[X Newbies] Itunes...

[Vincent Cayenne]

At 9:44 PM -0500 3/26/04, Matthew_ Guemple wrote:
>This makes no sense to me... why would I tunes contact an outside 
>server? If I have the CD right in front of me why would I tunes need 
>to go elsewhere for the info... curious.

CDs typically contain almost nothing but the bits and bytes that are 
the music (and some redundant data for error handling). So without 
some other source of information, the CD is called just "Audio CD" 
and the track information lists "Track 1", "Track 2", etc. Then *you* 
have the task of editing this information to reflect the specific 
information relevant to that disc - "Va, pensiero", " Guiseppe Verdi" 
and so on. The information is then stored locally and the next time 
the CD is inserted, it appears to be "recognised".

The CDDB is a vast storehouse of information about many audio discs. 
The information was freely contributed by many, then somehow 
commercialised (not a complaint, I just don't know the details) and 
is licensed by/as Gracenote. Many multimedia applications use the 
service to look up newly inserted discs and then retrieve and load 
the information on the user's behalf. This can be very convenient.


>No doubt a "free music" deal with the NSA or something...


The feature can be disabled in iTunes Preferences. And there are 
alternatives to Gracenote's CDDB such as Freedb.org's offering.

See:
    <http://www.gracenote.com/corporate/privacy.html>
    <http://www.gracenote.com/>
    <http://www.freedb.org/modules.php?name=Sections&sop=viewarticle&artid=26>
-- 
'tis as said. [Reality is defined by being described]