it has been fine with both 5.0 and 5.01.
Why not just sue everyone?
If a local newspaper covers the same article that a national newspaper covers, then they are violating their rights to cover a story.
Corel, the KOffice team, etc, are restricting Microsoft's office-suite market, therefore Microsoft should sue them.
My car doesn't last 1000 years without needing to be refueled and serviced, so I should sue the manufacturer for selling defective parts.
We should sue the weather news people for bringing bad weather upon us.
And most of all...
We should sue our parents for bringing us into this godforsaken place.
Follow the leader?
Back in 1975 Bill Gates yelled "Piracy" and look where that got him.
TIME Magizine even had a cover story on it "The Great Software Flap".
Those who had paid for Bill's BASIC became distrustfull and those who
hadn't, rationalized what they had done as they got their employers to
buy it.
I always thought in doing so, Bill smashed a natural evolution of software
development directions. But as Mother Nature and Father Physics are, for
every action there is an opposite and equal reaction.
And that's what this is all about. Like someone above said of 2001 being
the suing year.
Problem is, things are not what they were back then, yelling foul doesn't
work very well anymore. Even Bill Knows this, otherwise he would be suing
many for using his business method.
How many other cases even outside of CD databases, are going on in this
spirit? Anyone got an actual count?
Consumer Choice!!!!!!!
.
3 S.E.A.S - Virtual Interaction Configuration (VIC) - VISION OF VISIONS!
If the information was compiled cleanly, filled from the same objects (CDs) and maybe put into both databases by exactly the same people, access to the one should not be denied by the other. Just because they look the same doesn't mean that the one with more $$$ has the right to impose its will over the other; the cddb protocol is open and the same in both, but the backend may be totally different! The access is completely open, owned by the public domain, so how can one lay claim over the other by something they don't even own?
You can't make your buses with four wheels because we do and you haven't licensed the design from us, even if you make it a totally different way. If you make it with five, you're violating DMCA. Recent software patent claims and law suit accusations are as broad as that statement. I understand that someone wants that extra royalty payment, but they need to begin looking at specifics. The problem is that when something is done in software and wants to lay claim to a patent, they don't want to disclos exactly how it's done for fear that someone will copy it and no one will be able to tell because most of the work is in the backend that is not seen behind the button you click.
DCMA seems to be a good way to make the first folks who figure something out lay broad claim in order to gain perpetual licensees, rather than specific defined claim as you would in a mechanical patent. It also sounds like a good way to stifle American
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
"Free flow of information is the only safeguard against tyranny. The once-chained people who's leaders at last lose their grip on information will soon burst with freedom and vitality, but the free nation gradually constricting its grip on public discourse has begun its rapid slide into despotism. Beware he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master." - Unknown
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
So the idea in business is now that a company cannot find a better way to do business because you might put someone out of work? That's crazy. Following that logic, if someone had been paying for telephone directories, they would not be allowed to use a free yellow pages CD.
Sorry, Gracenote, but everyone was using CDDB for free for the longest time and now that people want to streamline their business by not having to deal with your payments, you get upset? I really cannot find a shred of pity for Gracenote. I hope they evaporate like so many other Internet service companies that wanted to be paid for not really providing a service.
This whole invocation of the DMCA is garbage! If you look at anything in the world, one thing is a circumvention of another. Is the horse and buggy industry supposed to receive compensation from car manufacturers or taxi drivers because they have circumvented their technology to find a better way of doing things? Is Bantam books going to sue the Gutenburg Project because their free database of books impacts sales of their classics even in the tiniest of ways?
Do they not realise that the free flow of information is what made the Internet the awesome tool that it is and that by trying to take that away they are negatively impacting themselves in the long run?
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
If the value of Gracenote depends on the accuracy of their information, what would happen if people started submitting bogus data?
Java is the blue pill
Choose the red pill
Just wondering, but are not open letters generally in some sort of form such that users (read - readers) may be able to respond to the letter after they finish reading it, constituting the "openness" of the letter? The Gracenote letter not only just tried to explain their marketing team rather than state their arguments for suing a presumably quite large client, but also just shoves FUD up the reader's rear end. Just Wondering.....
I hate sigs...
from the article: In the version of its software released since the licensing agreement expired, Roxio directs users to an alternative music recognition database
On their site http://www.roxio.com/en/support/ they announce that also adaptec easy cd recorder 4 will be updatet to use freebd.
According to Gracenote, "It's our valuable intellectual property that's underlying all this." I beg to differ.
It is my (and your) intellectual property that underlies their database. I have inputted a couple of discs into CDDB over the years.
I propose a class action lawsuit to reclaim our IP. I reccomend we sue for five dollars per entry and whatevers left after the sharks get their cut we donate to charity. What do you think.
If we win the database, we could give it to Freedb.org , free and clear.
âoeWho knew something as harmless as willful ignorance could end up having real consequences?â
i swear, if one more company promises to enhance my: 1. musical experience 2. shopping experience 3. dining experience I am gonna get me a gun and enhance their salvation experience.
I haven't uploaded any data to CDDB yet, nor do I plan to given this debacle; but I would gladly give $20 to a legal defense fund that would pay for such a lawsuit. Gracenote is being ridiculous and should be forced to pay for this behavior.
sulli
RTFJ.
That what I said when they asked me how that fresh QP could possibly be for personal use.
Eloi are stupid, throw morlocks at them!
Who the hell needs help implementing CDDB client access ? Almost every damned CD player developed in the last 3 years has had some form of CDDB query functionality. Roxio probably didn't deal with Gracenote at all on this thing, else we would have heard about it much sooner. It seems like one of Gracenote's execs just happened to leech CD Creator off the newsgroups and found out it was using FreeDB at that point.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
But Gracenote makes me want to vomit. If ever there was an internet industry company that deserves to go out of business, it's them.
Who's running the ship over there?
The article, and supporting material, implies that gracenote are simply sueing because Roxio are using a free competitor. Thats not entirely the case. Freedb have in effect written their own version of cddb with the same interfaces, and Roxio are using their existing technology to access freedb. As Roxio presumably developed the interface to cddb with the of Gracenote and then switched, Gracenote's effort has not been rewarded.
(This is as I understand it. I might be wrong.)
http://twitter.com/onion2k
I don't think that even this would suffice. The data in CDDB is submitted freely by people from outside. Gracenote would have to prove that the data has been taken directly from their database and entered into freedb. How could they distinguish between this for instance and data which had been submitted to both freedb and Gracenote?
"I wonder what grounds they have for making this a copyright case"
I believe that under US law the database itself can be considered intellectual property even when the data in the database is not. As Gracenote is unlikely to have signed copyright waivers from the original authors of their data (that is the people who submitted the data) this must be what they are pursing.
I think that this is the key to the whole thing. Gracenote are pursuing this against Roxie because the latter are in the US. I don't know where freedb is, but the mirrors are definately not all in the US. Under other legal systems I don't think that Gracenote would have a leg to stand on against freedb, even though if they have stolen data from Gracenote they would be the logical people against which to pursue a claim.
Phil
....Let's tangle with Adaptec (whom I believe Roxio is a subsidiary of), what are they, only the 5th or 6th largest PC house in the world....these guys are going to loose their collective asses.....
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
I wish I hadn't wasted my mod points a little while ago...oh well
+1 funny
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
I never agreed to anything....I put the CD in to rip, a little box came up that said "This CD is not in the database. Would you like to add it now" (or something to that effect). And I put the tracks in manually. No agreement, no terms, no nothing....
Jaysyn
There is a war going on for your mind.
Same theory here: Gracenote is selling a *Service* - you pay them and they manage a list of publicly available information for you. If you'd prefer, you can spend your own time and money putting together your own version of CDDB and no one can stop you. Gracenote does not actually own the Album and track titles that it dishes out. It only owns the service that it provides to companies who pay for it.
In this particular case, someone else has entered the market and has decided to do the work of gathering the same info that Gracenote gathers. Much in the same way that (here in NYC) Yellowbook gathers telephone info to publish their own phonebook, even though Verizon publishes one that looks very, very similar. Much in the way Oxford gathers their information to publish a dictionary that looks very similar to Webster's.
Sorry Gracenote. You're just bitter.
Not only that, there was many CD-players even in the DOS-era that recognized individual CDs as they were inserted.
And also whether CDDB actually owned the data in the first place. Wasn't this created by the users?
Thats a good one. Can I pinch it for my sig?
"Enhance the music listening experience"!? I think that they deserve to have all their IP revoked immediately for using a phrase like that.
Millions of people go to public libraries and borrow books - in fact sometimes people who work for corporations go to public libraries and use their information resources to make profit generating business decisions. But you don't see publishers suing them (well not yet) for not having bought our books and having used free alternatives.
CDDB was created out of the labour of a lot of contributors doing "data entry" of almost all the information. Gracenote seems to contend that the collection of song titles and release titles (not the actual songs and albums themselves) are some kind of "intellectual property".
Are we to the point where there are lawyers and business people who believe that even the information about the **existence** of a product is part of the product?? Perhaps Gracenote needs to rethink it's idiotic licensing scheme instead of suing companies for using alternative sources of **information**.
What about our own names? Are they "intellectual property"? If so then do I get to decide who gets to call me by my name and who has to refer to me using a number or symbol? I'd be sure to pick something unpronounceable like the artist formerly know as Prince once did and reserve it for use of silly greedy corporations.
You might want to hold off on a purchase of Roxio's Easy CD 5 if you're using Windows2000, at least while they iron out some rather serious problems with specific hardware set ups. From TheRegister:
Stop! Don't install Easy CD Creator 5 til you read this story
Easy CD Creator saga continues
Roxio replies over Easy CD Creator problems
troodon.net
Sue everyone using Linux with WinE because it circumvents their technological measures to make Windows applications only run on the Windows line of OSes??
This is getting really lame. 2001 is turning out to be the sue-fest year. I'm already sick of it. DMCA needs to be destroyed as unconstitutional and redone by technologically inclined people.
Having lawyers make laws for technology use is like having my grandmother write her own operating system. Sure, with enough time and effort it will happen, but would it really be any good?
What exactly have they patented?
US Patent 6,061,680.
As I understand it (IANAPL), they've patented not only the server-end approximate matching algorithm (which I think is fair enough to patent), but they've patented the way a 'CD ID' is generated by the CD client and sent to the server in order for it to do the search.
This could be replaced with the client simply sending the CD track lengths to the server, rather than combining them at the client end using a patented ID generation algorithm.
Does my bum look big in this?
They can't claim that the database freedb uses is theirs, it was GPLed, and freedb's database is built only with GPLed entries.
They're damn right about their patents, though. I think freedb should offer a client query method that isn't patented, in addition to the patented method. Therefore, those client authors who don't want Gracenote on their backs can be relieved. Eventually, I'd like to see freedb drop all patented-cddb-request support from their server. We don't actually need it, and it only serves to give gracenote a stick to beat us with.
Does my bum look big in this?
Okay, buying and using Roxio's software and freedb.org is a start. What about a legal defense fund to help Roxio beat Gracenote? I would give a modest sum to help win this case, especially if it was tax-deductible through some organization such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation. If some illustrious reader would post that information here, I would appreciate it.
Sometimes I worry that I'll develop Alzheimer's disease, but no one will notice.
Sometimes I worry that I'll develop Alzheimer's disease, but no one will notice.
I am pleased to announce my patenting of an encryption method of music whereby without my specifically licensed decryption device, you can not legally listen to this music. All owners of this decryption device must pay me $10.00 per year per device to continue to use the device.
This decryption device, which we call a "LoudSpeaker(tm)", is a device we have invented and pantented to afford us the maximum return on our Intellectual Property investments.
Any individual caught using an unlicensed "LoudSpeaker(tm)" will be sued into non-existance thanks to the anti-circumvention clause of the DMCA.
I would like to thank the MPAA for spending it's hard earned money to buy a law as strong as the DMCA. Without money like they have, this wonderful law could not exist and we would have no effective business plan. Only in America can one buy a law like this!
Ron Gage - Westland, MI
I always wondered where people who got their degrees in buisiness management from late night TV commercials would end up working, now I know.
If Godzilla did not exist, man would have had to create him.
I've been toying with the idea of mass updating all my CDs to gracenote with all incorrect information, any thoughts on this strategy?
this is getting old and so are you
blog
This is a brilliant (dumbshit) move on Gracenote's part. Why, with all the attention they've paid to fairness and equitable behavior in the past (screwing CDDB users), you can be sure that this is a case of Gracenote spending time trying to uphold a piece of legislation that is necessary and supports freedom, equality, and ethical behavior (for Nazis).
I hope that the judge looks long and hard at the DMCA to see how it supports Gracenote's claims(unconstitutional), and tells Roxio what they can go do with themselves (Win a big fat cash settlement for legal fees) when he announces his decision at the outcome of the trial (Gracenote is a bunch of theiving pricks).
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
I recently had occasion to discover the many, many different artists that have recorded 'He ain't heavy, he's my brother' (I can tell you that there are over 25 -- including the ever-popular pan flute artists). Well, gracenote lists a max of 200 hits. Not enough to get to the more obscure artists because there are so many listed by the popular artists such as the Hollies, etc. I e-mailed gracenote to ask how I could get the complete list of search hits. I wish I had saved their response, but almost word-for-word, they said, "We've had to change our search return rules because mean people [yes! that's correct, MEAN PEOPLE!] have tried to steal our complete database by searching on a single letter" I responded that I thought THEIR database was wholely contributed by the people and not compiled by gracenote. Needless to say, I never got a response.
dada
from the article-
There are 1,800 commercial licensees of ours who pay to access our database, including AOL, RealNetworks and MusicMatch," said Dave Marglin, general counsel for Berkeley, Calif.-based Gracenote. "Roxio is trying to get for free what other people pay for. It's our valuable intellectual property that's underlying all this.
-
As far as I can figure, The format of Artist/Album/Track has been around a lot longer then Gracenote, and the keeping of records of what albums/tracks, etc belong to what artist has been around longer then computers. As far as I know also, keeping a database of information on anything is also legal.
The article also says that Roxio's contract expired legaly.
Even as grey of a term as 'intellectual property' is, how does Gracenote say that they have any rights to any of the formats/information/etc of freedb?
the phrase "Roxio is trying to get for free what other people pay for." I think sums it up. Gracenote is worried that if other companies get wind of a free and legal alternative to thier service, that they will go out of business.
and even if FreeDB did somehow violate intprop laws, why is gracenote suing roxio? shouldnt they be suing FreeDB?
I hope this case gets laughed out of court like it should.
RA7
-
"Consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds" - RWE
so what excatly has Roxio done? The article says "breach of contract, patent infringement, trademark infringement and other violations of Federal law. The lawsuit claims that Roxio is infringing on Gracenote's patents by illegally inducing the use of Gracenote's industry acclaimed patented music recognition inventions" I checked out both web sites but couldn't find any other info.... Are they saying the Roxio is using the Gracenote's software or similar software? ARG! Ah well, if anyone has any other links about this, plz post!
I notice that both gracenotesucks.com and cddbsucks.com are available. Any takers?
AC wrote:
"You guys all have your panties in a knot because someone is trying to make some money?! Geezuz. Welcome to capatalist America you wusses. Get the hell out of here if you don't like it!"
What is capitalist about granting Gracenote the ability to be a monopoly? To extend contract law to the point that contracts NEVER expire? To set a precedent that you can't switch to using a compeditor's product after using one companies?
If you ask me, that sound a lot more like a state run COMMUNIST economy than capitalism... What does it matter, State endorsed corporate monopolies are no better, no more efficient, and no more beneficial to the consumer than a communist state monopoly...
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
This suit completely defies logic and reason. According to the story, the contract has expired, which is why Roxio decided to go with freeDB.
A victory by Gracenote would have a chilling effect on business... The precedent set would be this: Once you sign a contract with some company for a license/service, et, it lasts FOREVER... you can't get the service from the best priced (free) alternative.
Hopefully, this case will go for Gracenote like the Infineon case went for RAMBUS, the convicted fradulent IP lawfirm, they open a can of worms and end up THEMSELVES being penalized.
Far too many bad lawsuits are being filed by companies looking to get rich, or prevent competition on the back of the legal system. That in and of itself is completely contrary to the intent of the civil legal system, which is to settle disputes between parties on the perponderance of the evidence and the law.
There need to be harsh penalties, and harsh consequences for filing such suits, which are in effect, little different from blatantly illegal acts such as extortion, fraud, slander, etc.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
Ok, let me just get this straight. In the version of its software released since the licensing agreement expired [April 22], Roxio directs users to an alternative music recognition database operated by an open-source group called Freedb.org, which Gracenote says illegally uses its database technology. So ... Gracenote is sueing Roxio for changing THEIR software, that THEY wrote, to use a different service provider, on the grounds that it was based on their 'Technology' (ie. Spec) which is openly available to anyone that wants it.
Well we really shouldn't be supprised should we?
Only thing i'm really scared about is that if this actually works, we might all end up using MSN because our nice windows o/s was written by microsoft and it would be illegal to use THEIR technology to use a ISP that they don't endorse.
Ok so where do we go bitch? hm ... no forum on CDDB, how odd! Oh here we are, a nice little email address
One last thought ... don't the music labels technically own the copyright to the song titles as well as the songs themselves? So should the RIAA be sueing Gracenote for maintaining and dissiminating a collection of copyrighted information to a user base?
nuff said
**AA: a bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes
Probably around the same time the sun burns out unfortunately. Most people use Windows boxes and whatever they come with, or whatever is most popular. Most of these applications probably default to Gracenotes. Remember that for every linux user there are about 9 to 9.5 Windows users, probably more since many people dual boot or just have linux installed out of curiousity.
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
If the licensing costs are small relative to your profits on the product and if your expected financial outcome for a law suit is negative enough you choose to use Gracenotes. Roxio so far assumes that the expected financial outcome (probability of being sued multiplied by the financial outcome of the lawsuit) is close enough to zero to risk it. Other companies don't feel that way. Free (unencumbered) software authors can use different metrics since they aren't responsible to share holders or employees.
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
I don't even own a machine that can use Roxio's product, but I'm buying a copy just to support their use of freedb.org.
Chris Kuivenhoven is a thief, beware
Do you want to have to enter all the track names and other info about a CD each time you rip it to MP3 or copy a song off it to burn to a CD? That's what's good about CDDB and freedb, it enters it automatically.
An API for acessing the database? How can that be patenable?
Actually, bringing up MS is interesting in that MS is using AMG (AllMusic Guide) nowadays, and no longer using CDDB. Is MS the next to get sued? Would Roxio be able to use AMG as well and possibly avoid legal issues that way? I think there's some interesting questions here beyond CDDB vs freeDB...
Um, I Knew this happened a while back, but how exactly did the CDDB get taken over by the money hungry dolts at Gracenote? Did they sell out? Did they drink from the same kool-aid vat as rambus?
I know its a little off topic, but can someone give me a url or info?
Thanks!!!!!
Alright, I searched around. And when i did, i found this tidbit:
CDDB will continue to be a FREE service for users worldwide. It is our intent extensively broaden the utility and the content of the database.
We have an "officially-supported" players program in order to insure full CDDB compatibility. Additionally, we are working on a next generation SDK for CD Player developers that will also be free and will provide access to next generation CDDB functionality.
Please feel free to contact us directly if we can answer any additional questions or concerns.
Best regards, jk
Jim Kinney
Vice President, General Manager
CDDB, Inc., an Internet enterprise of Escient, LLC
I guess this should be a lesson. Never trust corporations. They have one goal: MONEY. Yes thats why there in business so Its no suprise, but any time you see a big company buy an open or free project/small company, dont believe everything they say.
One campaign being run by adbusters is called the corporate crackdown. My personal favorite bit is the Charter Revocation Notice. Without a charter, a corporation ceases to exist as an entity. I'm not really sure what happens after that, but at the very least that corporation can no longer do any form of business. Perhaps sending charter revocation emails to gracenote and the california attorney general describing this insane lawsuit might get some notice. In principal a corporation exists because the people, through the government, have given it permission to exist. Prior to the 1886 Supreme Court case Sante Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad, corporations had a limited list of activities they could engage in and a limited life span. After that court case the corporations have increasingly utilized their hordes of lawers and large financial resources to solidify their power base in our government and get ever more legislative benifits for them passed. One of several possible ways to reclaim power for the people instead of the "corporate republic" is to reclaim the power of life and death over corporations. Though needless to say revoking charter is really difficult at this point. A group has been working on taking out philip morris for some time. Petition to revoke Philip Morris' corporate charter in the state of New York. diane
Not only do they redistribute information on other peoples work, but who are they to "authorize" a system to distribute publically available information? Do they feel they have somehow gained the title of supreme dictator for life of CD archiving? They have not control over this...
The major problems:
- Genre is treated as part of the primary key for each lookup. Genre should be an attribute of a CD, and not a key item. (Not to mention the limited list of accepted genres).
- Only one CD allowed for each discid/genre. Since the discid is not guaranteed to be unique, this is obviously a bogus restriction. This is fine for small collections, but as the number of CDs indexed grows, the likelyhood of a collision increases.
- Screwed-up submit/update/delete semantics. The same process is used to submit and update CDs to the index -- except for submit, you have to increment the entry revision. The cleaner solution is to use seperate mechanisms for submit and update -- there's a reason that UPDATE and INSERT in SQL are seperate.
- The database itself is file-based -- *very* non-portable (ever try to unpack 150000+ files into a VFAT filesystem?). Gracenote itself apparently switched to a relational database a long time ago, because they have been "poisoning" the entries sent back to clients with invalid track offsets.
I could go on, but there's not to much point in beating a dead horse.I'd urge all of you to immediately switch all of your applications to use freedb instead. And for the developer types among you, volunteer to help. -Andy Key
BEGIN CRAP
:)
This is not meant to be an insult, but legal texts like the one you quoted make my brain hurt for some reason.
Also, I do not know what IANAL means but if you hit the [Space] button in the right location you get:
I ANAL
I think somebody, somewhere should have thought about their abbreviaton a little harder.
END CRAP
Along a more serious note I do not see how their patent can give them the right to patent the act of setting up a CD information data base. They can patent methods, algorithms, hardware and so on to implement such a data base. But the concept of a CD information data base is unpatentable. As long as some competitor does not use their patented methods, algorithms, hardware and so on to implement his CD data base there is squat they can do to stop him other than playing dirty pool.
Also if they develop a protocol under GPL they can not sue someone else for using it unless that organization violates the terms of the GPL liscense.
As for the trade mark infringement, that wold seem to work like this.
1) Develop a protocol and releas it under GPL for every one to use.
2) Watch with pleasure as your protocol is widely accepted because it is free.
3) Register the name of your protocol as a trademark.
4) Use trademark infringement law suits to terrorize anyone who gets uppedy and starts to threaten your market share.
Allmost Microsoftish. First register as a trademark the name of a free protocol and then sue people for using its name in documentation and for writing competative interface software that uses this protocol.
I think they have missed the whole point of GPL.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
They are being sued for:
"...breach of contract, patent infringement, trademark infringement and other violations of Federal law"
Breach of contract? Maybe, if they were daft enaugh to sign a contract that required them to use no other database than CDDB to get access to CDDB in the first place then yes they are in breach of contract if they switch whilst still bound to the contract with Gracenote.
Tademark enfringement? How does FreeDB infringe upon Gracenotes CDDB? Is FreeDB also a trademark of Gracenote's? Im lost on this one. Explain it to me I'm just a little brain struggling to understand.
Patent infringement? Little brain still not understand!! Big guru explain please!!! If I set up a data base of say DVD's that does much the same as CDDB and FreeDB do for CD's, lets call it DVDDB. A database of actors, directors, filmcrew, plot, Maltin rating and so on of all sorts of movies. Gracenote can sue me out of buisness because they have patented the act of setting up a database of digital entertainment media?
I was under the impression that I can only patent a method to implement a DVD/CD Database. That patent does not not give me the right to sue anyone who also sets up a database unless that person uses the same method to do it as I have patented. And does it without permission. If that was the case whoever was the first to invent a can opener should have the market cornered because everybody else who invented a can opener was infringing on his patent. You can only patent a method to open cans not the act of opening a can.
Did little brain misunderstand?? Please be kind. Do not hurt little brains feelings I am emotionally sensiteve.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
"The electronic entry and lookup of CD music titles are belong to us"
US Patently Absurd Office #232392
**Vanuatu or bust**
I was joking, but read:
http://www.delphion.com/details?&pn=US06061680 __
They really do have a patent here
**Vanuatu or bust**
I mean I know whats on the CD I put in the computer. Dont you know whats on the CD you put in your computer? I must be missing the whole point here.
This is a Sig, there are many like it but this one is mine! I wish I had more than 120 chars... whats a char?
We all have about 5 paragraphs of text from both parties, Gracenote and Roxio, and a bunch of IANALs trying to interpret patents and the DMCA. And here we are drawing conclusions about who's evil and who's not, whose lawsuit is frivolous and whose isn't.
It makes for entertaining reading, which I guess is what slashdot is all about. There are absolutely 0 facts, however, which makes most of this ranting completely useless short of fun reading.
Except that Gracenote is suing Roxio and not freedb. The only way this case would have any merit is if Roxio created freedb themselves using information obtained from Gracenote. All Roxio is guilty of is having the common sense to jump off the Gracenote train and to jump of the better (and cheaper) services that freedb offers.
- Boot from floppy,
- fdisk, and
- install Linux.
I've been happy as a clam ever since.--
Having 50 karma is an itchy feeling; I know I'll get
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
Yeah. The player would store the track names and info in cdplayer.ini. Nothing was transmitted over the internet, so it's not really all that similar. The "database" in this case was stored locally.
Stupid Gracenote. I don't use Toast to burn music CDs. I use Toast to burn data CDs, backup software, make bootable restore CDs...
Sounds like a RIAA thing to do... they assume that all we do with software these days is PIRATE their music. The idea of *legal usage* of the software has never entered their feeble minds..
UgH... screw Gracenote. Screw Rambus, too. They're down by the DMV in Mountain View, CA... let's all go take a leak on their lawn..
I had to ignore that feature on most of the CDs that I played that popped it up. Because the CDs I have like that are vinyl albums I recorded to WAV and burned a CD audio version of. I guess it'd be cool to enter them, but since I'd have the only copy of the CD at best it would be a waste of bandwidth, at worst it would throw the publisher of the vinyl version into a rage.
Godwinn's Law, you tosser! And it's not even close to what you're making out.
Godwinn's Law states that when a discussion has degenerated to the point where people are calling each other Nazis, the conversation has lost all meaning. That is not to say that it won't continue for some time; it originated to describe Usenet, after all, and everybody knows how rich an information source that is.
Oh, and you can't invoke it deliberately. Doesn't work.
Reboot macht Frei.
As far as I know, all the CDDB operators use the same system to hash the CDs. This does lead to clashes in the (quite rare) cases where more than one CD has the same number of tracks at the same lengths.
I suppose you could add some sort of analysis of part of the data within the tracks to make the likelyhood of clashes much less. For instance, you could look at the lengths of the tracks plus the first five seconds of the first track.
So if napster has to filter which files it lets users download, shouldn't CDDB do just that and allow only descriptions that are 'ok' to distribute to get out?
It kind of makes me wonder whether CDDB under the DMCA is not violating copyrights by itself.
That said, it seems to me that this case hinges on CDDB proving that freedb have simply copied their database. This would only be possible if it is demonstrated that a substantial number of errors have been duplicated (ie. spelling errors). If they cannot prove this, how can they substantiate the claim that freedb is an unauthoized derivative?
Furthermore, I wonder what grounds they have for making this a copyright case, since their entire business centres around redistributing the titles of the copyrighted work of other artists, making their entire database a derivative of other people's work. Does anybody know if they have deals with record companies that enable them to operate this service? The article makes no mention of this.
Denial isn't just a river in Italy
I think Roxio invented this to take away publicity from that nasty GoBack bug... What better way to get positive publicity than being sued for giving stuff away. :-)