Freedb

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-proprietary CDDB (compact disc database). As of April 24 2006, the database holds just under 2,000,000 CDs. [cite web | url=http://freedb.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=287 | title=Massive duplicate cleanup completed | accessdate = 2006-05-09 | work=freedb Dead link|date=May 2008] To look up CD information over the Internet, a client program calculates a nearly unique disc ID and then queries the database. If the disc is in the database, the client is able to retrieve and display the artist, album title, tracklist and some additional information.

On July 1 2006, two of the main freedb developers resigned.cite web |url=http://freedb.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=292 |title=The future of freedb |accessdate=2006-07-02] . Although this caused much worrying over the future of the project, it was announced on July 7, 2006cite web |url=http://freedb.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=293 |title=Updates in recent developments with freedb |accessdate=2006-07-08] that plans were in place that would most likely find freedb a new home and it would continue its operation as normal.

On October 4 2006, freedb owner Michael Kaiser announcedcite web | url=http://freedb.org/modules.php?name=Sections&sop=viewarticle&artid=2 | title=Why freedb.org? | work=freedb | accessdate = 2006-05-09 ]

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 no longer available, since Gracenote wanted to force programmers to switch to CDDB2 (a new version incompatible with CDDB1 and hence with freedb).

The license change motivated the freedb project, which is intended to remain free.

freedb is used primarily by media players, cataloguers, audio taggers and CD ripper software. As of version 6 of the freedb protocol, freedb accepts and returns UTF-8 data.

References

See also

* List of online music databases

External links

* [http://www.freedb.org/ freedb.org]
* [http://www.freedb2.org/ freedb2.org (beta)]
* [http://www.gnudb.org/ gnudb.org]
* [http://musicbrainz.org/ musicbrainz.org]