Roxio Countersues Gracenote

Silverhammer writes "Roxio has countersued Gracenote over fair use of the CDDB. Check out the press release. Basically, the suit includes all the gripes voiced here on Slashdot: you can't patent free data (album titles and track listings), you can't patent against prior art, you can't patent data submitted in good faith by users, yadda, yadda, yadda..."

Comments

Re:You CANNOT copyright titles

[PCM2]

>Actually, I'd think the author/rights holder CAN copyright titles.

Fine; but what you think and what is actually true are two different things. The poster you responded to is correct. Titles, like instructions and recipes, cannot themselves be copyrighted.

Next time, please at least bother to look it up before you post erroneous information.

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You CANNOT copyright titles

[Old Man Kensey]

The last true geek wrote:

By far the most often-used argument against GraceNote is "we entered all of that data ourself! We wrote it up and submitted it!" Of course, what never gets pointed out is that the CD title and the track names are themselves copyrighted material, owned by the copyright holder (in this case the record company.) In point of fact, the legality of entering this information and uploading it anonymously is quite shaky (IMHO.)

In point of fact, you're wrong. Titles of copyrighted works are not themselves copyrighted, but may be trademarked if they are sufficiently Unique. I could go out today and write a book (or produce a movie, or paint a picture) called _Gone With the Wind_ and Margaret Mitchell's estate has no control over it.

Now, if I were to rip off large sections of Mitchell's GWtW I would be liable for copyright infringement. But I can put track listings and song listings all over the Internet if I want and no one has any right to say "boo".

Re:You CANNOT copyright titles

[geekopus]

Amusingly enough, that very subject has been debated recently here (Georgia). An author is attempting to have publish a (parody) book named "The Wind Done Gone!", and Margaret Mitchell's estate went apeshit.

http://www.siliconvalley.com/docs/opinion/dgillmor /dg042501.htm
and here:
http://www.cnn.com/2001/LAW/05/columns/fl.hilden.g wtw.05.04/

The upshot of all this is that Margaret Mitchell's estate has successfully managed to have the book pulled from bookstores.

Anyway, slightly offtopic, and maybe you were aware of this (could be how you got your example), but I thought it might be an item of interest.

peace...

Re:You CANNOT copyright titles

[DeeKayWon]

Actually, I'd think the author/rights holder CAN copyright titles.

However, there is a fair use right to create lists and databases of those titles, though not one to USE that title for another song, etc.

Then why in my CD collection can I find three different songs by three different groups (Collective Soul, Moist, Prodigy) called Breathe? (All feature singles from the respective albums, no less.) Why hasn't there been a court battle between The Offspring and U2 over Staring At The Sun?

Re:You CANNOT copyright titles

[mikethegeek]

Actually, I'd think the author/rights holder CAN copyright titles.

However, there is a fair use right to create lists and databases of those titles, though not one to USE that title for another song, etc.

The major point is this: Yes, titles can and ARE owned and copyrighted, but the copyright holder is not and CANNOT be Gracenote! Which makes their lawsuit moot as hell and suggests a serious ass-whipping is in order for the idiot judge who even accepted it.

Re:You CANNOT copyright titles

[mikethegeek]

Thanks for the link... the judge must have been smoking crack to accept the gracenote suit.

Sooner or later, there is going to HAVE to be punishment for lawyers and judges who allow our legal system to be plagued with frivilous lawsuits.

No Delorian???

[sacherjj]

Roxio also makes GoBack, the #1 selling system recovery software that enables PC users to ``go back'' in time to instantly recover from system crashes, virus attacks, failed software installations and data loss.

To think how far we have come. In '85 we needed a Delorian and a velocity >= 88 mph... Oh, and some plutonium (or anything to get 1.21 GW).

Re:Shouldn't that be JW?

[PD]

Yes. Also, a large hard drive can be measured in jijibytes, sometimes shortened to jujubees.

What?

[msouth]

Now, if I were to rip off large sections of Mitchell's GWtW I would be liable for copyright infringement. But I can put track listings and song listings all over the Internet if I want and no one has any right to say "boo".

How on earth can you presume to be able to prevent me from saying "boo"? If you think that your posting of a couple of track listings can infringe on my founding-father, constitutional convention-given first-amendment rights, WELL, YOU'VE GOT ANOTHER THING COMING, BUCKO.

Why, I have half a mind to say "boo" right now...
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Re:What?

[Dirtside]

Oh, what sad times are these when passing ruffians can say 'boo' at will to old ladies.

Re:copyright!

[sharkey]

Too bad the defendants would just be Slashdot editors, trolls and flamebait-posters/submitters who are probably to poor to pay out enough of a settlement to make such a lawsuit worthwhile.

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Thought for the Day

[twoflower]

Of course, when two parties cannot agree, the only ones who win are the lawyers.

Sad, really.

Twoflower


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Data dump.

[Matt2000]

I'm not sure if this has been discussed before, but is there anything stopping us from attempting a distributed data dump of the CDDB listings into one of the open alternatives? For example, I'll take Country/Western (> /dev/null) and transfer it to a determined open CDDB server, you do it for electronic, etc. Or it could be divided by CD ID #'s.

I mean, it was us that put the information in there in the first place, we should be able to get it back out right?

Re:Data dump.

[interiot]

Absolutely. In fact, in Gracenote's Open Response, they said:

• Although the raw data is user submitted, the storage, retrieval, categorization, and organization of the database, the access interface, and the matching and filtering methods are absolutely proprietary, and we will do what is necessary to defend this intellectual property.

Meaning... as long as we don't copy their code (and maybe look&feel or business process) used for storing, retrieving, categorizing, etc... we should be fine?
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Exactly like the Unisys GIF fiasco

[WyldOne]

Gracenote = Unisys
Roxio = Compuserve
CDDB = GIF
Freedb = PNG

Nuff said.

Re:Shouldn't that be JW?

[Bob Uhl]

You do realise that gigawatt is pronounced jigawat, right? Gigabyte is pronounced jigabite, not gigabite. Look it up.

Shouldn't that be JW?

[schon]

anything to get 1.21 GW

I dunno about that.. in the movie, they say you need 1.21 Jigga-Watts, not 1.21 Gigawatts.

Although why they needed lightning to do that is beyond me.. when I want 1.21 Jigga-Watts, I just head down to the local Hooters :o)

Re:Shouldn't that be JW?

[haruharaharu]

You do realize that dictionaries are descriptive and not prescriptive, right? If enough people pronounce it GigaByte (and they do), then it is also pronounced GigaByte.

Re:no Liscense?

[DarkMan]

Incorrent, boy wonder.

If they presented the information, whiout a liscence, they have the rights given to them by basic copyright law (In brief, you can use it for personal use only)

A liscence allows the copyright holder to modify those rights.

The GPL does _not_ protect anything - it gives the liscencee _more_ rights.

And, further, if I recall correctly, he original data _was_ GPL'd.
--

Eben Moglen (from another forum) on CDDB

[gojomo]

Besides the fact that Gracenote (1) patented something that was already published for years (a no-no); and (2) trademarked a term already in wide use (a no-no); they also (3) have asserted a copyright in purely factual information which, by legal precedent, probably isn't copyrightable at all, regardless of the promise under which it was collected.

Note that this means a CDDB database couldn't be GPL'ed, under the law, either. You're just not allowed to tell other people what to do with facts.

Eben Moglen commented on this in another email forum on May 24; here's an excerpt of his analysis:

> The copyright claim has been particularly discussed here: the
> assertion is that Gracenote can copyright the CDDB database and somehow
> act to prevent infringement. Much attention is being paid to the fact
> that this database was assembled by mass contribution through the net.
> That fact is conceptually interesting: it's an example of the
> beginnings of the "free data" economy I have written about elsewere.
> But it has no effect on the legal situation. The short obvious
> answer, which should result in the dismissal of Gracenote's copyright
> claim, is that Gracenote has no copyrightable interest in the
> database. That's the holding of the US Supreme Court in Feist
> Publications v. Rural Telephone Service, 499 US 340 (1991). Feist
> concerned the assertion of copyright in the content of telephone white
> pages. The Court held that there is insufficient originality in the
> directory associating names, addresses and telephone numbers to put
> the directory within the scope of copyright.
>
> Hence my comment to the press about a phone directory built by asking
> customers to call in. The point is precisely that it *doesn't matter*
> how you come by the information: a directory like the telephone white
> pages or the CDDB database is not copyrightable whether it was
> assembled by going out and finding the information using your own shoe
> leather, or by getting free contributions from others. In any event,
> because what results is facts, not expressions, it's not subject to
> copyright.

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too slow on the draw

[imac.usr]

2001-06-21 15:24:43 Roxio responds to Gracenote lawsuit...by countersuing! (articles,patents) (rejected)

Well, at least somebody got it submitted. I was hoping slashdot would run this; it's nice to have a patent story that doesn't make you want to pull out your hair. If Roxio wins, it will be good news for everybody who ever typed in a CD name. However, just by bringing the suit, they're throwing some much-needed exposure on a subject that hasn't seen much discussion outside of sites like this one: how far can you take the concept of intellectual property ownership with regard to collections of information?

Interesting to see how this turns out. There's some potential precedent-setting case law to be decided here.


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Re:You missed the point entirely

[mduell]

Just a friendly reminder, you cant buy anything thats not for sale. The creators of the CDDB database sold out and they are the ones the users should be angry with. Gracenote simply bought the database, and did what they saw fit with it (which is to make a profit, since they are a corporation after all...)

Mark Duell

Protecting the Evil

[SlaterSan]

This is kind of strange, we're all up in arms about Roxio. We now want to support a company that is working to screw us all when we're trying to burn. Remember this old artice (link = http://slashdot.org/articles/01/06/05/2155245.shtm l) for those that are worried.

Re:Protecting the Evil

[tuxlove]

This is kind of strange, we're all up in arms about Roxio.

I have to agree. To add to your comment, they're the ones buying up or destroying all the competition. For example, they bought Toast and Cequadrat, two major competitors. They sued Prassi, a smaller competitor, for using their intellectual property (i.e. patents), and extracted $2 million dollars from them, as well as the source code to their products that use "Roxio technology". And on top of it all, they make low-quality software which has the tendency to toast computers it's installed on (pun intended).

In short, Roxio is everything slashdotters hate. Why all the love then?

Re:Fair Use?

[egomaniac]

Ummm ... excuse me? Not sure which country we're in here, but there is no such thing as "reserving" copyright. You also do not have to protect your copyright or lose it, as with trademarks.

All works (literature, art, software, etc.) created in the US are automatically copyrighted. Done deal. You don't have to do anything else. Now, for greater security, you can *register* your copyright by officially filing it, and this gives you a far stronger claim on it when you find yourself in court, but legally there's no difference (it's just a lot easier to defend a registered copyright).

"Fair use" is part of copyright law, which grants certain rights to those other than the holder of the copyright. You can specifically do things like quote short passages from books and the like, make backup copies, and so forth.

support free DB

[zerocool^]

support freedb
check out freedb.org - submit your entries there, and point your CDDB inquiries to freedb.freedb.org

if you buy a CD or more a week, like i do, and immediately rip them, like i do, make a submission of the information - you'll go a long way to helping the CDDB idea.
zero

Slight irony

[ErfC]

Quote the article: "Gracenote... sought to trademark a generic acronym (CDDB) by misleading the U.S. Trademark Office..."

And in their IP notice at the bottom: "...and Toast are trademarks of Roxio, Inc...." (emphasis mine)

I think they're two different situations (the generic term CDDB does apply to what Gracenote is trying to trademark it for, whereas Roxio's Toast is something different), but it's still funny. :)

-Erf C.

or MusicBrainz

[Wesley Felter]

http://www.musicbrainz.org/

Re:copyright!

[fedos]

Did you even read the press release? Roxio refers to it has a patent case. Gracenote had obtained a patent for CDDB from the USPTO. According to Roxio, this patent was obtained illegally and then used to enforce a monopoly and to impose "supracompetitive prices" on customers who had been assured that the service would be free.

Re:I'm not impressed by these arguments

[connorbd]

"I shall be moderated into oblivion..."

I just have to put this line in the same category as Schopenhauer's Fallacy and "They laughed at Einstein..." Really, sir, do you wish to be looked at as a crackpot? You definitely sound like one.

/Brian

Constructive suggestion to reclaim cddb

[WPsim]

I'm about to write a little proxy that everybody could run on his box and point his cd player and/or ripper to instead of cddb/freedb. Here's the pseudo-code.

• if (cd is in freedb)
  • fetch data from freedb
• else if (cd is in cddb)
  • fetch data from cddb
  • post data to freedb
• else data = NULL
• return data

copyright!

[G Neric]

That should say "you can't copyright data". Patents are totally different, for processes. ok? somebody should trademark this distinction so they can sue people who get it wrong

NOT AT ALL like the Unisys GIF fiasco

[JCCyC]

Because there's no way in hell Unisys can do anything in the courts about PNG -- it does not use anything from Unisys's patents. Their compression algorithm is 100% different.

There is something in common -- both Disgracenote and Urinesys commited despicable acts. Just that, though.

Re:countersue?

[Alien54]

I didnt read the article

this is why you may be uninformed.

To recap for you:

1)Grace took a public database that was contributed to freely by thousands of people as a public cetral resource, and decided that this was theirs alone, and no one else could used it.
2)Roxio decided to use someone else's database
3)Grace sued Roxio , saying that they couldn't use someone else's database, because they had the copyright on all of the data, and to do so was to break copyright law because veryone else database had to be breaking the copyright law on this. Even if independantly compiled.
4)Roxio is now counter suing, asaying that Grace is trying to copyright public domain data.

I think I have it mostly right, but I am sure someone will correct me on the details.

it is sort of like suing someone for using a different dictionary or telephone book or whatever because you got a copyright on it.

Now Grace has got a problem, because I think Roxio was their biggest user, and Grace tried to muscle in with big ticket license fees. to which Roxio said "sphhhxxxt!"

I swear, when I set up my slash site, I'm am going to have a moderation item labeled "clueless"

Check out the Vinny the Vampire comic strip

But what about the charging?

[Mr_Silver]

Okay, I'm sure this has been asked before but I can't seem to find it and i think it's a fairly important point.

One thing that people seem to be unhappy about is the fact that Gracenote charge for the information. Now I can understand from the perspective of the people that entered the data that this sucks. But looking at it from Gracenotes point of view (and *ignoring the making money angle* for the moment) why shouldn't they charge to keep the service running?

I'm not trolling (honest guv) but trying to understand one thing. That is that hosting a huge database that millions (or a hell of a lot, I don't have the stats) costs.

When I mean costs I mean:

• Costs of all hardware and software upgrades (a new HD isn't cheap)
• Bandwidth costs (all those people requesting uses it)
• Server maintenance costs (someone has to look after the thing)

and so on.

I know that we (as the the community) provided the data for free but as much as we'd like it still costs to host something and whilst it would be nice for Gracenote to do it for free, they themselves will incurr costs that will have to be paid for by someone.

What are peoples opinions on this?

As a subnote - if Gracenote are charging any more than the costs for the above (ie. making a profit) then shoot them all. That just plain sucks.

--

I'm not impressed by YOUR arguments

[corvi42]

If I had a room of people who all wrote the title of their favourite book onto a paper and put it into a file folder. By your argument you'd say that the company which made the file folder would have the right to take all that paper and lock it up somewhere outside the room and charge those same people to have access to their list of favourite books.

... also believe that people are entitled (as in the God-given right sense of the word) to retirement benefits and medical coverage as well, so perhaps this is a loaded question.

Now there's a very American-centric point of view if I've ever heard one. The USA is the ONLY ( I repeat ONLY ) first world nation that does not have medical care supplied for its citizens by the government. I don't really care whether or not you want to quibble over whether this is a God given right or not, but I think that any country which has the money to afford such a program, it is the citizen's right to demand it of the government. After all the government's money is by definition the citizens' money. Only in the somewhat odd-ball ( if you'll excuse the phrase ) American way of thought does being a wealthy powerful first world nation go hand in hand with denying such basic services to its citizens.

... the CD title and the track names are themselves copyrighted material, owned by the copyright holder ...

Yes, but there is a distinct difference ( which exists in the copyright laws themselves ) between infringement of a copyright by illegal copying and reference to a work. Referencing works is a protected right of the public, and must be. Think how absurd it would be if someone needed permission of corporate lawyers to publish an analysis of popular music, or any work which requires making reference to other works - this would bring academia to a grinding halt. Likewise a database of CD titles and track names is a reference work. It makes reference to existing works, it does not copy them. Therefore it makes no infringement upons the "copy rights" of those people who created / own the works.

Only in a country where infanticide is condoned in the interest of "women's choice" would we be having an argument like this.

Now there's some serious trolling if I ever heard it. How 'bout I counter with a little trolling of my own. Only in a country of @$$ backwards religious fanatics and pinheaded rednecks would you ever hear arguments like this which put the rights of a handful of people to make a few bucks above the general rights of hundreds of millions of people to general knowledge.

You missed the point entirely

[wizzy403]

CDDB started out as part of a (IIRC) GPLed unix cd player program. The entire database was originally distributed with the program. Gracenote bought the database up a few years ago, revoked the GPL, and started charging for this data. *THAT* is why everyone is so pissed, and why Roxio has a damned convincing case.

no Liscense?

[MulluskO]

They posted that information without a liscence like GPL protecting them, it's their fault,

Re:Why sue Roxio?

[Rick the Red]

I know this is old news, but why did Gracenote sue Roxio in the first place? If they are claiming copyright infringment, aren't the maintainers and contributors of freedb.org to blame?

That's the funny part. Roxio was a Gracenote customer. Then Roxio announced they were dropping Gracenote and using freedb. Gracenote lost a large customer, so they had to sue somebody, right? (can't let your stockholders know you lost a customer because your product is overpriced).

Suing freedb wasn't going to get them any $$$, so they sued Roxio for not buying their product anymore. This is like Ford suing Avis because they switched to Chevys. You think Avis wouldn't counter-sue? What were Gracenote thinking?

I hope Roxio win so big that Gracenote folds and Napster has to contract with freedb for the data they need to comply with the court order. Then I hope freedb says "no" to Napster. Never happen. I can wish, but it'll never happen.

Terrible example

[Breakfast Pants]

"Why should CDDB be any different?" The problem is it IS different. CC# companies don't claim to OWN your personal information, they just have it. CDDB was trying to sue Roxio for using an alternative. Trust me, if you use an alternate database of email addresses in order to spam someone, the people who own a large database are not going to sue you just because a few of the email addresses you ended up using appear in their database.

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