Talk:CDDB

License

The database may be licensed in GPL. However software written to access the database require a different license. For example, Adaptec's Toast software used to have direct access to the CDDB database via cddb.com. However, Roxio's equivalent replacement of Toast were denied access because Roxio doesn't have the license.

I don't know the details of the issue, I am just a user who can no longer access the database via Toast. Someone who know the details may add the license issues in the article.

Now I workaround the problem via a two step process. I use the freeware NetCD to get the track info onto my computer. Then Toast works okay because it reads the same datafile on disk as NetCD.

see http://www.freedb.org/sections.php?op=viewarticle&artid=2 -- maybe this will help to answer your question -- WojPob

Logo

moved from the article: Funny sidenote: One programmer told me, that his cd-player will be banned if he is refusing to display the CDDB-logo. His software is a console-based program - it does not produce any graphical output - for blind people...

Gracenote has resolved this issue to an extent. Non graphical interfaces merely need to "display" text during the access. Steve Scherf is still with Gracenote and still champions free (as in free of cost to users) access. Free of cost to developers is another matter and Gracenote has serparate licenses for commerial and non-commercial uses, the former being free of cost and the latter not free. Roxio probably balked at going from free of cost CDDB1 to not-free CDDB2. FreeDB is free of cost to users and developers and free as in an open interface, but smaller and not as well edited as Gracenote database.

first released when?

I'd be interested to know when the idea of CDDB and its first implementation were released. The article should probably include this info. Graham 02:58, 23 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

CDDB Quality Issues

I've removed this: The AMG metadata database is generally recognized to be more comprehensive and of higher quality, because of quality controls that CDDB lacks. It sounds more like a commrecial endorsement more than anything else. It certainly doesn't belong in an encyclopedia article about CDDB. Please discuss any reversions here first! -Wpegden 20:42, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Wpegden, How about this? "CDDB lacks comprehensive quality controls and hence suffers from a lack of standardization in spelling and metadata. CDDB also suffers inaccuracies in metadata such as misspellings, incorrect genres, and years." These are common and well documented problems with CDDB services like Gracenote, freedb, and MusicBrainz. Do you have an issue with this? [[Fatandhappy 21:42, 30 April 2006 (UTC)]][reply]

User update policy?

Apple's iTunes uses CDDB. I often find errors and correct them and then click on "Submit CD Track Names", which I assume sends my updated info back to the CDDB organization. Does anyone have any info on what happens to my submission? Does someone review it, or is it automatically made available? And in the case of multiple submissions, how do they decide what to put out. Is there any editorial review policy?

In the Classical Genre, which I do a lot of work with, there seems to be a great deal of variety of ways to express the same piece and no standardization. I have my own standard, so I change them and then resubmit the results. In my experiece a large number of albums in this genre have been apparently entered by non-classical musicians who don't understand the importance of various things. Is there anywhere even a minimal written style guidline for this, let alone any editorial policies?

I don't know the true answer, but I suspect that CDDB works like wikipedia - the latest submission goes into the database and that's what is current. There can't be any review/quality control because there are so many errors that get through - not just spelling and capitalisation, but whole fields swapped (there must be at least one popular app out there that incorrectly switches the artist and title fields because these are frequently found in the wrong places). With iTunes, I usually correct any info before I do an import, but rarely bother to submit it back. iTunes will use the locally corrected copy from then on so for me at least it stays accurate. Perhaps I should be more community minded. Graham 00:42, 14 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A problem with classical music?

What's this?

Critics charge that the field listings for CDDB are inadequate for the inclusion of proper identification of classical music recordings. So far, this issue has not been adequately nor uniformly addressed.

In my experience, every symphonic and opera CD I've ripped have been correctly identified by freedb including even ones in foreign languages (e.g. German, Italian, Czech). I think there should be some sort of evidence regarding this (perhaps some recent reviews of freedb).

How CDDB works

This section does not agree with Gracenote's explanation at http://www.gracenote.com/gn_products/music_id.html

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Example Calculation

There is no pause before the first track of the CD, so the XX becomes "00". You can check that by creating a cue sheet from any CD. I actually calculated a checksum with Excel and compared it to that provided on an EAC Cue sheet => It must be 0 for the first track. Whugemann (talk) 16:54, 16 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

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Improvements needed

This article is a stub and rather confusing to read. It needs major improvements, esp. regarding the history of the (non-)accessibility of the CDDB database and its forks/clones, the current state and the future of the project. PS: It's also a bad joke to describe the CD format, which was a fully digital, computerized format right from the start, as the successor to the grammophone ... totally inaccurate!-- Alexey Topol (talk) 08:27, 14 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]