In 1998, CDDB was purchased by Escient, a consumer electronics manufacturer, and operated as a business unit within the Indiana-based company.
The track listing database freedb used to seed its new service was based on the data released for public use by CDDB.
[2] To some, the decision was controversial because the CDDB database was started with the voluntary submission of CD track data by thousands of individual users.
[5][failed verification] In July 1999 CDDB filed an application for a United States patent, titled Method and System for Finding Approximate Matches in Database.
[7]Roxio filed a motion to dismiss the case on the ground that the patent claim by Gracenote was invalid due to prior art.
On May 17, 2001, Gracenote filed a motion for a temporary restraining order seeking to block Roxio from shipping certain of its products.