Gracenote Celebrates Ten Year Anniversary of Its Digital Music Database and Advent of Digital Music.

2006 Marks a Decade since the Term MP3 Came to Define Digital Music, and the First CD was Entered into the Gracenote CDDB DatabaseCoPink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon'

EMERYVILLE, Calif. -- This year marks a decade of digital music since the term MP3 was trademarked and the industry's first digital music database, Gracenote's CDDB([R]), was introduced. In 1996 digital music was just taking shape, with MP3 established as the term that would define the industry. That same year, CDDB (compact disc database) began serving CD data, and would become the world's largest database of music information. From five thousand CDs in 1996 to more than five million CDs and 58 million tracks in 2006, the Gracenote music database provides more digital music data and is searched more times by more consumers than any other source of digital music information today.

Ever since CDDB was created by Steve Scherf and Ti Kan, and the first album, Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon," was entered into their growing CD look-up database, CDDB has been used to identify the album and artist associated with nearly every CD played on a computer. The success of the database in the early days spawned a suite of products and services that add significant value to products consumers use, listen to and even drive every day. Today, Gracenote's technology is an essential ingredient in products offered by the biggest names in the digital entertainment, Internet, mobile and automotive industries.

"The digital audio technologies that emerged during the past decadeCofrom portable MP3 players to paid online music servicesCohave changed the way that people think about and listen to music," said Susan Kevorkian, analyst with IDC. "Today, nearly one quarter of U.S. households report owning a portable MP3 player, and technologies like CDDB have been instrumental in driving this trend by helping to make digital music accessible and consumer-friendly."

Since it was first introduced, CDDB has spawned numerous new technologies and groundbreaking products from Gracenote. The company's Global Music Database and MusicID([TM]) recognition system have crossed over from the PC and portable devices to the wireless industry, with Mobile MusicID becoming the standard application for music identification on mobile phones. MediaVOCS([TM]) allows voice-controlled music navigation and playlisting, which will take the automotive industry in an important in-car entertainment direction. New products such as Discover([TM]) for music recommendations, Playlist([TM]) for automated playlist generation, and Lyrics significantly enrich music services offered by the leaders in digital media. Today, more than 200 million consumers worldwide access digital music information from Gracenote, and the company's products are accelerating digital media commerce by empowering consumers and professionals with digital music services.

"Before CDDB, digital music had no accompanying album information and required people to input manually the artist, album and track information for every CD. We can only wonder how the digital music experience would have evolved if every consumer had to input the data behind every album manually," said Craig Palmer, Gracenote CEO. "Gracenote is one of the few companies with technology that spans the life of the digital entertainment industry, and we are working on further innovations that will bring lyrics to portable players and digital music software in the coming months."

According to technology market research firm IDC, worldwide unit shipments of portable flash and hard drive-based MP3 players have grown from 50,000 in 1998 to more than 170 million in 2006, and Gracenote technology is utilized by the majority of portable media players on the market. In 2006 there will be more than 15 billion searches processed from all Gracenote-enabled productsCofrom online portals and communities such as Yahoo! and MySpace, to devices and applications from Apple, Panasonic, Toyota, and Sony Ericsson, to online commerce sites such as iTunes and Rhapsody. Gracenote products are global in scale, and will be used by more than 200 million consumers in 2006, in more than 200 countries and regions, and with content in more than 80 languages.

Gracenote Expands Lyrics Database with Licenses from all Five Major Music Publishers

As Gracenote further expands its digital media product line, the company announced separately that it has signed agreements to license song lyrics from EMI Music Publishing, the world's number-one music publisher, Warner/Chappell Music, the award-winning publishing arm of Warner Music Group, and leading independent publishers, including ABKCO Music, Inc., The Bob Dylan Music Company, Disney Music Publishing, Ice Nine Publishing, and Windswept Holdings. These new lyrics licenses bring the North American rights for hundreds of thousands of new song lyrics to the Gracenote Lyrics catalog, and result in licensing agreements with all five major music publishers and more than 80 publishers in the program.

About Gracenote

Gracenote is a leader in global digital entertainment technology. Formerly known as CDDB, Gracenote provides businesses with critical embedded software and metadata that enable consumers to better manage, enjoy and discover digital media. Headquartered in Emeryville, California, Gracenote also has offices in New York, Tokyo, Berlin and Seoul. Gracenote's solutions are embedded in leading media players such as Apple iTunes, Yahoo Music Engine, RealNetworks Rhapsody, Napster and AOL Winamp, as well as software applications for Creative and iRiver portable devices. Gracenote's technology powers leading home and automobile consumer electronics brands such as Alpine, Denon, Harman/Becker Automotive Systems and Marantz, Kenwood, Panasonic, Philips, Pioneer, Samsung, Sony and Yamaha, as well as international mobile music applications for KDDI (Japan), KTF (Korea), Musiwave (Portugal), Oi (Brazil) and Sony-Ericsson. For more information about Gracenote, please refer to www.gracenote.com/corporate/.

Gracenote and its logo are registered trademarks of Gracenote, Inc. and Gracenote MusicID, MediaVOCS, Discover and Playlist are trademarks of Gracenote, Inc.