Gracenote
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| Type | Subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1998 |
| Headquarters | Emeryville, California, USA |
| Products | Digital music recognition technology |
| Employees | 95 (2006) |
| Website | www.gracenote.com |
Gracenote, Inc. formerly called CDDB (Compact Disc Data Base) is a company that maintains and licenses an Internet-accessible database containing information about the contents of audio compact discs and vinyl records. It provides software and metadata to businesses that enable their customers to manage and search digital media. Members of the public can also use it alongside software such as EZ Vinyl Converter when recording vinyl records on to iTunes. Gracenote provides its media management technology and global media database of digital entertainment information to the mobile, automobile, portable, home, and PC markets. Several computer software applications that are capable of playing CDs, such as Winamp and iTunes, use Gracenote’s CDDB technology. Gracenote’s database was originally created from and continues to receive voluntary contributions from users.
In addition to its CD track-identification system, Gracenote operates a digital file identification service which allows digital music files (such as MP3s) to be identified, and a media management service for the generation of playlists, and recommendation of music.
On April 22, 2008, Sony announced that it would acquire Gracenote for $260 million USD.[1] The acquisition was completed on June 2, 2008.[2]
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[edit] Products
Gracenote offers a number of products including MusicID, Mobile MusicID, Music Enrichment, Discover, Playlist, Playlist Plus, Media VOCS, Classical Music Initiative, and Link. In April 2007, Gracenote launched the first[citation needed] legal lyrics offering in the U.S.
[edit] Customers
iTunes and Sonicstage use Gracenote’s CD track identification services.[3][4]
In addition, Gracenote provides its products to a number of other services including
- Online services including Yahoo! Music Jukebox, AOL Winamp, and Pandora.;
- Home and Automotive products from Alpine, Bose, Panasonic, Philips, and Sony;
- Mobile music applications from Samsung[5], Sony Ericsson (TrackID), KDDI (Japan), KTF (Korea), Musicwave (Europe).
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes and references
- ^ Gracenote News: Sony Corporation of America to Acquire Gracenote
- ^ Sony Corporation of America Completes Gracenote Acquisition
- ^ iTunes: What Is CDDB?
- ^ [1]
- ^ For more information, see Samsung Music Center: Samsung Multimedia Manager
