It's my opinion that the 'disturbance' presently surrounding cddb licensing
is based on the situtation of CDDB evolving from a free "system" to being
'converted' into an advertising mechanism for Escient.
You don't see anyone attempting to 'license' UseNET in this fashion because
you can't. The whole structure of NNTP, like it or not, doesn't have a
central source. CDDB allows for a central source. This is good if you're
Escient and you think you can profit. However, it appears most users
currently raising a stink don't like this idea.
The solution seems to be to start using an impossible-to-centralize system
like NNTP. This doesn't do a thing, profit-wise, for Escient. Is this bad?
No, the bad part was Escient thinking this was a commercially exploitable
idea in the first place!
Replies to:
1. Hate mail is bad. No excuses. Don't like someone's service? Stop using
it!
2. "Their service"? Uh, based on OUR data?
3. Try to make us pay for it, royalty-wise? Yeah, they KNEW that would
never fly! Force us to become their advertising minions? Again, who are
they trying to kid?
4. Yes, free for end users. But they're the ones's dumb enough to think
this was a money maker, not us.
Long live (the free cdindex without a catchy name)!
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jim Kinney [mailto:jk nospam at cddb.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, March 09, 1999 4:57 PM
> To: 'oliphant nospam at ling.ed.ac.uk'; 'cdindex nospam at freeamp.org';
> 'freecddb-developer nospam at bigred.lcs.mit.edu'
> Subject: Responding to your CDDB Inquiries (fwd)
> Hi Mike:
>
> I am cool with answering in a forum. Please see my answers below.
>
> First....a couple of comments given that I guess I may be
> listened to by a
> number of people....
>
> 1) Some of the "hate" mail that we have received is really
> disturbing. Like
> yourself, we are real people, that work hard, have real
> families and real
> feelings. Many of the comments we have received are
> offensive on a personal
> level. It is clearly OK if people disagree (even vehemently) with our
> position....the beauty of the Internet is freedom of
> expression. It is just
> unfortunate that some individuals have to add venom in a personal way.
>
> 2) What CDDB licenses is access to our real-time data service
> for accessing
> audio CD information. The protocols used to access our
> service (CDDBP and
> HTTP) are Open Source protocols. We do not license the protocols.
>
> 3) Instead of requiring developers to pay a royalty for our
> service, we have
> elected to offer a royalty-free "trade" type of relationship.
> We provide
> developers of applications access to our service and in
> return, developers
> agree to authorize our Agreement, acknowledge the CDDB brand when the
> service is accessed, and provide a click-thru button on the
> user interface
> of their application. We have been made aware of limitations
> associated
> with text-based applications as it relates to the branding
> and click-thru
> requirements -- this was good feedback that we received and we will be
> altering our Agreement in order to accommodate text-based apps.
>
> 4) Access to the CDDB service is free for end users.
>
> With regard to your specific questions, please see my
> responses below. We
> really are OK people to work with. We have real costs associated with
> maintaining the service and have tried in our Player
> Agreement to create a
> mechanism for covering costs while not financially impacting
> developers. If
> developers don't agree with this approach, that is OK....any
> developer can
> elect not to use our service.
>
> I hope this answers your concerns. Please feel free to
> communicate with me
> directly if I can be of further assistance. See inline
> comments below.
>
> Best regards, jk
>
> Jim Kinney
> General Manager
> CDDB, Inc., an Internet enterprise of Escient, Inc.