Sony Buys Metadata King Gracenote
By Mark Fleischmann May 12, 2008 — Sony has bought Indianapolis-based Gracenote for $260 million. Why should you care?

Gracenote manages the world's most complete database of CD metadata. When you put a CD in your computer, iTunes does an automatic metadata search, and information pops up including artist, song, album, genre, etc. When you rip the CD, the metadata is bound to the track so that you can find it in your iPod under artist, song, album, genre, etc.

That makes Gracenote one of the quiet giants of the consumer electronics industry, especially since the rise of MP3 players. Gracenote is not the only metadata provider. But its database is the largest, tidiest, and most complete—and it's the one Apple uses for iTunes and iPods. That's part of what makes the iPod user experience superior. And that's what the acquisition of Gracenote now places under Sony's control.

How does this help Sony? It'll get whatever licensing fees Apple and other companies have paid for the use of the Gracenote database in their products. And presumably Sony can give itself a sweetheart metadata deal for its own struggling line of music players. As for Apple and other Gracenote users, there's no reason why they shouldn't stick with a Sony-owned database—is there?