Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Scherf (talk | contribs) at 09:40, 2 December 2006 (→Edited). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The subject of this article is controversial and content may be in dispute. When updating the article, be bold, but not reckless. Feel free to try to improve the article, but don't take it personally if your changes are reversed; instead, come here to the talk page to discuss them. Content must be written from a neutral point of view. Include citations when adding content and consider tagging or removing unsourced information.

Archives

/Archive1, /Archive2

Is it OK for Gracenote Employees to Edit ONUnicorn's Sample Page?

Because that would really improve the climate around here, and give us a way to make our point without pissing people off.Isotropy 02:31, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

That's one reason why I started it; but I didn't think anyone had paid any attention to my comment at all. ~ ONUnicorn 14:55, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

I reverted Scherf's reversion to the latest Voice of All version. Scherf had reverted the entire article back to an old version posted by Sooahs. This is frustrating since a Gracenote employee (founder?) made the revisions immediately after Voice of All unprotected the page. SteveSmurf 00:08, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Agreed, this is frustrating. Just reverted the article to fix user:Scherf's revisionism which deleted most of the original article and replaced with POV a company press-release type of article. User:Scherf has been requested numerous times to point out the inaccuracies in the article, but has yet to do so. I am at a loss to identify the vandalism to which Scherf refers. Fatandhappy 15:59, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I'm not interested in a Gracenote page that has numerous factual errors, and contains gratuitous negativity. Fatandhappy can say all he/she/it wants about being civil and how blanket reversions are bad. That does not explain why Fatandhappy and others have continually reverted all text anyone adds here to correct errors in a supported way, but just doesn't happen to be negative. They are determined to keep negative text in place simply because they are detractors of Gracenote. It makes little sense for Gracenote employees to be barred from posting here when people from the opposite extreme (much more extreme in the negative than Gracenote supporters have been in the positive) are free to perpetuate negative commentary at will. I do not accept that as valid Misplaced Pages policy, and the guidelines clearly support my view. As long as people with negative POV problems continue to post here, I am obliged to do the same. To Fatandhappy: Pay all the lip service to the rules that you like, Fatandhappy, but you have consistently reverted things that were supported with links to facts, while in your comments claiming they were not. You have also reverted corrections to logical impossibilities, also while inexplicably claiming they were unsupported. I have filed a request for mediation for the Gracenote article with you listed as one of the requested participants, and you posted negative comments to the discussion in an apparent attempt to scuttle the mediation. You have shown that you cannot edit the Gracenote article in good faith, and your apparent rejection of mediation is further evidence that you are not interested in being impartial. You should recuse yourself from further editing of this page, as should Kenta and others who have engaged in negative, nonfactual editing. If you are truly impartial, how about adding links to Gracenote in all of the competitor pages you and others have injected here? And put those links at the top of the link list, instead of links to their own websites, like you have done here. Also, remove all mention of those competitors' products by name (or at all) like you have done here. How about consolidating all of the AMG pages into one page, especially the ones devoted to entire products alone? How about listing all of the legal actions they have been involved in, especially the ones they started and the ones they lost. AMG has had its share, which is how it got its reputation for shady acquisition of data. Look it up if you are really, truly interested in impartiality. And once you have done all of these things, then you will have shown your impartiality (but not necessarily your ability to deal in facts). Until then, please cut the facade you are trying to put up here in the discussion. At least I am not hiding who I am and what my goals are. Steve Scherf 02:28, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

And that is the issue. Misplaced Pages is not a free advertising service for your company. If you don;t like the criticism, tough. It has sources. If you've got an issue with that, you should be filing complaints against the websites that the statements originate from, not the people who are quoting them here to provide a balanced article. As for some bias, personally, I had no idea what gracenote was when I first came here. The article is only 'overly negative' in your biased eyes. You may find it hard to take criticism, but tough, this is an encyclopedia that provides ALL VERIFIABLE POINTS OF VIEW, not just a corporate endorsed point of view about their product. As for competitors being mentioned, the only way you could possibly be concerned about it is if it was stealing potential business away when people view the article, meaning that you are using it as an advert which Wiki is not. As an encyclopedia, we are supposed to provide links to related subjects in a 'if you found this interesting, you may also be interested in reading about' kind of fashion. The Kinslayer 10:09, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't give a rat's you-know-what about criticism here, if it were only factual. I have pointed out numerous inconsistencies here, but nobody seems to care. They prefer the negative "facts" over the "positive" facts, because, gee, we don't want these Gracenote people to benefit from this page... Here's a little something for you to think about. We don't care about advertising, and this is hardly the place we'd go if we wanted to advertise. The reputation of Misplaced Pages would quash any such desire anyway, even if it were something we wanted. What we DO want is something that does not spread misinformation about Gracenote, which this page does. When we have people coming to us asking, "I thought XYZ, but it says something else on Misplaced Pages", it's a problem. And as a person who seems interested in the quality and improvement of Misplaced Pages, I would think that you would be interested in fixing those things. The text you and others keep putting up, apparently only because, god forbid, my text shouldn't stand no matter what, is CHOCK FULL of errors and logical inconsistencies. For example, why, oh why, does this statement continue to persist in your edit: "commercialization of CDDB by Gracenote also caused friction with its former licensees"? I have said here at least once that this statement makes no sense, because before the commercialization of CDDB there were no licensees - how could there have been?! So how could commercializing CDDB have angered these nonexistent licensees?! Come to your senses. You are reacting emotionally to the fact that some person with a perceived POV bias is posting, and you are inexplicably willing to blindly accept obviously broken text as a result of that emotional response. USE YOUR BRAIN. I would rather not spend even a millisecond more here fighting with you people, but there seems to be nobody willing to actually check up on the factual issues here. I am perplexed why links to things that have been proven to be incomplete and misleading, such as the link to the "summarization" on Becker's page, continue to persist in your edits. I am guessing that you are not a lawyer and do not understand (or have not even bothered to read) the 7 legal documents we provided links to, but if you spend the time to understand them (or to have a lawyer explain them to you) you will see what I mean. What about the statement that large licensees like Microsoft dropped Gracenote? Where is that statement supported anywhere on the web? Did you read the Wired article linked to from the page? How about the full transcript of the Wired interview also linked to? If you had read those, you would understand that Microsoft was never a licensee, so the claim that they dropped Gracenote is totally impossible and false. Microsoft initially used third parties (who in turn used a wide variety of data sources, sometimes their own hand-entered data), not CDDB/Gracenote for its "Deluxe CD Player" product. And when they stopped supporting that application and rolled out Windows Media Player with CD lookup support, they used their own service. And in the same statement it talks about MusicMatch no longer using Gracenote. Never mind that MusicMatch is now Yahoo, and Yahoo is a Gracenote licensee; so that statement is misleading at best, because they are now, in effect, a licensee. Perhaps that statement is meant to be historical, but that's already discussed in the legal section, and they no longer exist as a company. I could go on, but as I've said before, I don't have all day and there is an error in just about every other sentence. You people are CLUELESS on this topic, and as a result are spreading misinformation in a manner unjustly harmful to Gracenote, and indirectly to Misplaced Pages as well. You may not care about the former, but you should care about the latter. Spend some time looking at the facts and see if perhaps the version supported by msooahs, myself and a few others here (whom I do not actually know) might have a bit of wisdom for you. You might also pay a bit of attention to the overall tone and impartiality, because the version you have been pushing has worse POV problems than the one I support. Look back in the discussion here a bit and you will see that the intro text we support was judged by at least one editor here to be more neutral than the one you and Fatandhappy have been pushing. Also, if you spend a little time looking way back in the edit history, you will see blanket reversions by the people you're supporting, with misleading and irrelevant comments, way before this edit war started. It didn't matter if edits were small or large, nor did it matter if they were supported with links to supporting information, they would revert it with misleading statements of "unverifiable". Fatandhappy is the king of falsely crying "unverifiable", and it's the bad faith actions of this and other editors that has led to the problems here. Before you or others cast your lot with them, why not think about what I've said here a bit first? Steve Scherf 22:01, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Controversy

I have removed the part about losing Microsoft as a customer as I could not find anything in Google searches or Google news. Please do not place it back until you have a verifiable source. While I do not know exactly why their is an edit war going on, I'm going to step in and try and help clean things up. I'm here at the request of nobody and do not favor any side. Although, adding information without sources or proof will not help you. --Simonkoldyk 22:09, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

External Links

I have removed external links to any competitor, they are fine for talking about them in the article; but, it should be kept to a minimum. See Coca-Cola and Pepsi for an example both talk about each other in article which is fine; but, no mention in external links. --Simonkoldyk 22:25, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

GPL

See discussion

Gracenote vs Musicmatch

See discussion

Mr. Becker's CV, Court Documents, Other Legal Issues

See discussion

I have addressed everything in your post, if you have problems with how I addressed it start another little thing and refer to this subpage as needed. --Simonkoldyk 18:48, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Competition

This sentence:

• Several large commercial licensees dropped Gracenote's service, such as Musicmatch Jukebox, and have moved to the commercial service provided by All Media Guide.

has several issues. I have seen no proof that several large commercial licensees have dropped Gracenote and moved to AMG's service. Please provide documentation. (I'm not being disingenuous here. I don't actually remember for sure, but I do doubt that any big players went to AMG at all.) Musicmatch did leave, but they did not go to AMG. They started their own service, called CDi. See the musicmatch privacy page here and scroll down to section 2. See the explanation of CDi and how it ties in with their application. It is essentially a service and protocol of their own devising. But it should be noteworthy that Yahoo has been working on migrating musicmatch users to their own player, which uses Gracenote. Steve Scherf 00:58, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Please see and search for AMG. --Simonkoldyk 01:35, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

The musicmatch player uses the CDi service, a service of their own devising, as I noted. They have licensed data only from AMG, and that is not the only source of their data. They have their own data as well. So the CD lookup service they use is their own, and much of the data is their own. Only part of the data came from AMG, and no service from AMG. The page I linked to says this, The Musicmatch Jukebox contains Musicmatch CD lookup (CDI) service for compact disc identification. I think it's pretty clear that they are using CDi, their own service, not Lasso, AMG's service. The link you provide only discusses AMG data, nothing else about AMG. So the text that says they moved over to AMG's service is incorrect. I provide these links to prove my point, but believe me when I say I know this, because they are a customer and it also all came out in the lawsuit anyway... Even if for some reason you do not believe this, then please cite a source that specifically states they are using the AMG Lasso service. Steve Scherf 01:54, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Simonkoldyk, although Scherf earlier claims that Microsoft never dropped Gracenote/CDDB, here is a link to an Escient press release regarding the purchase of CDDB referring to Microsoft's Deluxe CD Player formerly using CDDB. So it seems that Microsoft did drop Gracenote after the commercialization, after all. Regarding Musicmatch, there is no evidence that the Musicmatch player, a different player than the Yahoo! Player, is using Gracenote. The CDi service appears to be alive and well and functioning without problem. Fatandhappy 02:09, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

For crying out loud, the Microsoft Deluxe CD Player used two services, none of them CDDB: Tunes.com and Musicboulevard.com. Tunes.com was a licensee of CDDB at the time of the Escient press release and had their own service with (some) CDDB data inside it, that's all. Get yourself a copy of WIndows 98 and try it out for yourself, and you'll see the tunes.com logo when it does a lookup. Or read one of the zillions of web links on the topic. Keep scratching at those straws...

WRT to your comment about musicmatch using CDi, when did I ever dispute that? I agree with you, musicmatch uses CDi. The point is that they do not use AMG Lasso. Steve Scherf 02:56, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

FYI, here's a link to the press release for the Microsoft player and Tunes.com: . Steve Scherf 03:04, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for agreeing that Microsoft did use CDDB with its CD Deluxe product. It appears from the Tunes.com release that you linked to describes the additional content (Rolling Stones info, commerce links, etc.) and that the recognition is coming from CDDB, though it does not mention. For crying out loud, Scherf, in the Escient press release it clearly states, The CDDB database currently provides music CD identification information to more than 25 officially-supported players, including the new Microsoft(R) Deluxe CD Player (MSFT), as well as the Notify CD Player, Quintessential CD Player, Discplay 4, and Xmcd. Do you dispute the factuality your own company's press release (since CDDB was a division of Escient at the time)? And do you debate that Microsoft dropped support for CDDB by building its own service shortly after the commercilization of CDDB?

WRT, the current article does not state that Musicmatch uses AMG Lasso; it states that it moved to the commercial service provided by All Media Guide. According to the All Media Guide article, the company provides services to companies like Musicmatch. Can you provide a source that shows this as incorrect? Who is "scratching at straws" here? Please kindly keep the rudeness out of the discussion. Fatandhappy 04:13, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the Microsoft press release was pretty clear, they used Tunes.com. Tunes licensed CDDB data in addition to their own, but not the CDDB service. These facts are not in dispute. Yes, that Escient press release is overblown, and I have no doubt that the marketing person who cranked that one out loved the thought of saying MS was a customer. That doesn't change the fact that the Deluxe CD app used Tunes.com's service, not CDDB's service. In fact, the communication protocol used by Deluxe CD player and Tunes.com was of Microsoft's own device, and didn't even slightly resemble the CDDB protocol that the CDDB service used. Play semantics all you want, but the fact is that Microsoft used Tunes.com and Musicboulevard.com's service. You might refer to the Wired article if you still don't believe the MS stuff. It's stated pretty plainly that Microsoft did not want to use CDDB directly, and instead ended up using CDDB through third party vendor (i.e. Tunes.com).

As far as musicmatch is concerned, the musicmatch player uses CDI, a commercial service provided by musicmatch for musicmatch. They do not use the AMG service. So the article is wrong. Part of their database consists of AMG data, and that's it. These are all semantic games. If you want the article to contain truth, why not say that "musicmatch moved over to its own CD lookup service, CDi, that partially contained AMG data in addition to data collected by musicmatch"? Anything else is misleading. For that matter, why not say "Microsoft stopped using Tunes.com, a service that licensed CDDB data to supplement its own database"? Steve Scherf 04:27, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Edited

Please read and comment. --Simonkoldyk 04:37, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

The new text in the competition section seems okay, except "licensee" should probably be "licensees, ". Steve Scherf 05:00, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. --Simonkoldyk 05:06, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Simonkoldyk, thanks again for working on this. The new section could mention that many smaller CDDB licensees moved to freedb after the commercialization. This is supported by looking at the lists of supported appliations on the May 1999 Gracenote site and the November 2001 freedb site. Just a quick scan of these two pages shows that a applications such as Audiograbber, CD-DA Xtractor, Feurio, InCDius, and others had already made the move after Gracenote commercialized and changed its license terms.

In the part that refers to Microsoft, it should mention that shortly thereafter, Microsoft dumped CDDB altogether to build their own CD recogniton service based on All Media Guide and other databases for identifying CD's in Windows Media Player.

The section on Musicmatch has a couple of minor tweaks necessary. CDi is mispelled (the last i is supposed to be lowercase). The CDi identification service was developed based on the All Media Guide database, with additional data being submitted by the Musicmatch users, similar to what Microsoft did with Windows Media Player. The AMG service called Lasso does not seem to have been released until after Musicmatch was found to not be infringing on Gracenote's patents in 2004, more than 2 years later. Thanks again for your patience. Fatandhappy 08:10, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

The section is more accurate and fair as-is, capitalization error aside. It took a long time to arrive at what is fair common ground. The section is not perfect, but I am willing to accept it. Please try and show some good faith. Steve Scherf 09:40, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Moved Discussions

As this page is getting very long and very complicated I have started to move each topic that gets long to its own subpage so that parties interested in certain things can deal with those without having to go through the entire page, also for me to follow everything. Also I archived some past posts as you can see in the archive at the top. --Simonkoldyk 18:49, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

• Misplaced Pages controversial topics