Sony buys Gracenote for $260m

You remember Gracenote, right? They're the company that some years back kinda sorta misled everybody that populated the CDDB with data by selling the whole thing and closing off the platform. Well, they're laughing all the way to the bank once again: Sony just bought 'em up for $260m, with the deal set to close in late May.

[x Shadow @ Apr 22nd 2008 11:53PM]

uh huh......

[RijilV @ Apr 22nd 2008 11:54PM]

assholes.

[Matthew @ Apr 23rd 2008 12:03AM]

First Warner, now Gracenote. Who's next?

[Big John @ Apr 23rd 2008 12:06AM]

I stopped being bitter about this years ago. Read your release forms, kids!

[FriskyDingo @ Apr 23rd 2008 12:35AM]

Xander Crews?

[Ebzy @ Apr 23rd 2008 2:25AM]

Does Denny also think that sony is going mad cow?

[rayza @ Apr 23rd 2008 5:04AM]

u dont understand how much i luv ur avatar..

..denny crane' !

[Big John @ Apr 23rd 2008 9:27AM]

@FriskyDingo: It didn't have as much boy-girl as the box art would suggest.

@Ebzy: This is a little confusing for me, as well. Gracenote must charge insane amounts to license their database. I don't know how they would make money otherwise. It has to be in the $50-100m/year range total else Sony would never agree to this.

@rayza: Glad you like it. Denny Crane.

[Kspraydad @ Apr 23rd 2008 12:10AM]

Good move by SONY. Now they get residuals from the likes of Apple for all the data.

[Miguel @ Apr 23rd 2008 12:16AM]

Not only that, but they cut out the middleman in their own TrackID service on SonyEricsson phones. Returns from Apple, KDDI and Samsung, et al. (all "Powered by Gracenote") will have this acquisition paying for itself in no time. A very sound business decision all around.

[holycow @ Apr 23rd 2008 12:26AM]

I remember Gracenote being used in the Sony Ericssons Walkman series music manager software... for some reason i always though Sony DID own gracenote..

[Ethan @ Apr 23rd 2008 12:38AM]

Wikipedia has tracklistings for most albums, I wish I could use that with some programmes that can't pay Gracenote.

And though I don't know much about Gracenote as a business, I'm sure they'd tag this article as alternative/punk.

[Matt @ Apr 23rd 2008 12:49AM]

The problem with Wikipedia is that it doesn't have a standard for listing actual tracks. Some pages have a bulleted list, others have a table, and so on.

Amazon would be a better choice, and some programs (MP3tag, for example) already use it.

[Aalaap @ Apr 23rd 2008 1:43AM]

I feel http://discogs.com would be a better bet. They use tables and not semantically correct XHTML, but it's still a fairly standard format for release type on the site, i.e. artist albums vs. compilations, etc.

[Seoman @ Apr 23rd 2008 2:42AM]

Try http://www.freedb.org/

[Matthew Serrano @ Apr 23rd 2008 12:45AM]

..why? It has no effect on Apple whatsoever.

[Miguel @ Apr 23rd 2008 12:50AM]

Matthew,

Actually, yes it does. Apple licenses from Gracenote for iTunes integration. Now, they are directly paying a competitor: Sony. In the grand scheme of things, considering iTunes/iPod market share, and the different market demographics for the iPhone and Walkman phones, it probably won't make a big difference. But it's a good move business move when Sony can start demanding cash and leveraging their contracts against a competitor. So, take that, Apple.

Go to Gracenote's site and click on "Powered by Gracenote." There's a veritable laundry list of new income sources for Sony.

[villainy @ Apr 23rd 2008 12:58AM]

Huh, I was under the impression everyone would have switched to GPL'd FreeDB.org by now. Silly me.

[ZekeSulastin @ Apr 23rd 2008 8:23AM]

Sure, because everyone uses GPL software for everything ever with no proprietary software on cellphones and the ilk at all!

Oh, wait ...

[TVGenius @ Apr 23rd 2008 1:03AM]

Yeah, if you don't believe it, pop in a CD, and watch at the top where it says it's querying Gracenote for track names...

[Matt @ Apr 23rd 2008 1:12AM]

Miguel, I'm perfectly aware of that, but my issue is it's not just Apple that's licensing Gracenote. Everyone is. It's a good business move for Sony, there's no doubt about that, but there's little reason why the purchase should be interpreted as a loss for Apple.

In this respect, Sony isn't competing with Apple at all. They already have Sony BMG, and tons of other divisions. You could say Apple needs Sony in a lot of respects without the purchase. But no one needs to take a stab at Apple, the story is not related to it.

[Kevin @ Apr 23rd 2008 2:14AM]

Is it just me or has cddb's database shrunk quite a bit since the last time I used it, which was about 5 years ago?

[JohnT. @ Apr 23rd 2008 2:43AM]

@ Matt: "it's not just Apple that's licensing Gracenote. Everyone is. It's a good business move for Sony, there's no doubt about that,"

Not exactly. RealNetworks, Microsoft, and many others use competing services from AMG. Heck, Sony themselves use AMG for the PS3.

It is certain that Sony's competitors will not appreciate Sony's ability to monitor use their applications and devices via the Gracenote service. I predict an exodus by Sony's competitors away from Gracenote to non-competitor-owned solutions.

Sony paid way too much for company that has declining market share in a market that has gotten extremely competitive over the past three years. Sony could have easily built a replacement solution a la Microsoft for far less money. This continues a long tradition of Sony paying too much for companies it acquires.

Good for Gracenote investors. Not good for Sony. Terrible for current Gracenote customers.

[batfastad @ Apr 23rd 2008 3:16AM]

Wow, I'd totally forgotten about CDDB!
I use EAC with FreeDB - the accuracy very often sucks though, spelling mistakes and incorrect track positions on rarer stuff.

Hopefully the Discogs API will continue development to allow some cool stuff along these lines though. Although the management at Discogs have become a*sholes and have completely destroyed the foundations of the community with their recent v4 rollout. It's become way to easy to add new submissions, and new submissions are no longer moderated in the way they used to be. Now there's duplicates and errors cropping up all over the place. Hopefully they can get that sorted though [rant over]

[happy_penguin @ Apr 23rd 2008 3:32AM]

Friggin Sony!

[stannie @ Apr 23rd 2008 4:36AM]

And don't forget this alternative: http://musicbrainz.org/ used by many of the newer services like LastFM and http://www.cloudspeakers.com/

[Mark Smith @ Apr 24th 2008 7:00AM]

Don't forget that Gracenote aquired the Phillips audio-fingerprinting tech about three years ago...

[Sam Johnston @ Apr 23rd 2008 7:24AM]

Great! Now I can invoice Sony for all those undergrad nights spent devotedly bashing my CD collection into XMCD...

This does raise some interesting questions for those maintaing 'public' databases though.

[MPgmr @ Apr 23rd 2008 8:49AM]

I hope WinAmp is still free after this...

[p_paxton @ Apr 23rd 2008 9:12AM]

I've seen a more recent shift by players from freedb and gracenote to the GD3 database http://www.getdigitaldata.com.

[Jamus @ Apr 23rd 2008 9:35AM]

Newman! Uh.. Sony!

Not my first pick to have ownership of that data. Not first by a looooong shot. I am looking at you Mr. ARTAC!

[huh @ Apr 23rd 2008 9:52AM]

The only thing people should be talking about in the modern world is http://freedb.org.

[Backwards People @ Apr 23rd 2008 9:59AM]

testify!

[Scott K. @ Apr 23rd 2008 2:43PM]

Let's see....
Music Match w/ superior tagging
Bought by Yahoo, replaced with crappy player
Changes to Rhapsody, with crappier Gracenote tagging
Gracenote bought by Sony, king of Screw-You DRM.
Glad I bought that perpetual MM upgrade. How worthless.

[scharne @ Apr 30th 2008 1:41PM]

I think Mark Smith is pointing with audio fingerprinting in the right direction to understand what Sony is maybe after. Listen.app is/was an iphone application that used Gracenotes audio recognition. It got extremely positive reviews from beta testers, then, beginning of January 2008 it was stopped.
It looks to me like Sony is with the acquisition of Gracenote now in the position to either:
-prevent or delay a Listen.app like solution on the iPhone and get for Sony Ericsson mobile phones a competitive advantage or
-charge a premium for using Gracenote acoustic recognition on iPhone 2.0 or
-participate on every iTunes sale generated through a Listen.app like solution on the iPhone 2.0 platform
Details here: http://www.line-of-reasoning.com/interesting-links/maybe-sony-bought-gracenote-so-that-apples-iphone-20-will-not-be-able-to-listen-2/