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

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".

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...
--

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?
--

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.

--

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.


--

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/

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

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

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.