freedb is a database of compact disc track listings where all the content is under the GNU General Public License. It was originally based on the now-commercial CDDB (compact disc database). As of April 24, 2006 the database holds just under 2,000,000 CDs^[1]. To look up CD information over the Internet a client calculates a nearly unique disc ID and then queries the database. As a result, the client displays the artist, album title, tracklist and some additional info. A database is an organized collection of data. ... The Compact Disc logo was inspired by that of the previous Compact Cassette. ... The GNU logo Wikisource has original text related to this article: GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a widely-used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU project. ... CDDB (which stands for Compact Disc Database) is a database for software applications to look up audio CD (compact disc) information over the Internet. ... April 24 is the 114th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (115th in leap years). ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

On July 1st, 2006, two of the main developers resigned, forcing the project to close in the near future^[2]. 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

As of July 3rd, 2006, Freedb appears to have closed^[3]. 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Motivation

The original software behind CDDB was released under the GNU General Public License, and many people submitted CD information without charging anything, thinking the service would also remain free. The license was later changed however, and some programmers complained that the new licence included certain terms that threatened them in a way they couldn't accept: if one wanted to access CDDB, one was not allowed to access any other CDDB-like database (such as freedb), and any programs using a CDDB lookup had to display a CDDB logo while performing the lookup.^[4]

In March 2001, CDDB, now owned by Gracenote, banned all unlicensed applications from accessing their database. New licenses for CDDB1 (the original version of CDDB) were not available anymore, as they wanted to force programmers to switch to CDDB2 (a new version incompatible with CDDB1 and hence with freedb).^[4] 2001 : January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December Events: March 3 - A U.S. Air Force Materials Command C-23 Sherpa transport crashes during stormy weather in the U.S. state of Georgia, killing 21. ... Gracenote is a commercial enterprise which maintains and licenses a database containing information about the contents of CDs. ...

The licence change motivated the freedb project, which is intended to remain free (both as in beer and as in speech). Gratis versus Libre is the distinction between no cost and freedom, a distiction not made by the word free. ... This article is about Free Software as defined by the sociopolitical Free Software movement; for information on software distributed without charge, see freeware. ...

Another project sparked by the license change (and since broadened beyond a mere database of CDs) is called MusicBrainz. MusicBrainz (MusicBrainz. ...

freedb is used primarily by media player, cataloguer, audio taggers and CD ripper software. As of version 6 of the freedb protocol freedb accepts and returns UTF-8 data. A media player is a piece of application software for playing back multimedia files. ... A CD ripper, CD grabber or CD extractor is a piece of software designed to extract raw digital audio (in format commonly called CDDA) from a compact disc to a file or other output. ... UTF-8 (8-bit Unicode Transformation Format) is a variable-length character encoding for Unicode created by Ken Thompson and Rob Pike. ...

See also

• MusicBrainz
• All Media Guide's LASSO, linked to the All Music Guide database
• CDDB
• Gracenote
• Gratis versus Libre

MusicBrainz (MusicBrainz. ... All Media Guide (commonly known as AMG), is the company which owns and maintains All Music Guide, All Game Guide and All Movie Guide. ... AMG LASSO is a a media recognition service launched by the All Media Guide in 2004. ... The All Music Guide (AMG) is a metadata database about music, owned by All Media Guide. ... CDDB (which stands for Compact Disc Database) is a database for software applications to look up audio CD (compact disc) information over the Internet. ... Gracenote is a commercial enterprise which maintains and licenses a database containing information about the contents of CDs. ... Gratis versus Libre is the distinction between no cost and freedom, a distinction not made by the word free in the English language. ...

References

2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... May 9 is the 129th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (130th in leap years). ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... July 2 is the 183rd day of the year (184th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 182 days remaining. ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... July 3 is the 184th day of the year (185th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar, with 181 days remaining. ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... May 9 is the 129th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (130th in leap years). ...

External links

• freedb.org
• freedb2.org (beta)