Sony to Buy Gracenote for $260 Million
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
Sony to Buy Gracenote for $260 Million
When you put an audio CD into iTunes and you’re not connected to the internet, the songs come up “track 1″ track 2″ etc. and the album has no title, genre, artist.
However, if you’re connected to the internet, iTunes will look at an online database (which isn’t always correct) and if the CD is mainstream or close to mainstream the title, artist, track names, and even genre willl automatically be listed. How? The online database that’s doing the lookup is Gracenote.
I’m not sure what Sony’s strategy is in buying Gracenote but time will tell. Somehow I wish Apple had bought them and then they might have made iTunes a bit more interactive with the Gracenote database so that an album that’s not listed might be updated as users fill in the information manuallly in their local copies of iTunes.
All of this is interesting and frankly I’m not all that sure what it’s all leading to.
Actually, as far as I can tell iTunes can already do this. I remember doing it that way for a couple of CDs in the past. It is under the Advanced menu.
This theory is a bit of a conspiracy theory, but perhaps Sony wants to know anytime someone accesses the database and gathers album information. They may track this and use it to track down pirateers. But who knows. I just hope they don’t close it off to open access.
David: iTunes uses Gracenote. The pref: “automatically retrieve track names from the internet” under advanced goes out to the Gracenote DB.
Andrew: people who use Gracenote aren’t pirates in that they already own the CD (or borrowed it). There’s no law against ripping CDs that I know of. But, yes, Sony may have “plans” as you say.
Interesting ….. I agree that it’s a shame Apple did not buy them. It’s a great service and works flawlessly for me.
Richard, my point was that you can already submit stuff to Gracenote through iTunes. See “Submit CD Track Names” in Advanced menu. In other words, your wish is already granted.
David: Ah, great, thanks for that, you’re right. I sort of knew that but forgot. And, I’ve done it before to try to “vote” on changing genres which it seems Gracenote gets wrong (IMHO) much of the time.
@ Richard (and Andrew)
Richard makes a good point that it is not illegal to rip CD’s that you own. However, the legality you refer to is only in the USA. Many other countries such as the UK or Australia do not protect your right to make copies of your own music. Further, in the USA, the RIAA is trying to argue that “fair use” should be abolished and that people like you should not be able to make copies of their music. Whether the RIAA, of which Sony is a very active member, is successful or not remains to be seen. The IFPI (the international version of the RIAA) is also making the abolition of free use a policy and doing everything it can to achieve this goal. Sony is also an active member of the IFPI.
Also, please keep in mind that your assumption above is that you are ripping a commercially obtained “normal” CD. Many, many people rip from CDR’s that they “borrowed” from a friend or may have created themselves as a backup for their CD collection. Sony considers this to be piracy.
Gracenote can be used to identify CDR’s. Gracenote actively markets anti-piracy services. Years ago, Gracenote sold a copy of its community created database to help to shut down the original Napster. They are trying to do the same for others.
That Sony wants to use Gracenote as a new form of DRM is not too far fetched. You many not want to dismiss it as “conspiracy” theory quite yet. Please keep in mind that it was Sony who released the rootkit on the world.
@ Richard
Regarding the Genres, Gracenote’s database is made up of user submissions for the vast majority of its data. There are duplications since many people send in their “votes” so many times. You are probably better off editing your own Genres, and not re-submitting them to Gracenote. I find that less than half of songs that I rip get an appropriate Genre. It is quite annoying.
@jon
I agree with Richard. Gracenote data quality is poor. Missing or incorrect genres are only part of the problem. Misspelled names, incorrect or missing years, multiple versions of the same names - very poor indeed.
It would be great if Apple would take advantage of a better data source such as allmusic.com or create their own higher quality service for iTunes.
Brian: Thanks for the update on details and I have to agree, Gracenote’s DB is full of problems. Jon no doubt hasn’t run into any or isn’t checking his play lists carefully. Genre is only one of them, others include users typing track names in ALL UPPER CASE (ugh) and misspellings and more.
Yes, Apple should have bought them or, they should stop using them and have their own free service.
As far as the legality of this stuff in various parts of the world, my guess is that the move away from mega publishing to home publishing will change some of this as individuals make less paranoid decisions about how to both copyright and protect their music, podcasts, videos, and whatever.
Even though Creative Commons is slow to catch on and may never catch on, I’m pretty sure we’ve not seen the end of experiments in this and related areas.
Time will tell and hopefully none of these companies including Apple will do things that tighten down on ripping and burning too much too soon.
Richard: I agree with you 100%