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Sony to Buy Gracenote
Ian Lamont writes "Sony is buying Gracenote for $260 million. Sony will use Gracenote's online music database in its own digital content and devices, but Gracenote will operate separately and keep its own management. It's an interesting move, because many other entertainment companies and services depend on the Gracenote database, including iTunes, Yahoo, Winamp, and even the onboard stereo system used in some new Cadillacs. Gracenote has been criticized for turning the once-open CDDB project into a 'quagmire of heavy contracts, licensing fees, forced user registration and anti-competition clauses.'"
Walkman. Discman. Arguably both Sony's most successful consumer electronics products.
Man who leaps off cliff jumps to conclusion.
Use MusicBrainz. All the cool kids are doing it!
Seriously. Musicbrainz was created after the CDDB fiasco (and FreeDB had its own share of problems). It operates under a non-profit organization to guarantee its freedom.
And on that feature bullet-point list, they add an API to recognize what that "Unknown Artist - Unknown Title.mp3" file you have.
Misleading titles? Inflammatory blurbs? Keep in mind that Slashdot is a tabloid.
The PS3 (with the exception of Blu-Ray) is pretty open. It's all Bluetooth/USB (including support for the plug and play standard for keyboards, mice, USB keys, external hard disks, and so on). The ones with MemoryStick slots don't care if you use it or not - you are free to do things that you would do with external storage (backing up game saves, copying media, and copying firmware updates) on USB keys, MemorySticks, SD cards, or whatever, depending upon your fancy. The only case in which it overtly favors something proprietary is that certain features (DVD upscaling, for example) are limited or not available unless you're using the HDMI port for video. However, it doesn't complain if you simply switch out for a HDMI to DVI cable and run audio on RCA cables.
In fact, it's downright weird to find proprietary things on the PS3 - GHIII's proprietary wireless dongles just make no sense in the context of how the system operates.
The role of the writer is not to say what we can all say, but what we are unable to say. -Anais Nin
Can't you just redirect the gracenote CDDB URLs in your hosts file, to the FreeDB ones?
(See Point 4 here. )
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
http://musicbrainz.org/ The data is either public domain or covered under Creative Commons. I believe the software is GPL. Definitely a better alternative to CDDB and freedb.