Gracenote Founder Rewriting History At Wikipedia

An anonymous reader writes "Gracenote founder Steve Scherf is busy again in his attempts to rewrite history after his recent interview at Wired. This time around he is aggressively deleting or seeking removal of any content on Wikipedia that discusses the controversy behind the commercialization of the formerly GPL'd cddb. Slashdotters may remember when cddb joined the Bad Patent Club back in 2000. Gracenote followed up by filing lawsuits against its customers for trying to switch to freedb and for alleged patent violations. Are there any Slashdotters out there who know the facts about Gracenote — its history, its business practices, its lawsuits? Wikipedia needs your help."

or

[by Anonymous Coward]

let them know how you feel by contacting them directly [gracenote.com]

Toll free?

[Lord Prox (521892)]

Is there a 1-800 toll free number available? I'd rather it be on there nickel than an in email.

I curse them [i-curse.com] and their little dog too. [i-curse.com]

Re:Toll free?

[stox (131684)]

If you're going to call toll-free, use a pay-phone. An extra $0.25 is tacked onto the bill to compensate the pay-phone operator for the use their phone for the call.

Re:

[smitty_one_each (243267)]

I went the i-bless.com route, blessing "grace more notable than gracenote."
All that negativity is too much like a political campaign.

Re:Copyrights of the database entries?

[damiangerous (218679)]

Everything that you write, even a shopping list, automatically has your copyright

No, it doesn't [copyright.gov]. Just as a list of ingredients is not protected neither are facts. The manner of expression of those facts may be protected, but it certainly is not in the simple statement of "Album X by Band Y contains songs A, B, C and D" which is what the cddb is.

Re:Copyrights of the database entries?

[XoXus (12014)]

Everything that you write, even a shopping list, automatically has your copyright, ...

Not exactly - only if it is a creative, intellectual or artistic act. If you are just copying the track names off the back of a CD case, it is not any of those things.

Arguably, even a shopping list is not copyright, because it's hardly intellectual or artistic, and its creativity is disputable!

What a loaded question

[Timesprout (579035)]

Are there any Slashdotters out there who know the facts about Gracenote its history, its business practices, its lawsuits? Wikipedia needs your help."

Since when have the facts ever stopped slashdotters from throwing in their 2 cents on any subject?

Re:What a loaded question

[Mike1024 (184871)]

Since when have the facts ever stopped slashdotters from throwing in their 2 cents on any subject?

That may be true for you, but I can cite an established authority: wikipedia [wikipedia.org]. Did you know, for example, that:

Gracenote founder Steve Scherf has come a long way from his younder days of meth-fueled llama sodomizing. While once it looked like he'd soon die in a gutter, that six months he spent in the federal pen for killing a bussload of nuns while drunk (which he coyly refers to as "Happy happy shower butt fun time") cleaned him up, allowing him to become the ruthless corporate asshat we know today.

If Wikipedia says it, it must be true.

Re:

[britneys 9th husband (741556)]

Of course, that's been reverted. But not the normal wikipedia reversion. It's completely erased from the revision history, 1984 style. You will see something's up if you click on parent's link. And here's the Wikipedia log [wikipedia.org] to prove what happened.

Fortunately the truth is preserved on Slashdot :)

Re:What a loaded question

[interiot (50685)]

Technically, it's Wikipedia policy to delete libellous revisions from the page history, [1] [wikipedia.org] since it could be a legal issue. The same thing happened on the Seigenthaler page, as soon as Seigenthaler notified Wikipedia about the problem with his page, the libelous versions were deleted from history. [2] [wikipedia.org] [3] [wikipedia.org] In practice, there's a ton of vandalism, and libelous versions don't necessarily get deleted unless/until they're pointed out as being a problem ...and as you pointed out, it's not like this particular bit of information isn't recorded on Slashdot for posterity's sake.

Double-edges sword, there

[pla (258480)]

Are there any Slashdotters out there who know the facts about Gracenote -- its history, its business practices, its lawsuits? Wikipedia needs your help.

Who needs facts? If Scherf wants to change history, let's damn well change it!

I think the new entry should start, "Gracenote founder Steve Scherf has come a long way from his younder days of meth-fueled llama sodomizing. While once it looked like he'd soon die in a gutter, that six months he spent in the federal pen for killing a bussload of nuns while drunk (which he coyly refers to as "Happy happy shower butt fun time") cleaned him up, allowing him to become the ruthless corporate asshat we know today."

Revisionist history works both ways, Steve. Don't fuck with the geek masses - We can "fix" your entries MUCH faster than you can.

Nope. Not going to work on Wikipedia

[technoextreme (885694)]

I think the new entry should start, "Gracenote founder Steve Scherf has come a long way from his younder days of meth-fueled llama sodomizing. While once it looked like he'd soon die in a gutter, that six months he spent in the federal pen for killing a bussload of nuns while drunk (which he coyly refers to as "Happy happy shower butt fun time") cleaned him up, allowing him to become the ruthless corporate asshat we know today." Revisionist history works both ways, Steve. Don't fuck with the geek masses -

Re:Nope. Not going to work on Wikipedia

[pla (258480)]

Lets give him a legit reason for him to sue us. Yay.

Parody remains one of our few frequently-upheld forms of free speech. The more over-the-top, the less grounds he has to sue.

As for the side effect of damaging a valuable source of information, well, I will admit I have that as my sole reason for not editing quite a few entries on folks like Scherf, McBride, or Thompson. I respect the truth, if not the men.

But when someone like Scherf throws down the gauntlet and takes away the factual content aspect, well, not much point remains in exercising restraint, at least until someone really does fix the entry. So as a placeholder, why not let such asses suffer an entry on llama-buggery for a few weeks?

Re:

[hogfat (944873)]

But there has to be actual parody to uphold. Outright claiming the man sodomized llamas and spent time in jail isn't parody unless his past indicates some sort of association with llamas, jail, et cetera. Otherwise, it's simply slander. And that sure looks like slander.

So freedb and winamp

[way2trivial (601132)]

never worked together? and winamp has an animal logo of? TADA!

Re:Nope. Not going to work on Wikipedia

[Stormwatch (703920)]

Jeff Minter, is that you?!

Re:

[owlnation (858981)]

And that sure looks like slander.

Slander is spoken, so it doesn't look like anything different from other forms of speech necessarily. I think you mean "libel".

Re:

[Dun Malg (230075)]

But there has to be actual parody to uphold. Outright claiming the man sodomized llamas and spent time in jail isn't parody unless his past indicates some sort of association with llamas, jail, et cetera. Otherwise, it's simply slander. And that sure looks like slander.

No, there is a simple defense for this. In order for something to be libelous*, it must be believable. Preposterous statements (e.g. parodies like this case) cannot be defamatory because no one would take them seriously enough to allow their opinion of the subject to be affected by them.
For amusement's sake, I quote from the Wikipedia entry on Slander and Libel [wikipedia.org]:

"the defendant may claim that the allegedly defamatory statement is not actually capable of being defamatory--an insulting statement that does

Re:

[enharmonix (988983)]

...and removed (though not by me). For those interested, the diff is here [wikipedia.org].

This is Wikipedia's great failing

[by Anonymous Coward]

and ultimaty possible undoing. The problem is that a small group of people with prodigious amounts of time can delete and browbeat editors, in a usually succesful attempt at pushing their and only their point of view on wikipedia. Rather than strive for accuracy and truthfulness, they have no fear of continual edit wars until they brow beat other editors into compliance. As more learn how to "game" Wikipedia, any sort of seemingly controversial subject or topic will be deleted off the pages, as most editors do not have 24/7 time to patrol the pages that apparently some groups have. This prodigious amount of time lets them fly by the 3RR rule with ease. I suspect corporations and politicians have hired such groups to do just that.

I welcome a healthy debate over any topic. But the rules concerning censorship needs to be enforced much more strongly with IP bans being put in place for those that engage in censorship rather than "editing." I just don't see that happenning with the Jimbo Wale's mutual admiration society and structure that Wikipedia seems to promote.

Another article that this happens a lot with is the "Muhammad" article. No muslim will let *any* historical artwork depicting Muhummad on that page as its against their religion. Forget about truthful statements that might cast the prophet in a bad light or go against their religion (like that he founded Islam and married a young girl or his military murders). People need to chime in that this is censorship and nothing more there too.

Posting anon so I'm not trolled on Wikipedia.

Re:This is Wikipedia's great failing

[bug1 (96678)]

Its no different than "gaming" mainstream media... people will always try and cheat the system, but the strength of wikipedia is that the gamers actions are out in the open, you can see their edits.

How much POV do you think goes on in the white house briefings, or FOX news... you think wikipedia is a problem ?

Re:

[The_Wilschon (782534)]

But there is no need for slashdot to be neutral, nor any claim that it is, was, or will ever be neutral.

Re:

[bug1 (96678)]

I do see what you mean about editing and "Muhammad", its probably just as hard as trying to say something about Israel that doesnt have the blessing of Israel's government... there are extremists everywhere.

The only solution is to be objective, cite references, justify the materials importance, if it still doesnt fit, find a new page that is more appropriate.

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

This is certainly happeing at the Gracenote article at Wikipedia. Gracenote employees like Scherf making all sorts of veiled legal threats and bullying the editors. Scherf himself has mentioned the word "libel" more than once in his comments, and that the Wikipedia article is somehow damaging to his company and they have a "responsibility to defend themselves". All the while, they accuse any source which conflicts with their view of the world as being incorrect or lies. This type of browbeating is unaccep

As someone who contributed MUCH data to cddb ...

[hlygrail (700685)]

...I find it interesting that so few reponses have hit this thread yet. I'm not outraged at the Gracenote nightmare (I got over it), but I would have thought that the cumulative efforts by many folks here would have sparked a bit more interest.

nobody cares much any more

[artifex2004 (766107)]

Geez, I mean, after CDDB, IMDB went commercial, too.
It's all really old news, now.
Wikipedia has commercial arrangements, too.

Re:nobody cares much any more

[interiot (50685)]

Wikipedia has funding not directly related to Wikipedia, and in a way that can exert no possible editorial control or ownership over Wikipedia, eg. from wikia [wikimedia.org] and answers.com [answers.com]. Having a decent amount of revenue on the side ensures that Wikipedia won't be at risk of needing on-site advertisements or otherwise having to cede any hint of editorial control to corporate interests.

Re:As someone who contributed MUCH data to cddb ..

[swordgeek (112599)]

I haven't gotten over Gracenote's theft yet. I typed in about 100 albums worth of data (out of my 400 album collection) and submitted it to the FREE CDDB. Gracenote stole my work and resold it.

But what's there to say here, really? Steve is a lying, two-faced asshole who probably actually feels wronged by all of the bad press he's earned. He belongs in the same category as Jeff Immelt and Sanford Wallace. In the same jail cell as well, actually.

Umm, he's amoral, lying and unethical?

[OmniGeek (72743)]

I worked at a company acquired by GE; we were ALL required to take a mandatory all-day *ethics training course*. Mine was held the Friday before the story about Jack Welch's unbelievably lavish and hitherto entirely secret "retirement package" (personal use of a corporate 747, his own apartment in Trump Towers including catered food and flowers, and much else, all of it lifelong and irrevocable except with Mr. Welch's consent) hit the press. You might say I felt somewhat betrayed by this...

Immelt, the CEO of GE, tried to portray this as all being perfectly fine and appropriate, and not at all excessive. Once the public outrage got too hot, the board hurriedly rescinded this platinum handshake and claimed "All fixed now, no ethical issues at all. Nothing to see here, folks, move along."

Let's see, I get punished if I don't fly the very cheapest route on company travel, regardless of the cost to my personal life, and a retired exec gets FREE use of a WHOLE 747 for his PERSONAL use whenever he feels like it? And THAT is considered ethical conduct?

That's MY beef with Mr. Immelt. Any questions?

Apple CD Drive tracked CD song names in 1987 !

[by Anonymous Coward]

Its true, almost 10 years before CDDB and Gracenote's corrupt seizure of the formerly PD database and GPL software, apple did it first, though to a local file database on a hard drive and not over a longer distance to a file on another machine further away.

10 years!

Technically Apple wrote the cool stuff for its cd player app in 1987 but only shipped the hardware and player application in March 1988.

After March 1988 apples developer support added a technote available for purchase that let programmers know how to create the hash for a audio cd.

it was basically the 75th of a second frame duration of each audio track and the entire disc, from what I recall, not much different than CDDB and Gracenote 10 years later.

March 1988 for Apple. I used it back then, in fact I even bought the little technote, and hand typed all my cd song names and then copied the database OVER A NETWORK to all my mac and my buddies macs so that when i played cds on any mac in the computer lab the track names would all show up.

A lot of people forget how many years ahead of technology Apple was in 1988.

Gracenote seems to be.

When CDDB closed up shop and was seized by gracenote for corrupt 16 million dollar grab I think it had only 77,000 CDs? I have TAHT database (before when it was open), I also have the last free copy of FREEDB from a couple months back.

And... I still have a working 1988 appleCD scsi drive (for testing purposes).

Apples CD SOFTWARE device independent driver was so technologically wonderful eventually it had features no other driver had :

VOLUME CONTROL of separate channels, high speed audio seeking with feedback in fast scan, reverse or forward, MONO setting form either track, preposition silent pause and hold for sudden release for games like battlechess (no seek delay when audio started). In fact apple had 9 different play position modes, eventually apple was first to offer digital audio extraction in its drives and driver standard, and CD+G and CD+G players were written (part of FWB cd-rom toolkit). Apples driver even supported many block size settings such as reading R-W tracks only, or reading CD-XA using correct trim block sizes of 2352 bytes for VCD. VCD video players were written for macs and in the pc world the VCD playback was a bizarre hack using jumbo block sizes far alrger than needed for each CDXA block.

all those technologies would suffer and rot in some way (fast audio scanning, independent left-right volume, CD+G) over the years as people only cared about cheaper simpler non-sony mechanisms. Apple eventually tried cd drives from almost every vendor.

As a side note Gracenote is trying to buy patents to try and force Neilson and force MusicBrainz (libmusicbrainz ) off the net soon via onerous litigation by the way. (smaller fish first to fry) this has to do with audio fingerprinting emerging tech (EMI, Neilson), but no patents exist that are legit because tons of stuff far before MusicBrainz exists. In fact stuff even existed years BEFORE 2001 landmark paper : M. K. Mihcak and R. Venkatesan, "A Perceptual Audio Hashing Algorithm: A Tool for Robust Audio Identification and Information Hiding," LNCS, vol. 2137, 2001, pp. 51-65. Before Gracenotes new market for myspace.com and youtube.com mp3 auto-banning, and before shazam-EMI, and before even Neilson radio scanning song ID and comemrcial spot ID services.

Gracenote is corrupt through and through. Suing Roxio for usng FreeDB was very offensive. Frivolous patents suck.

I hope someone who cares mods this above 0.

Is slashdot a new form of WP dispute resolution

[pfafrich (647460)]

Most curious, knowing nothing about this a had a peek at the wikipedia page, and the user contributions and found that mediation case [wikipedia.org], which was closed yesterday. To me this looks like your run of the mill wikipedia dispute, which have spiraled out of control, as they often do. And who is the anon poster, the same person who was blocked as an imposter [wikipedia.org] and is taking his beef elsewhere.

I don't know whats what, but its probably best to keep this stuff in the wiki. By all means people can contribute to the page but make sure you understand the various ways of wikipedia before turning this into something bigger than it is.

Apparently...

[EvilMonkeySlayer (826044)]

Somebody kept editing it saying the population of Gracenote has tripled in the last six months.

Its being worked on

[simonkoldyk (1034786)]

Wikipedia has things in place for this thing. Check out the talk page for the Gracenote page and you will see that Gracenote employees are not longer editing the article and are working with each other to get the page to something that is agreeable to both sides.

Re:

[AK Marc (707885)]

But that is a failure. Rather than looking for the truth, they are looking for something that will satisfy two groups. Well, what if one is wrong but vocal? Do we need to hear untruths mingled in with the truth just to shut them up? If I wanted that, I'd watch Fox news. "Fair and Balanced" is an excuse to give nutjobs equal time.

That's Wikipedia

[ShakaUVM (157947)]

Well, you know, that's wikipedia for you. It's actually a highly biased encyclopedia. Just go into any politically interesting article and look through the revision history. You'll see both sides adding and deleting slants to the article that agree or disagree with their own biased point of view.

Their NPOV policy is a joke.

I asked for this page to be protected at Wikipedia

[Archeopteryx (4648)]

Sorry, guys, but calling out for a Wiki edit war on a message board, no matter how correct you are about the need for correction, is very, very bad form.

Enough of this nonsense.

[boojumbadger (949542)]

Every time I have seen one of these topic and I go look at the page it have been vandalized by someone seeing it here. This time I look at the page and someone had stapled the slashdot entry to the bottom of the gracenote page. It is the same thing with Fark, posting about wikipedia controversies on popular forums like this just makes the problem worse.

Meh

[belg4mit (152620)]

The whole thing would be moot if anybody bothered to implement CD-Text

Microsoft was never a CDDB licensee??

[BoboB-69 (1034912)]

Found this wonderful bit of truthiness from Scherf at the Gracenote talk page at Wikipedia. He is in denial that no developers dropped CDDB (now Gracenote) after the commercialization. His memory must be deteriorating:

(snip) you would understand that Microsoft was never a licensee, so the claim that they dropped Gracenote is totally impossible and false. Microsoft initially used third parties (who in turn used a wide variety of data sources, sometimes their own hand-entered data), not CDDB/Gracenote for its "Deluxe CD Player" product.(/snip)

Here is the press release from Scherf's own company Gracenote's former parent, Escient about their purchase of CDDB, and it clearly states that Microsoft was a licensee :

The CDDB database currently provides music CD identification information to more than 25 officially-supported players, including the new Microsoft(R) Deluxe CD Player (MSFT), as well as the Notify CD Player, Quintessential CD Player, Discplay 4, and Xmcd.

http://web.archive.org/web/20000528085307/www.esci ent.com/aug1198.htm [archive.org]

My one and only comment

[sscherf (1026666)]

Gracenote founder Steve Scherf is busy again in his attempts to rewrite history after his recent interview at Wired

This is a pretty amazing statement, considering that the edits we're making on the Wikipedia article are supported by fact. The changes are also being facilitated by an impartial third party, after certain individuals continued to revert validated text under the guise of "unverifiable". Their behavior has illustrated the worst aspects of Wikipedia, as were first brought to wider public attention in the Seigenthaler [wikipedia.org] incident. I've already given up on the page, because when you have Wikipedia editors disputing the verity of federal court documents, there is little point in continuing.

The reason for the Wired article was to hopefully shed some light on reality, not the /. history. Much of the history of Gracenote has been rewritten here on this site (and others, to be fair) over the years, and it's pretty amazing to see stories like this one that claim we're the ones rewriting it. As I said in the full text of the Wired [moonsoft.com] interview, some of the Gracenote lore is obviously true, and not all of it is pretty. There is no disputing that. But a lot of the tall tales that have spread over the years are pure dreck.

I have spent my time at Gracenote doing two things, improving and expanding the technology, and doing my best to steer the company so that the original philosophies of CDDB are not forgotten (though I do not have a huge influence at the company in that regard, as you might guess from some of the company's early behavior). There have been a number of times I have thought of leaving, such as when the company was doing something I felt was wrong, and I have gotten in numerous and protracted battles with them over the years. But I stayed, because without me, there would no longer be a touchstone for them with CDDB's history (the other two CDDB partners, Ti Kan and Graham Toal, two of the nicest and most mild mannered people you could ever meet, are not with the company). And I think it's been for the better, because Gracenote is now largely moving in the right direction IMO, even if they weren't in the past.

So, yes, Gracenote has a checkered past, and it does have its detractors. But when detractors hate something so much that they perpetrate acts against that thing that are as bad or worse than they claim have been done to them, it's time for them to engage in a little self-reflection. I say this not just for the Wikipedia "editors" who have been using the Gracenote page as a weapon against Gracenote, but for anyone who's formed a negative opinion of the company based on what they've heard here and there on the net. Read the Wired interview and use your own judgement, but for gods sake, stop abusing Wikipedia just to get at Gracenote (or anyone for that matter).

Steve Scherf

Re:

[Archeopteryx (4648)]

1. Free the patent. (It is a patent of prior art anyway.)

2. Release the database of all CDs more than a year old.

He'll still have a year's worth of proprietary data at any time, and open source programs would have a usable means of getting CD metadata.

That is what I am asking him to do. Assuming that he really does want to make this right, of course.

Re:Interesting guilt plea

[by Anonymous Coward]

Because many people think that everything on Wikipedia is The Truth (tm)?

Re:Interesting guilt plea

[Brandybuck (704397)]

Wikipedia(tm) is edited by Anonymous(tm) Contributors(tm) from the Free(tm) Community(tm). How can it possibly be anything but The Truth(tm).

For you to be questioning this must mean you haven't been drinking your Kool-Aid(tm).

Re:

[owlnation (858981)]

Because many people think that everything on Wikipedia is The Truth (tm)?

I'm sure there are many cases where "The Truth" (TM) is well represented on Wikipedia.

Actual truth however, is occasionally there in between The Truth, Lies, Vandalism, Opinions, Spam, and Articles that would be true if you could understand what the hell language they're written in...(probably Bablefishese)

Wikipedia should really have a disclaimer at the top of every page warning and reminding users that there's a good chance

Re:Interesting guilt plea

[rednip (186217)]

Wikipedia should really have a disclaimer at the top of every page warning and reminding users that there's a good chance that the page below may contain absolutely no facts whatsoever. That really would solve a lot of issues, and is honest.

It's a good idea, but why limit it to Wikipedia, it should just be built into the browser itself. For that matter the TV could print a such a warning when one changes the channel to Fox News. Seriously, part of being a 'responsible consumer of knowledge' from any source is knowing that the facts may be different than presented.

Re:

[Kesh (65890)]

I don't know whose press releases you're reading. Even on the site itself it says not use Wikipedia as a source, just as a jumping-off point.

Re:

[i kan reed (749298)]

No, really. Those things are buried among the true stuff, not the other way around. If you watch the changes people make during high vandalism periods(for english wiki, that's usually when schools get out during the 4 U.S. time zones). It still has a really high ratio of "good" to "bad" edits.

Re:

[TapeCutter (624760)]

Here's one, admittedly it's restricted to encyclopedic knowledge of one topic.

However I do agree that for trully encyclopedic knowledge with a strong referencing regime, WP is light-years ahead of any other free site. As you say: if it's not then where is a link to something better?

I find most "contraversies" about WP's "inaccuracies" are usually about some stupid "he said, she said" egotistical argument that interests only an ultra-minority of its users and has zero impact on WP's usefull qualities.

Re:My 0 cents

[by Anonymous Coward]

Here's the best way to Fight Shitnote.

In Windows at least. "replace '-' with a space"

Add the following settings to the hosts file Located at \WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc

212.91.252.38-----------cddb.cddb.com
212.91.252.38-----------cddb.cddb.org
212.91.252.38-----------cddb.cddb.net
212.91.252.38-----------us.cddb.com
212.91.252.38-----------sc.ca.us.cddb.com
212.91.252.38-----------sc2.ca.us.cddb.com
212.91.252.38-----------sj.ca.us.cddb.com
212.91.252.38-----------sj2.ca.us.cddb.com

You can also download an appropriate hosts file and put it in your Windows-directory, if you don't want to add the entries by hand. You can test if this works by directing your browser e.g. to cddb.cddb.com. You should see the freedb-website instead. Instead of using 212.91.252.38 as IP-address (which is the address of us.freedb.org), you can of course use the IP-address of any of our mirrors.

Re:

[fostware (551290)]

Thanks for that...

I've added it to my DNS server, along with targetpoint.com, doubleclick.net, fastclick.net, yeildmanager.com, extreme-dm.com, and revsci.net zones.

cddb.com.dns
; Zone records
;
@ A 212.91.252.38
* A 212.91.252.38