[mb-style] RFC: Change BoxSetNameStyle

[Aaron Cooper]

On 25-Mar-08, at 8:09 AM, Frederic Da Vitoria wrote:

> On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 12:00 PM, Lauri Watts <krazykiwi at gmail.com>  
> wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 25, 2008 at 10:55 AM, Frederic Da Vitoria
> <davitofrg at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 10:46 PM, Lauri Watts  
> <krazykiwi at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Sometimes it
> > > makes no sense to use any single title style on those, but  
> sometimes
> > > the contents get new cover art, or disc number designations they
> > > didn't originally have, and in those cases,   I don't see what  
> the big
> > > problem is in having duplicating them, so both sides get what they
> > > want.
> >
> > Ha! It happened even before I expected!
>
> I've been saying this from the start.  I don't know 'what happened',
> feel free to explain.
>
> I don't think every one can be happy at the same time. I think that  
> is why there are freedb, discogs and MB. None of these can have  
> everyone happy and each has it's use. I am certainly not saying any  
> of these is bad. We use freedb and discogs, which is proof they have  
> their merits. But I believe all these exist at the same time partly  
> because each answers a specific and different need. The taggers are  
> often happy with freedb, the collectors with discogs. I am not a  
> frenetic tagger (I know what I own well enough that I don't mind a  
> few mistakes in the tags), and I am certainly not a collector (if I  
> don't like a release, I certainly won't buy it because I have all  
> other releases from the same artist). What I am interested in is the  
> general music database part. The more we work for the taggers or the  
> collectors, the more we walk on freedb's or discogs' toes, the less  
> we are original, the less we work towards the general music database.

> It's a question of balance. We all know we don't have infinite  
> resources, development-wise or voting-wise. We are already  
> complaining we don't have enough voters, multiplying the number of  
> releases is not going to improve things. And in this time when music  
> companies have problems explaining why they are not increasing their  
> market parts, the number of fake re-releases is bound to increase.  
> If you can't sell something new, sell something old as if it was  
> new. This has been increasing for a few years now, and I don't see  
> why it would not go on. So we are going to have re-releases with new  
> art, new liner notes, new CD engraving, new box... But once in the  
> CD player, most of the times, it will be exactly the same. And I  
> mean the same, not only it will sound the same, it will BE the same.
>
> So not only I don't see the any use in going in that direction (once  
> again, I believe discogs is better suited and does it much more  
> systematically) but I don't like this direction. In other threads, I  
> suggested that if we went in this direction, MusicBrainz should be  
> renamed to CDBrainz. Or MajorBrainz. Of course, I was only teasing,  
> but I hope you see what I was meaning. IMO, Music is not in the  
> commercial decisions of the majors. It is not in the fact that a CD  
> was released 3 days later in this or that country. It is not in the  
> cover art (although cover art is sometimes art, but not music). Of  
> course, all these things are related to music. Bach and Mozart had  
> to eat, and this often had a major influence on their music. But it  
> is not my main interest, I don't want it in my way when I am  
> listening to music, and I feel that if we went that way, the "Music"  
> in MusicBrainz would become a kind of misnomer.


I think our problem is that MB's database is release-centric.  This  
forces us to have these BoxSet marathon discussions and be concerned  
with releases rather than "songs" or "works".  Do we really care what  
physical (or digital) album a song comes from?  Of course we do for  
cover art and so there's something in our "Album" ID3 tag and so we  
can relate songs together that were released together... but wouldn't  
it would be better if we just had one recording of a song and then it  
had 15 album names associated with it so if we felt like listening to  
a greatest hits package it would be included there and then if we felt  
like listening to the original copy on an album we could listen to it  
there in that context as well.  The thing is, albums aren't the only  
way music is distributed (especially thanks to the internet and single- 
song purchases).

For many styles of music that have found a home in the MB database  
(OCR, video game music, classical, etc.) it would be a lot easier if  
we took a work-centric approach.

I think we'd have an easier time creating a "general music database"  
if we made songs/works our focus rather than releases, cover art,  
liner notes, etc.

-Aaron (cooperaa)