March 21, 2003
metadata is a wonderful thing
Damn I love metadata.
It appears Ben's discovery bases itself on iTunes being able to dig into the tracks and find the original album info.
Most mp3 ripping software has the ability to grab a unique fingerprint of the CD. This fingerprint (not per copy unique, just the album press-run as a whole) can then be cross-referenced on things like CDDB. What's nice is many ripping programs save this fingerprint inside the tracks themselves. This can later be pulled out and the cross-reference can be made again.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is metadata in action. Had the mp3 software not bothered to expend a little effort to save that info it wouldn't have worked. If the developers said "screw it, that's wasted bytes that nobody's ever going to use" then Ben would have be outta luck. Instead by their tagging the tunes with just a little extra info a user can even find the track titles long after the CD was ripped. This is a good thing.
So, ask yourself the next time you're being bit-stingy writing code, what harm are you doing by throwing away the metadata? What wonderful chances of serendipity are you ruining?
