http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/ Engadget Comments for Sony buys Gracenote for $260m http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/Apr 22nd 2008 11:53PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/Apr 22nd 2008 11:54PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/Apr 23rd 2008 12:03AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/Apr 23rd 2008 12:06AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/Apr 23rd 2008 12:35AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/Apr 23rd 2008 2:25AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/
..denny crane' !]]>Apr 23rd 2008 5:04AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/
@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.]]>Apr 23rd 2008 9:27AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/Apr 23rd 2008 12:10AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/Apr 23rd 2008 12:16AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/Apr 23rd 2008 12:26AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/
And though I don't know much about Gracenote as a business, I'm sure they'd tag this article as alternative/punk.]]>Apr 23rd 2008 12:38AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/
Amazon would be a better choice, and some programs (MP3tag, for example) already use it.]]>Apr 23rd 2008 12:49AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/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.]]>Apr 23rd 2008 1:43AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.freedb.org/]]>Apr 23rd 2008 2:42AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/Apr 23rd 2008 12:45AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/
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.]]>Apr 23rd 2008 12:50AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/Apr 23rd 2008 12:58AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/
Oh, wait ...]]>Apr 23rd 2008 8:23AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/Apr 23rd 2008 1:03AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/
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.]]>Apr 23rd 2008 1:12AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/Apr 23rd 2008 2:14AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/
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.]]>Apr 23rd 2008 2:43AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/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]]]>Apr 23rd 2008 3:16AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/Apr 23rd 2008 3:32AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://musicbrainz.org/ used by many of the newer services like LastFM and http://www.cloudspeakers.com/

]]>Apr 23rd 2008 4:36AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/Apr 24th 2008 7:00AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/
This does raise some interesting questions for those maintaing 'public' databases though.
]]>Apr 23rd 2008 7:24AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/Apr 23rd 2008 8:49AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.getdigitaldata.com.]]>Apr 23rd 2008 9:12AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/
Not my first pick to have ownership of that data. Not first by a looooong shot. I am looking at you Mr. ARTAC!]]>Apr 23rd 2008 9:35AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://freedb.org.
]]>Apr 23rd 2008 9:52AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/Apr 23rd 2008 9:59AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/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.
]]>Apr 23rd 2008 2:43PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/http://www.engadget.com/2008/04/22/sony-buys-gracenote-for-260m/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/

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