Freedb

{{Infobox website | name = Freedb | type = data library | dissolved = June 2020 | successor = gnudb.org | owner = Magix (since 2006) | founder = | industry = Audio metadata | url = {{Official URL}} | commercial = No | launch_date = 2001 | current_status = Offline }}

'''Freedb''' was a database of user-submitted compact disc track listings,<ref name=":0" /> where all the content was under the GNU General Public License. To look up CD information over the Internet, a client program calculated a hash function from the CD table of contents and used it as a disc ID to query the database. If the disc was in the database, the client was able to retrieve and display the artist, album title, track list and some additional information.

Freedb was launched in 2001 based on the CDDB (Compact Disc DataBase) after it had been changed to a proprietary license and renamed "Gracenote".<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |last=Haas |first=Karl-Gerhard |date=2020-06-23 |title=CD-Datenbanken: freedb ist tot, es leben die Alternativen! |url=https://www.heise.de/news/CD-Datenbanken-freedb-ist-tot-es-leben-die-Alternativen-4792544.html |access-date=2023-12-10 |website=heise online |language=de}}</ref> {{As of|2006|04|24|post=,}} the Freedb database held just under 2,000,000 CDs.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://freedb.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=287 |title=Massive duplicate cleanup completed |access-date=2006-05-09 |work=freedb |date=2006-04-24 |author=joerg |url-status=dead |archive-date=2006-05-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060510051936/http://www.freedb.org/ }}</ref> As of 2007, MusicBrainz – a project with similar goals – had a Freedb gateway that allowed access to their own database.<ref name="MusicBrainz">{{cite web | first=Robert| last=Kaye |title=FreeDB -> MusicBrainz gateway now available! – MetaBrainz Blog |url=https://blog.metabrainz.org/2007/06/25/freedb-musicbrainz-gateway-now-available/ |access-date=2025-09-05 |date=2007-06-25}}</ref> The Freedb gateway was shut down on March 18, 2019.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://blog.metabrainz.org/2018/09/18/freedb-gateway-end-of-life-notice-march-18-2019/ |title=Freedb gateway: End of life notice, March 18, 2019 |date=2018-09-18 |website=MetaBrainz Blog |access-date=2020-02-12 }}</ref>

In 2020, Freedb was shut down by Magix, a German company that had acquired it in 2006.

== History == ===Predecessor=== The original software behind CDDB was released under the GNU General Public License, and many people submitted CD information thinking the service would also remain free. The license was later{{when|date=December 2025}} changed, however, and some programmers complained that the new license included certain terms that they couldn't accept: if one wanted to access CDDB, one was not allowed to access any other CDDB-like database (such as Freedb), and any programs using a CDDB lookup had to display a CDDB logo while performing the lookup.<ref name="whydb">{{cite web | url=http://freedb.org/modules.php?name=Sections&sop=viewarticle&artid=2 | title=Why freedb.org? | work=freedb | access-date = 2006-05-09 |url-status=dead |archive-date=2006-07-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060705041611/http://freedb.org/modules.php?name=Sections&sop=viewarticle&artid=2 }}</ref> ===Creation=== In March 2001, CDDB, now owned by Gracenote, banned all unlicensed applications from accessing their database. New licenses for CDDB1 (the original version of CDDB) were no longer available, since Gracenote wanted to force programmers to switch to CDDB2 (a new version incompatible with CDDB1 and hence with Freedb).<ref name="whydb" /> The license change motivated the Freedb project, which is intended to remain free.

In a 2006 interview with Wired, CDDB co-creator Steve Scherf pushed back against criticism that with the license change, Gracenote had privatized a public good created by the work of unpaid volunteers, noting that the data submitted to CDDB before the license remained available for download on freedb, and arguing that the stagnation of freedb at that point showed that "the focus and dedication required for CDDB to grow could not be found in a community effort".<ref name=":02">{{Cite magazine |last=Van Buskirk |first=Eliot |date=2006-11-13 |title=Gracenote Defends Its Evolution |language=en-US |magazine=Wired |url=https://www.wired.com/2006/11/gracenote-defends-its-evolution/ |access-date=2023-12-10 |issn=1059-1028}}</ref>

Because it inherited CDDB's limitations,<ref>{{cite web |title=Tips on using CD Trustee - Classical music |url=http://www.base40.com/cdtTipClassical.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080606164301/http://www.base40.com/cdtTipClassical.htm |archive-date=2008-06-06 |website=CD Trustee |publisher=Sane Soft, LLC}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Brown |first=Stan |date=2016-12-18 |title=Taming iTunes & iPod for Classical Music (and Non-Classical Too) |url=http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/itunes.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060318052129/http://oakroadsystems.com/genl/itunes.htm |url-status=usurped |archive-date=March 18, 2006 |website=Oak Road Systems}}</ref> there is no data field in the Freedb database for composer. This limits its usefulness for classical music CDs. Furthermore, CDs in a series are often introduced in the database by different people, resulting in inconsistent spelling and naming conventions across discs.

Freedb was used primarily by media players, cataloguers, audio taggers and CD ripper software. As of version 6 of the Freedb protocol, Freedb accepted and returned UTF-8 data.

===Acquisition by Magix===

Magix acquired Freedb in 2006.<ref name="freedbmagix">{{cite web |author=kaiser |date=2006-10-04 |url=http://www.freedb.org/en/forum/read.php?1,7 |title=[MAGIX acquires] freedb.org |website=freedb |access-date=2006-10-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070303052016/http://www.freedb.org/en/forum/read.php?1%2C7 |archive-date=2007-03-03 |url-status=dead }}</ref> MusicBrainz – a project with similar goals – released a Freedb gateway in 2007, allowing users to harvest information from the MusicBrainz database rather than Freedb.<ref name="MusicBrainz" /> This service was shuttered in 2019.<ref name="mbfreedbclose">{{Cite web|url=https://blog.metabrainz.org/2018/09/18/freedb-gateway-end-of-life-notice-march-18-2019/|title = Freedb gateway: End of life notice, March 18, 2019|date = 18 September 2018}}</ref> A 2011 review observed that "unlike the flat file database structure of freedb.org, MusicBrainz is structured as a relational database, which has allowed MusicBrainz to expand its scope."<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Stutzbach |first=Alisa Rata |date=2011 |title=Review of MusicBrainz |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23012884 |journal=Notes |volume=68 |issue=1 |pages=147–151 |doi=10.1353/not.2011.0134 |jstor=23012884 |issn=0027-4380|url-access=subscription |doi-access=free }}</ref>

===Closure===

In June 2020, Freedb.org went offline (after its impending shutdown had been announced in March 2020).<ref name=":1" /> Asked by Heise News about the reasons for the service's demise, Magix stated that the updates required by a changing legal and technical environment had made it uneconomical to maintain.<ref name=":1" /> An expert quoted by Heise ruled out server costs as the reason, observing that a single request to the service amounted to just around five kilobytes of transferred data.<ref name=":1" />

=== <span class="anchor" id="gnudb"></span> gnudb ===

gnudb.org, short for 'Global Network Universal Database', has continued to provide the Freedb.org database after Freedb.org was shut down.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://gnudb.org/ |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20200630030243/https://gnudb.org/|archivedate=2020-06-30|title=A new home for the freedb.org database to make sure it stays free. |access-date=2020-07-13 |quote=Now 14 years later we have seen that Magix the owner of freedb.org has decided to take the cddb service on freedb down. As we stated in 2006 on gnudb.org "A new home for the freedb.org database to make sure it stays free.", we now have to stay to our promise and do our best to make sure it is available for all the music lovers.}}</ref> gnudb.org is not affiliated with the GNU project.

== Client software == Freedb‐aware applications include:

* Asunder * Audiograbber * CDex * cdrdao * Exact Audio Copy * foobar2000 * fre:ac * Grip * JetAudio * Mp3tag * MediaMonkey * puddletag * Quod Libet

==See also== * List of online music databases * MusicBrainz * {{section link|CDDB|Example calculation of a CDDB1 (FreeDB) disc ID}}

==References== {{Reflist}}

== Further reading ==

* {{Cite web |last=O'Brien |first=Danny |author-link=Danny O'Brien (journalist) |date=2021-05-06 |title=Outliving Outrage on the Public Interest Internet: the CDDB Story |url=https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/05/outliving-outrage-public-interest-internet-cddb-story |website=Electronic Frontier Foundation |language=en}}

==External links== * {{Official website|https://web.archive.org/web/20200526005234/http://www.freedb.org/|freedb.org}} (archived copy) * [https://gnudb.org gnudb.org]

Category:Online music and lyrics databases Category:American music websites Category:Internet properties established in 2001 Category:Free-content websites Category:Defunct American websites Category:Internet properties disestablished in 2020