From pfurrie at hotmail.com  Sat Sep 16 19:31:07 2006
From: pfurrie at hotmail.com (Pat Furrie)
Date: Sat, 16 Sep 2006 22:31:07 -0400
Subject: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
In-Reply-To: <450BEB2C.7000809@coe.neu.edu>
Message-ID: <BAY120-F37656ACB47C4422ADCEBA7A02C0@phx.gbl>

Brian,

Personally, I don't have a V-chip enabled TV set at home, but I can still 
imagine how it might be useful, even if the kids might find ways to 
circumvent it.  Ultimately, it is a tool.  It might not work perfectly every 
time, but it is an attempt.  If you have a better solution, by all means, 
let's hear it.

Yes, some parents use TVs for babysittters, and in some cases, depending on 
the situation, that constitutes crappy parenting.  Do we toss out TVs?  What 
about the times when it works, when kids are put in front of programs which 
can more effectively teach them than the best teacher in the county?  That's 
how I felt when I watched the PBS series "The Mechanical Universe" for the 
first time, and learned more calculus in a half hour than I did in several 
hours of college calculus class.

Some kids will hear inappropriate music whether there is an adult tag or 
not.  But others might be relieved of it.  How much good does it need to be 
able to do before it is considered a worthy effort?

Pat



>From: Brian Mearns <bmearns at coe.neu.edu>
>Reply-To: id3v2 at id3.org
>To: id3v2 at id3.org
>Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
>Date: Sat, 16 Sep 2006 08:16:44 -0400
>
>I guess "object" wasn't quite the correct word for me to use. Looking back, 
>my point wasn't (or at least shouldn't've been) that this shouldn't be 
>implemented or that I would try to stop someone from implementing it, or 
>that I would throw a fit if it is. I meant to imply that I just didn't 
>think it's worthwhile. However, some of the other comments, about 
>auto-playlists and what not, point out some valuable use cases, where I can 
>see that it would be worthwhile.
>
>I guess more to the point I was trying to make (albeit, not very well) is 
>that parent's should not be relying on these types of devices as a 
>replacement for good parenting. Just because you've installed the V-chip, 
>doesn't mean that everything your kids see on television is going to be 
>appropriate, and even if it was, that doesn't mean that you can just sit 
>them in front of the television and use it as a baby sitter. That's still 
>bad parenting regardless of what's on. Same with any form of censorship 
>that gets applied to music. Whether it's effective at stopping them from 
>listening to it or not, it's not effective at addressing the real issue 
>which is not the music, but their  own behavior and language. I can imagine 
>that these types of devices could be useful tools for parents in 
>conjunction with instilling proper behaviors and values, I just think it's 
>important that people realize it's not the answer in itself.
>
>-Brian
>
>Pat Furrie wrote:
>>Brian,
>>
>>While utilities might come into existance to disable to flag, so what?  
>>The lock on the front door of my house is easily foiled by learning how to 
>>make a use a bump key from YouTube, but I still lock the door.  Do you?  
>>Probably.
>>
>>And is it censorship?  Again, so what if it is?  I don't tell the kids 
>>what my wife and I do in the bedroom.  Censorship?  So what.  Part of 
>>being a parent is making choices about what a kid is exposed to at a 
>>certain age.  For mine, they get differing levels of access based on their 
>>ability to deal with it.  You can call it censorship, I'll call it 
>>limiting.
>>
>>We're just looking for tools to help us set up limiting for our kids.  I'm 
>>not going to stop trying just because some kids might try to get around 
>>it.  Others aren't.  Even if you disagree, why would you care if someone 
>>tried, or that the tools were made to exist in order to make that attempt?
>>
>>Don't censor the effort.
>>
>>Pat
>>
>>
>>>From: Brian Mearns <bmearns at coe.neu.edu>
>>>Reply-To: id3v2 at id3.org
>>>To: id3v2 at id3.org
>>>Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
>>>Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 23:25:35 -0400
>>>
>>> >Tim isn't looking for why it won't work, he's looking
>>> > for ways to make it work.
>>>
>>>Spoken like a true manager.
>>>
>>>Personally, I have minor objections to this as a matter of principle; 
>>>it's a minor form of censorship, though granted it's no worse than the 
>>>V-chip and similar technologies. But sheltering your kids from the world 
>>>isn't protecting them. Even if you prevent them from playing certain 
>>>songs because of language of "adult-themes", they're still going to be 
>>>exposed to it else where; on tv, in movies, from their friends, siblings, 
>>>class-mates, &c. The important thing is to teach your kids the difference 
>>>between what they see or hear, and what's appropriate for them to say or 
>>>do. And no amount of sheltering will make up for good parenting. Now I 
>>>know that sounds very high and mighty, and I'm not trying to accuse 
>>>anyone of being a bad parent; I understand there's a lot of scary stuff 
>>>out there and we want to protect our kids from it. But like I said, 
>>>they're going to be exposed to it one way or another, and hiding it from 
>>>them, not addressing the real issue, is only going to make it harder to 
>>>cope with when they finally are.
>>>
>>>Alright, so that was less ID3 and more rant. Come down to it, like Tom 
>>>said, you can't possibly prevent someone from editing the file they've 
>>>downloaded. If this system really did take off, it wouldn't take more 
>>>than a few days before download.com is filled with freeware apps to 
>>>disable to flag, and blogs all over the web have instructions on how to 
>>>do it in note pad.
>>>
>>>-Brian Mearns
>>>
>>>Pat Furrie wrote:
>>>>Tom,
>>>>
>>>>Now, I don't know if Tim's suggestion is workable.  But he does bring up 
>>>>a problem he's at least giving some thought to solving, and I'm certain 
>>>>other people have had this as a problem with which to deal.  It's the 
>>>>sort of thing that brought about the ratings codes in movies (quite some 
>>>>time ago) and ratings on TV (more recently).  I've got kids of my own 
>>>>who I want to have some way of helping distinguish which music is 
>>>>appropriate.
>>>>
>>>>You've pointed out a couple of challenges.  Perhaps you could provide 
>>>>some constructive analysis.  Devil's advocate is too easy; anyone can do 
>>>>that.  But as they say, if you're not part of the solution, you're part 
>>>>of the problem.  Tim isn't looking for why it won't work, he's looking 
>>>>for ways to make it work.
>>>>
>>>>Tim: I'd like to see a set of method with more granularity than just 
>>>>"adult" or not.  "Adult" is a bit slippery, and is defined differently 
>>>>by different people.  However, the existance of certain key words and 
>>>>concepts are more objective.  You might want to look at how TV has done 
>>>>ratings, and model it after that.  This way any "adult content" tag 
>>>>methodology could leverage the methods already adopted, and be more 
>>>>universal across media types (meaning, not just audio files).
>>>>
>>>>We could nay-say and do nothing, or we can get off our butts and do 
>>>>something.  Even if something doesn't work, I'd rather have tried to 
>>>>make it work than not.
>>>>
>>>>Fail fast, succeed sooner.
>>>>
>>>>Pat
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>From: "Tom Sorensen" <tsorensen at gmail.com>
>>>>>Reply-To: id3v2 at id3.org
>>>>>To: id3v2 at id3.org
>>>>>Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
>>>>>Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 15:20:40 -0400
>>>>>
>>>>>If you want a new Genre, just make one. There is no list of
>>>>>pre-defined genres for ID3v2. You'd then have to modify whatever
>>>>>player to not play any music that belonged in that genre (and see
>>>>>below for the issues with that).
>>>>>
>>>>>But that's not what you really want. You want a flag that a music
>>>>>player would have to check before playing (or, since you seem
>>>>>concerned about the title, before even displaying). Certainly
>>>>>possible; there are other similar flags in the ID3v2 spec currently.
>>>>>
>>>>>I'll go ahead and object to it as pointless though. Since:
>>>>>
>>>>>A) nobody implements anything like this in current players (software
>>>>>or hardware), and it would be 3-5 years before that would change (and
>>>>>that's being optimistic; more likely it would never be implemented.
>>>>>ID3v2.4 is 5 years old now and still has very low uptake),
>>>>>
>>>>>B) it would be completely trivial to bypass and/or disable anyway
>>>>>since you cannot prevent someone from changing the tag (or removing it
>>>>>entirely).
>>>>>
>>>>>Tom Sorensen
>>>>>
>>>>>On 9/15/06, Tim Reinarts <tim_reinarts at soniqcast.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Do you have any provisions in the latest spec for adding an "adult 
>>>>>>content"
>>>>>>genre category?
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I would propose that such a tag would allow parents to control the 
>>>>>>content
>>>>>>being used by their children.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Media player manufacturers can then implement a feature that allows 
>>>>>>parents
>>>>>>to prevent the player from accessing files with an Adult Content 
>>>>>>genre.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>It concerns me that some of the most popular content on many sites 
>>>>>>like
>>>>>>MTV's URGE are songs with explicit titles.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Regards,
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Tim Reinarts
>>>>>
>>>>>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>>>>>For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>>>>For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>>>>
>>>
>>>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>>>For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>>For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>>
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>



---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org


From pfurrie at hotmail.com  Wed Sep 20 06:22:59 2006
From: pfurrie at hotmail.com (Pat Furrie)
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2006 09:22:59 -0400
Subject: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
Message-ID: <BAY120-F35E3C6EB7032DB86D05425A0230@phx.gbl>


>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musicologist

Very interesting... thank you for the link.


>By two genres merging I meant that one of them becomes invalid.  Without
>a versioning scheme you will supply correct genre information if a "bit"
>has been invalidated.

Can you give an example of something like that?

Here is a clumsy analogy of how I see it:
With the chaning of the classification of the Pluto from planet to just 
plain old solar rock (or whatever they decided to call it), is there a need 
to go remove all reference of Pluto being a planet from every book?  No.  It 
is a historical fact that Pluto, while maybe not now having the moniker of 
"planet," was considered a planet at one point, and thus there is valuable 
information in that fact.

A more "music classification specific" example might be:
Later this month a super-hurricane grinds up through the Gulf of Mexico and 
completely removes New Orleans from the earth, with no chance of being 
resurected.  One song category may have been "New Orleans," but with city 
gone, do we eliminate that descriptor?

No.  The music that existed before doesn't change just because something 
with which it was related to no longer exists.  The idea of "New Orleans" 
still exists, or at least the memory, and that's continues.

There well may be a situation where a genre or classification could become 
invalid, so I need a little help here.  However, my first-blush guess is 
that there is no good need to eliminate any of the category descriptors from 
such a list.  If a term were to morph into something, that's pretty easy: 
change the name associated with the bit in the bit map.  Same if alterations 
are made to the spelling.


>How do you ensure against invalid combinations of bits being set, for
>example, Male Solo-Vocalist and Female Solo-Vocalist both being set?

Quick answer: the publically contributed music database.

Couple of thoughts: There doesn't need to be some fancy rulebase which 
spells out some specific logic regarding "if x then not y," at least not 
from a computer programmatic standpoint.  Regarding your example, perhaps 
you have a long piece of music, with two very seperated sections, each 
having a solo component, one with a man and the other a woman.  It doesn't 
seem to fit the description of "duet" (though perhaps you also flag it as 
such), but it could easily be seen as having two soloists; I don't see that 
it is necessarily an invalid combination.  Could a piece of music have more 
than one seeminly controdicatory mood descriptors set?  What about "happy" 
and "sad"?  Sure.  And that also tells us more about the piece of music, 
too, and that's good.


>What kinds of scenarios would a bitmap approach address that having
>string based genres [taken from predefined sets] could not address.
>For example:
>Jazz, Female Vocalist, Soundtrack, Mellow

Efficiency and ease-of-use.

If I have a bit-mapped space containing 700 descriptors, and a particular 
piece of music has 20 descriptors set, there is nothing saying I couldn't 
describe it with a string based genre field.  However, 20 descriptors as a 
string would require more space than all 700 descriptor bits would.  Your 
example takes 37 bytes (not counting commas) for four items, which works out 
to roughly 9  bytes per term.  With 20 terms, this would be 180 bytes, and 
already exceeds the total number of bytes (150) which might be recommended 
to have reserved for the bit-mapped space.  That same bitmap space can 
accomodate any number of descriptors up to the limit of defined terms (in 
this example, 700), but that would require 6300 bytes (per piece of music).  
If I were to reserve that much space for each piece of music in my current 
database (9,376 total), the additional string space would come to nearly 60 
additional megs, just to hold that data.  For the bit mapped space required 
of all my current library, it is just over 1.4 megs.

It is also more efficient from a public database point of view.  What is 
stored in the database is the bits, but not how they are expressed.  Yes, 
the bits represent particular descriptors, but how is that represented on 
your particular computer?  You can accept default values for the text 
strings that represent the particular bits to you, or you can alter them to 
suit your own methods.  Some people like all caps, some people do all lower 
case, some spell terms diffferently, and some use a different langauge.  Not 
important?  Well, it is for some people.

However, still, hard drive space is cheap, and that may not be a big deal.  
But how does one manage to apply dozens of descriptors (or genres) to a 
whole library of music?  If you have something already labeld "rock" and 
something already labeld "soundtrack" but decide each needs to have the 
other genre as well, it is natural to just append the additional genre to 
the end of each one.  That gives you one with a genre of "rock soundtrack" 
and the other "soundtrack rock".  Yes, doing a search for "soundtrack" will 
pull up both.  That's good.  But you now have two additional listings in 
your genre pick-list.  Who cares about the pick list?  Those who want to 
avoid typos creeping in, and those who can't remember just how something was 
termed.

It may not be too bad with just two terms like rock and soundtrack, but when 
you get into a couple dozen terms in order to fully realize a rich 
description of the songs, this begins to be ridiculous.  Your pick list ends 
up having every combination of many, many words, and becomes unwieldly.  And 
I don't know how that a string based method fares in a public database 
environment; only by limiting the number of genres to one does that become 
reasonable (and isn't what most of the current ones are doing?).

What about making changes to your genre scheme?  With a bit-mapped scheme, 
you change the name of the single string which represents a given bit, and 
you are done.  Now all your songs appear with the changed term, no mistakes, 
and super fast, as the files themselves aren't changed.  They don't need to 
be.  With a string based scheme, you have to go write the changes to every 
file.  Which files?  Well, your program will have to scan through the 
database to find them, or maintain a secondary database of all that info, 
but still have to scan through it for each of the terms to be changed... and 
hope that it doesn't inadvertantly change some other terms that has a part 
of it with the same string as the part you are changing.  Ugly, slow, and 
difficult.  Yes, you could do it, but why?

Pat



---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org


From pfurrie at hotmail.com  Fri Sep 15 21:18:04 2006
From: pfurrie at hotmail.com (Pat Furrie)
Date: Sat, 16 Sep 2006 00:18:04 -0400
Subject: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
In-Reply-To: <450B6EAF.8040201@coe.neu.edu>
Message-ID: <BAY120-F260558B11F9F64FC3F2813A02F0@phx.gbl>

Brian,

While utilities might come into existance to disable to flag, so what?  The 
lock on the front door of my house is easily foiled by learning how to make 
a use a bump key from YouTube, but I still lock the door.  Do you?  
Probably.

And is it censorship?  Again, so what if it is?  I don't tell the kids what 
my wife and I do in the bedroom.  Censorship?  So what.  Part of being a 
parent is making choices about what a kid is exposed to at a certain age.  
For mine, they get differing levels of access based on their ability to deal 
with it.  You can call it censorship, I'll call it limiting.

We're just looking for tools to help us set up limiting for our kids.  I'm 
not going to stop trying just because some kids might try to get around it.  
Others aren't.  Even if you disagree, why would you care if someone tried, 
or that the tools were made to exist in order to make that attempt?

Don't censor the effort.

Pat


>From: Brian Mearns <bmearns at coe.neu.edu>
>Reply-To: id3v2 at id3.org
>To: id3v2 at id3.org
>Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
>Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 23:25:35 -0400
>
> >Tim isn't looking for why it won't work, he's looking
> > for ways to make it work.
>
>Spoken like a true manager.
>
>Personally, I have minor objections to this as a matter of principle; it's 
>a minor form of censorship, though granted it's no worse than the V-chip 
>and similar technologies. But sheltering your kids from the world isn't 
>protecting them. Even if you prevent them from playing certain songs 
>because of language of "adult-themes", they're still going to be exposed to 
>it else where; on tv, in movies, from their friends, siblings, class-mates, 
>&c. The important thing is to teach your kids the difference between what 
>they see or hear, and what's appropriate for them to say or do. And no 
>amount of sheltering will make up for good parenting. Now I know that 
>sounds very high and mighty, and I'm not trying to accuse anyone of being a 
>bad parent; I understand there's a lot of scary stuff out there and we want 
>to protect our kids from it. But like I said, they're going to be exposed 
>to it one way or another, and hiding it from them, not addressing the real 
>issue, is only going to make it harder to cope with when they finally are.
>
>Alright, so that was less ID3 and more rant. Come down to it, like Tom 
>said, you can't possibly prevent someone from editing the file they've 
>downloaded. If this system really did take off, it wouldn't take more than 
>a few days before download.com is filled with freeware apps to disable to 
>flag, and blogs all over the web have instructions on how to do it in note 
>pad.
>
>-Brian Mearns
>
>Pat Furrie wrote:
>>Tom,
>>
>>Now, I don't know if Tim's suggestion is workable.  But he does bring up a 
>>problem he's at least giving some thought to solving, and I'm certain 
>>other people have had this as a problem with which to deal.  It's the sort 
>>of thing that brought about the ratings codes in movies (quite some time 
>>ago) and ratings on TV (more recently).  I've got kids of my own who I 
>>want to have some way of helping distinguish which music is appropriate.
>>
>>You've pointed out a couple of challenges.  Perhaps you could provide some 
>>constructive analysis.  Devil's advocate is too easy; anyone can do that.  
>>But as they say, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the 
>>problem.  Tim isn't looking for why it won't work, he's looking for ways 
>>to make it work.
>>
>>Tim: I'd like to see a set of method with more granularity than just 
>>"adult" or not.  "Adult" is a bit slippery, and is defined differently by 
>>different people.  However, the existance of certain key words and 
>>concepts are more objective.  You might want to look at how TV has done 
>>ratings, and model it after that.  This way any "adult content" tag 
>>methodology could leverage the methods already adopted, and be more 
>>universal across media types (meaning, not just audio files).
>>
>>We could nay-say and do nothing, or we can get off our butts and do 
>>something.  Even if something doesn't work, I'd rather have tried to make 
>>it work than not.
>>
>>Fail fast, succeed sooner.
>>
>>Pat
>>
>>
>>>From: "Tom Sorensen" <tsorensen at gmail.com>
>>>Reply-To: id3v2 at id3.org
>>>To: id3v2 at id3.org
>>>Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
>>>Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 15:20:40 -0400
>>>
>>>If you want a new Genre, just make one. There is no list of
>>>pre-defined genres for ID3v2. You'd then have to modify whatever
>>>player to not play any music that belonged in that genre (and see
>>>below for the issues with that).
>>>
>>>But that's not what you really want. You want a flag that a music
>>>player would have to check before playing (or, since you seem
>>>concerned about the title, before even displaying). Certainly
>>>possible; there are other similar flags in the ID3v2 spec currently.
>>>
>>>I'll go ahead and object to it as pointless though. Since:
>>>
>>>A) nobody implements anything like this in current players (software
>>>or hardware), and it would be 3-5 years before that would change (and
>>>that's being optimistic; more likely it would never be implemented.
>>>ID3v2.4 is 5 years old now and still has very low uptake),
>>>
>>>B) it would be completely trivial to bypass and/or disable anyway
>>>since you cannot prevent someone from changing the tag (or removing it
>>>entirely).
>>>
>>>Tom Sorensen
>>>
>>>On 9/15/06, Tim Reinarts <tim_reinarts at soniqcast.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Do you have any provisions in the latest spec for adding an "adult 
>>>>content"
>>>>genre category?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>I would propose that such a tag would allow parents to control the 
>>>>content
>>>>being used by their children.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Media player manufacturers can then implement a feature that allows 
>>>>parents
>>>>to prevent the player from accessing files with an Adult Content genre.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>It concerns me that some of the most popular content on many sites like
>>>>MTV's URGE are songs with explicit titles.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Regards,
>>>>
>>>>Tim Reinarts
>>>
>>>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>>>For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>>For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>>
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>



---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org


From pfurrie at hotmail.com  Mon Sep 18 18:30:30 2006
From: pfurrie at hotmail.com (Pat Furrie)
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 21:30:30 -0400
Subject: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
In-Reply-To: <4da424620609180540v30c3d00fr9bc393ab415dd050@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <BAY120-F825FD6C39A664E73FF621A0220@phx.gbl>


>
>>In terms of the current "adult" genre concept, we have a problem that,
>>should we apply a new "adult" genre to the list, then that's it: a song is
>>no longer rock or jazz or classical or whatever.  It is adult.
>
>No, because ID3v2.3 and .4 support multiple genres. Admittedly the
>support in 2.3 is rather vague, but that hasn't stopped a lot of
>people from using it. If nothing else, space delimited genres with
>substring searches works fairly well (which, again, is how iTunes
>implements it).
>
>>Bit map the genre/category/groups information.
>
>This has been suggested before and it's a complete disaster waiting to
>happen. What happens when someone creates a whole new genre that
>doesn't easily fall into previous ones? Trying to shoehorn new genres
>into old ones is more of an issue, IMO, than having disagreements on
>what genre a song belongs to, or mispellings, or any of the other
>issues with free-form Genre fields.

I like to see a central user-driven category database which can be shared, 
in order to spread any categorization effort.  How do you possibly implement 
that with free-form genre fields?

You can go to a ridiculous extreme and suggest there is an infinite number 
of genres out there, or take a more practical approach, one which finds a 
good middle ground, between the previous limited one-byte indexed version 
and anarchy of the free-form model.

As far as new genres, I can imagine it being based on user input to a 
wiki-style database, where new genres are proposed and discussed and 
ultimately decided for inclusion by users who care enough to take the time.  
The bit-mapped category space in the metadata includes unassigned bits, just 
for this purpose.

But as more genres types are added, the field for potential new ones 
diminishes, as the new ones help fill in the gaps for things which were 
previously difficult to categorize.  The more time goes on, the slower the 
inclusion or new categories becomes.


>>Who decides?  A database, run wiki-style
>
>That's not a solution because it doesn't help embedded devices. And
>those are far too large a part of the market to simply ignore.

Not moving forward isn't a solution.  Many of the embedded devices are flash 
upgradeable.  For the rest, they get loaded from PCs which can be 
compatible, can do a search on the database for playlists based on a rich 
but standardized category schema -- those more limited players benefit by 
virtue of that connection.

And a user-driven model is a good way to go.  So a song might be classified 
in multiple genres.  That's the whole point.

This isn't "a disaster waiting to happen."

>>Some people will say that "a limited genre set is insufficient" yet they
>>seem satisfied with the current tiny number of ID3 genres.
>
>The number is tiny only if you restrict yourself to the ID3v1 list --
>which is specifically deprecated in the ID3v2 spec.

My idea of computers are as tools to make life easier and more enjoyable.  
Being chained to mine in order to categorize thousands of songs doesn't fit 
either of those goals.  But being able to easily pick out specific kinds of 
music based on multiple criteria does make life easier and more enjoyable.

Data works for people best when it is entered just once.  After that, you 
leverage the effort of the original data entry to help many people.

If you want free form, have it in labeling the bit-mapped categories with 
terms that you like, in the language you use, with the spelling and wording 
you prefer.  But the bit-map doesn't get affected in that model, unless you 
specifically change your music's categorization.  At that point, the better 
meta-data editing software gives you the option of sharing your new data 
entry to the catetorizations to the shared master database, where it gets 
included or weighted with other people's input in order to give others the 
benefit of your categorization insights.

I'm a music novice.  I like to listen, and I like to pick out different 
kinds of music at different times based on my mood or what is going on.  I 
dont' know enough about it to tell for sure what "genres" it all is, but 
certain other stuff, it would be great for sorting and filtering selections. 
  Tonight I'd like to hear instrumental rock music with orchestral 
accompaniment, particularly violins, which has an upbeat mood.  I don't want 
to build a complex playlist, I just want to select these elements from a 
list of category elements, and have our living room player run them directly 
from our server.

The server and the player already exist in our house, but not the ability to 
pull out that kind of a selection on a whim (or even with lots of effort).  
And I can imagine wanting just that sort of music the other day, but didn't 
have the means to do it.

Why?  I know I'm not the only one out there who wants to choose what to play 
from their music library easily.  I know the entrenched single-genre model 
is silly.  I know there are no technical limitations to being able to doing 
it.  The only thing which seems missing is the vision of people who might be 
in a position to effect change.


>I wouldn't mind seeing a "Content Rating" field in the spec, as you
>and others have given valid uses that don't require iron-clad
>protection (which, again, is what Tim basically asked for at the start
>of the thread -- it has diverged since). And it's definitely a better
>idea than having an additional entry in Genre.

This is just another categorization, and it needs its own set of flags in 
order to define what is "adult" about it; just calling something "adult" is 
too coarse.


>And, as a final (offtopic) note -- if you've bought a TV 13" or larger
>since 2000, you have a V-chip enabled TV. And all broadcasters are
>required to put identifiers in their shows that the V-chip uses. It's
>still virtually unused, and most people don't even know that their TV
>has the feature.

There are a lot of features in Windows which many (most) people I know are 
unaware, but I wouldn't want them done away with.  For those who know or 
those who care to use them, they are useful.  Same with a set of music 
"adult" flags and the V-chip.

Pat



---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org


From gaurav.ar at gmail.com  Wed Sep 20 23:24:38 2006
From: gaurav.ar at gmail.com (Gaurav Arora)
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2006 11:54:38 +0530
Subject: [ID3 Dev] ID3v2 footer
Message-ID: <80b294240609202324n4d0bc8eei2a012160c5a8bfab@mail.gmail.com>

Hi All,
I am a newbie to ID3v2, I want to know whether Footer is comulsory for clips
that carry ID3v2 tags.
Any help will be appreciated.
Thanks
Gaurav
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.id3.org/pipermail/id3v2/attachments/20060921/213f5636/attachment.html>

From bmearns at coe.neu.edu  Fri Sep 15 20:25:35 2006
From: bmearns at coe.neu.edu (Brian Mearns)
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 23:25:35 -0400
Subject: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
In-Reply-To: <BAY120-F412590E67DE63E1DCD8ACA02F0@phx.gbl>
References: <BAY120-F412590E67DE63E1DCD8ACA02F0@phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <450B6EAF.8040201@coe.neu.edu>

 >Tim isn't looking for why it won't work, he's looking
 > for ways to make it work.

Spoken like a true manager.

Personally, I have minor objections to this as a matter of principle; 
it's a minor form of censorship, though granted it's no worse than the 
V-chip and similar technologies. But sheltering your kids from the world 
isn't protecting them. Even if you prevent them from playing certain 
songs because of language of "adult-themes", they're still going to be 
exposed to it else where; on tv, in movies, from their friends, 
siblings, class-mates, &c. The important thing is to teach your kids the 
difference between what they see or hear, and what's appropriate for 
them to say or do. And no amount of sheltering will make up for good 
parenting. Now I know that sounds very high and mighty, and I'm not 
trying to accuse anyone of being a bad parent; I understand there's a 
lot of scary stuff out there and we want to protect our kids from it. 
But like I said, they're going to be exposed to it one way or another, 
and hiding it from them, not addressing the real issue, is only going to 
make it harder to cope with when they finally are.

Alright, so that was less ID3 and more rant. Come down to it, like Tom 
said, you can't possibly prevent someone from editing the file they've 
downloaded. If this system really did take off, it wouldn't take more 
than a few days before download.com is filled with freeware apps to 
disable to flag, and blogs all over the web have instructions on how to 
do it in note pad.

-Brian Mearns

Pat Furrie wrote:
> Tom,
> 
> Now, I don't know if Tim's suggestion is workable.  But he does bring up 
> a problem he's at least giving some thought to solving, and I'm certain 
> other people have had this as a problem with which to deal.  It's the 
> sort of thing that brought about the ratings codes in movies (quite some 
> time ago) and ratings on TV (more recently).  I've got kids of my own 
> who I want to have some way of helping distinguish which music is 
> appropriate.
> 
> You've pointed out a couple of challenges.  Perhaps you could provide 
> some constructive analysis.  Devil's advocate is too easy; anyone can do 
> that.  But as they say, if you're not part of the solution, you're part 
> of the problem.  Tim isn't looking for why it won't work, he's looking 
> for ways to make it work.
> 
> Tim: I'd like to see a set of method with more granularity than just 
> "adult" or not.  "Adult" is a bit slippery, and is defined differently 
> by different people.  However, the existance of certain key words and 
> concepts are more objective.  You might want to look at how TV has done 
> ratings, and model it after that.  This way any "adult content" tag 
> methodology could leverage the methods already adopted, and be more 
> universal across media types (meaning, not just audio files).
> 
> We could nay-say and do nothing, or we can get off our butts and do 
> something.  Even if something doesn't work, I'd rather have tried to 
> make it work than not.
> 
> Fail fast, succeed sooner.
> 
> Pat
> 
> 
>> From: "Tom Sorensen" <tsorensen at gmail.com>
>> Reply-To: id3v2 at id3.org
>> To: id3v2 at id3.org
>> Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
>> Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 15:20:40 -0400
>>
>> If you want a new Genre, just make one. There is no list of
>> pre-defined genres for ID3v2. You'd then have to modify whatever
>> player to not play any music that belonged in that genre (and see
>> below for the issues with that).
>>
>> But that's not what you really want. You want a flag that a music
>> player would have to check before playing (or, since you seem
>> concerned about the title, before even displaying). Certainly
>> possible; there are other similar flags in the ID3v2 spec currently.
>>
>> I'll go ahead and object to it as pointless though. Since:
>>
>> A) nobody implements anything like this in current players (software
>> or hardware), and it would be 3-5 years before that would change (and
>> that's being optimistic; more likely it would never be implemented.
>> ID3v2.4 is 5 years old now and still has very low uptake),
>>
>> B) it would be completely trivial to bypass and/or disable anyway
>> since you cannot prevent someone from changing the tag (or removing it
>> entirely).
>>
>> Tom Sorensen
>>
>> On 9/15/06, Tim Reinarts <tim_reinarts at soniqcast.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Do you have any provisions in the latest spec for adding an "adult 
>>> content"
>>> genre category?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> I would propose that such a tag would allow parents to control the 
>>> content
>>> being used by their children.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Media player manufacturers can then implement a feature that allows 
>>> parents
>>> to prevent the player from accessing files with an Adult Content genre.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> It concerns me that some of the most popular content on many sites like
>>> MTV's URGE are songs with explicit titles.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> Tim Reinarts
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>> For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>>
> 
> 
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
> 

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org


From patters at conduits.com  Wed Sep 27 07:29:13 2006
From: patters at conduits.com (Jason C. Patterson)
Date: Wed, 27 Sep 2006 10:29:13 -0400
Subject: [ID3 Dev] Conduits Pocket Player 3.0 released w/ Chapter support
Message-ID: <09a801c6e241$4e0bb6e0$4201a8c0@PEPPER>

Greetings all,

We have release a new version of our Windows Mobile media player, Pocket
Player, and it now supports the emerging CHAP/CTOC standard by way of a
plugin. Chapter titles and artwork are both supported. The press release is
available at:

http://www.conduits.com/news/pr20060925.html

The gen_chapters plugin is available from:

http://www.conduits.com/products/player/plugins.asp



Jason Patterson
Conduits Technologies, Inc.
http://www.conduits.com
 


---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org


From pfurrie at hotmail.com  Tue Sep 19 18:12:59 2006
From: pfurrie at hotmail.com (Pat Furrie)
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2006 21:12:59 -0400
Subject: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
In-Reply-To: <A6996A40FEABDA4784FD8F23705F16190A8BB0@EMAIL1.gracenote.gracenote.com>
Message-ID: <BAY120-F3AB0A6D486352EEBC78D9A0230@phx.gbl>


> >As far as new genres, I can imagine it being based on user input to a
>wiki-
> >style database, where new genres are proposed and discussed and
>ultimately
> >decided for inclusion by users who care enough to take the time.
> >The bit-mapped category space in the metadata includes unassigned bits,
>
> >just for this purpose.
>
>This assumes that genres will never be merged together or separated into
>two or more sub-genres.  If someone is running an application that has
>not been updated to the latest changes in the mapping they would see
>incorrect genre(s) if he or she got a hold of a file that had been
>tagged with the new system.  Therefore, for bitmaps to work you need a
>separate field that contains a version number.

Actually, I don't know that it does or doesn't assume what you suggest.  You 
certainly make an interesting point.  Let's look at this a little more 
closely:

First, the idea of two genres merging.  I suppose that could happen, so 
let's imagine a scenario where we have a piece of music that has been 
defined as to exist in both the categories of "rock" and "jazz."  Initially, 
both of these descriptors (and maybe others, too) are toggled on for the 
song.  Later, as music evolves, some new combination genre comes into being, 
let's call it "razz."  Do we eliminate the "rock" and "jazz" bits of the 
song in favor of the new "razz" genre, at least for the original song?  I 
suspect not, though perhaps it meets the qualifications, and can have that 
bit set later by the updating routine built into your iTunes version 9.  
This doesn't break anything in your system, though, even if you aren't 
updated.

The next day, I give you a new piece of music I created myself, in the 
"razz" style, and I've politely pre-set all the category descriptor flags 
that I feel best suit the it.  This includes, of course, the new "razz" 
descriptor bit, which may well be new to some of your audio programs.  
However, that bit, "sanctioned" by the community driven audio category 
database, was carved out from one of the bits in the "reserved for future 
use" section of the bit-map space.  What does happens when the new music is 
loaded on your computer?  It might notice it, and understanding that this 
bit lies outside of its pre-defined category space for the version of the 
descriptors it is aware of, triggers a routine to go fetch either a whole 
new set of descriptors, or (better), just the changes to the descriptor 
list.  Time to fetch: less than a second.  What if you aren't online?  No 
biggie: the added descriptor doesn't break anything.  At such a time that 
the descriptor list is updated, the bit will be more useful (having a 
human-meaningful term to associate with that particular bit).

When the new bit does finally get updated on the computer, the computer may 
also find it is time to check for any media changes which have occured since 
the last update.  Your computer forwards the last update date to the 
database server, and a query is run to produce a list of all music which has 
had record updates since that time.  Your computer will compare that list 
with its own, and make changes based on preference you've previously set 
(you may have your system preferences set to only point out possible 
changes, but don't make them until you give it the go-ahead).  For instance, 
some old rock song was used in the 2008 remake of "Citizen Kane," and now 
that song has been updated to have the "soundtrack" bit set.  You find this 
useful, as going back and continually updating your 30,000 file music 
collection is a pain in the butt, though when you have a movie party at your 
house, it is nice to have an automatically generated playlist which was set 
to pull up "soundtracks" and "rock," also include this new member of the 
soundtrack club.  In fact, you might have also had that playlist search fine 
tune the selections with some boolean operations on the mood of the music, 
adding descriptor such as "triumphant" and "inspirational" but forbidding 
anything that might also include "slow" or had the regional descriptor of 
"Asian" set.

Allowing updates over time allows the descriptor richness of your collection 
to grow, without anywhere near the amount of effort it would take to do it 
manually.  You can adjust your own database, here and there, as you see fit, 
but by and large, you find that most of the category choices are reasonable, 
particularly since they allow a musical piece to cover all the genres you 
expected, even if they might also include a few you didn't expect.

Also, so you understand, as I see it, bit mapped descriptors would work in a 
manner so as to construct "genres" (a vague term).  For instance, while 
there would be a "rock" descriptor, there wouldn't be "hard rock" or "pop 
rock" descriptors.  Instead, there would be "pop" and "hard" descriptors, 
and a file can have any combination turned on in order to describe it.  As 
you add descriptors, the total number of combinations grows exponentially 
(as opposed to linearly).  Yes, it is a finite number of combinations, but 
the number is still very large, and by breaking down the popular genre terms 
to their constituent parts, you cover all the current bases very well.  I'm 
certain that any current genre description systems can be included in this 
way.  Many of them share a large number of genre types, and those that may 
be unique can be constructed from elemental descriptors taken from those.  
In addition, many new descriptor would be added (far more than would be 
created by inclusion of elemental genre descriptors from current schemes).  
Allowing for descriptors in the areas of mood, region, tempo, key, 
instruments, modifiers, and misc, great richness in description can be 
achieved while using agreed-upon terms.

During a rough first draft, I identified nearly 50 moods alone.  My first 
thought was that there would be at least 1000 bits.  That first draft fills 
in less than 500 between all those master category headings.  But remember: 
as each new descriptor term is added, it becomes more difficult to find a 
descriptor which doesn't already have something in the list which would 
suitably work in its place.


>Musicologists have numerous ways of categorizing music and each is
>entirely subjective.

Is "Musicologists" really a word?  ;)


Pat



---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org


From tsorensen at gmail.com  Fri Sep 15 12:20:40 2006
From: tsorensen at gmail.com (Tom Sorensen)
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 15:20:40 -0400
Subject: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
In-Reply-To: <62701456AACF52429880743B6DFE9F6140F8A9@SCLAN-S.soniqcast.lan>
References: <62701456AACF52429880743B6DFE9F6140F8A9@SCLAN-S.soniqcast.lan>
Message-ID: <4da424620609151220i7465acc9m1355e1ed5fb0b165@mail.gmail.com>

If you want a new Genre, just make one. There is no list of
pre-defined genres for ID3v2. You'd then have to modify whatever
player to not play any music that belonged in that genre (and see
below for the issues with that).

But that's not what you really want. You want a flag that a music
player would have to check before playing (or, since you seem
concerned about the title, before even displaying). Certainly
possible; there are other similar flags in the ID3v2 spec currently.

I'll go ahead and object to it as pointless though. Since:

A) nobody implements anything like this in current players (software
or hardware), and it would be 3-5 years before that would change (and
that's being optimistic; more likely it would never be implemented.
ID3v2.4 is 5 years old now and still has very low uptake),

B) it would be completely trivial to bypass and/or disable anyway
since you cannot prevent someone from changing the tag (or removing it
entirely).

Tom Sorensen

On 9/15/06, Tim Reinarts <tim_reinarts at soniqcast.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> Do you have any provisions in the latest spec for adding an "adult content"
> genre category?
>
>
>
> I would propose that such a tag would allow parents to control the content
> being used by their children.
>
>
>
> Media player manufacturers can then implement a feature that allows parents
> to prevent the player from accessing files with an Adult Content genre.
>
>
>
> It concerns me that some of the most popular content on many sites like
> MTV's URGE are songs with explicit titles.
>
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Tim Reinarts

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org


From pfurrie at hotmail.com  Fri Sep 15 18:48:10 2006
From: pfurrie at hotmail.com (Pat Furrie)
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 21:48:10 -0400
Subject: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
In-Reply-To: <4da424620609151220i7465acc9m1355e1ed5fb0b165@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <BAY120-F412590E67DE63E1DCD8ACA02F0@phx.gbl>

Tom,

Now, I don't know if Tim's suggestion is workable.  But he does bring up a 
problem he's at least giving some thought to solving, and I'm certain other 
people have had this as a problem with which to deal.  It's the sort of 
thing that brought about the ratings codes in movies (quite some time ago) 
and ratings on TV (more recently).  I've got kids of my own who I want to 
have some way of helping distinguish which music is appropriate.

You've pointed out a couple of challenges.  Perhaps you could provide some 
constructive analysis.  Devil's advocate is too easy; anyone can do that.  
But as they say, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the 
problem.  Tim isn't looking for why it won't work, he's looking for ways to 
make it work.

Tim: I'd like to see a set of method with more granularity than just "adult" 
or not.  "Adult" is a bit slippery, and is defined differently by different 
people.  However, the existance of certain key words and concepts are more 
objective.  You might want to look at how TV has done ratings, and model it 
after that.  This way any "adult content" tag methodology could leverage the 
methods already adopted, and be more universal across media types (meaning, 
not just audio files).

We could nay-say and do nothing, or we can get off our butts and do 
something.  Even if something doesn't work, I'd rather have tried to make it 
work than not.

Fail fast, succeed sooner.

Pat


>From: "Tom Sorensen" <tsorensen at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: id3v2 at id3.org
>To: id3v2 at id3.org
>Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
>Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 15:20:40 -0400
>
>If you want a new Genre, just make one. There is no list of
>pre-defined genres for ID3v2. You'd then have to modify whatever
>player to not play any music that belonged in that genre (and see
>below for the issues with that).
>
>But that's not what you really want. You want a flag that a music
>player would have to check before playing (or, since you seem
>concerned about the title, before even displaying). Certainly
>possible; there are other similar flags in the ID3v2 spec currently.
>
>I'll go ahead and object to it as pointless though. Since:
>
>A) nobody implements anything like this in current players (software
>or hardware), and it would be 3-5 years before that would change (and
>that's being optimistic; more likely it would never be implemented.
>ID3v2.4 is 5 years old now and still has very low uptake),
>
>B) it would be completely trivial to bypass and/or disable anyway
>since you cannot prevent someone from changing the tag (or removing it
>entirely).
>
>Tom Sorensen
>
>On 9/15/06, Tim Reinarts <tim_reinarts at soniqcast.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>Do you have any provisions in the latest spec for adding an "adult 
>>content"
>>genre category?
>>
>>
>>
>>I would propose that such a tag would allow parents to control the content
>>being used by their children.
>>
>>
>>
>>Media player manufacturers can then implement a feature that allows 
>>parents
>>to prevent the player from accessing files with an Adult Content genre.
>>
>>
>>
>>It concerns me that some of the most popular content on many sites like
>>MTV's URGE are songs with explicit titles.
>>
>>
>>
>>Regards,
>>
>>Tim Reinarts
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>



---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org


From benski at winamp.com  Fri Sep 15 18:58:33 2006
From: benski at winamp.com (Ben Allison)
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 21:58:33 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
In-Reply-To: <BAY120-F412590E67DE63E1DCD8ACA02F0@phx.gbl>
References: <4da424620609151220i7465acc9m1355e1ed5fb0b165@mail.gmail.com>
    <BAY120-F412590E67DE63E1DCD8ACA02F0@phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <1506.10.180.190.16.1158371913.squirrel@mail.winamp.com>

Pat, et al.

Microsoft's ASF tagging system has a "Parental Rating" tag that is
supposed to contain text like "G" "PG", "R" (aka the MPAA movie ratings).

Even just an 'explicit lyrics' flag might work.  At least in the US, some
CDs are sold with such a sticker - might even be a legal requirement.

Implementing it in a player is pretty trivial.

Getting databases like CDDB or FreeDB to start carrying the information
could be difficult.

Getting people who distribute content online to start using the flag is
the real challenge.

> Tom,
>
> Now, I don't know if Tim's suggestion is workable.  But he does bring up a
> problem he's at least giving some thought to solving, and I'm certain
> other
> people have had this as a problem with which to deal.  It's the sort of
> thing that brought about the ratings codes in movies (quite some time ago)
> and ratings on TV (more recently).  I've got kids of my own who I want to
> have some way of helping distinguish which music is appropriate.
>
> You've pointed out a couple of challenges.  Perhaps you could provide some
> constructive analysis.  Devil's advocate is too easy; anyone can do that.
> But as they say, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the
> problem.  Tim isn't looking for why it won't work, he's looking for ways
> to
> make it work.
>
> Tim: I'd like to see a set of method with more granularity than just
> "adult"
> or not.  "Adult" is a bit slippery, and is defined differently by
> different
> people.  However, the existance of certain key words and concepts are more
> objective.  You might want to look at how TV has done ratings, and model
> it
> after that.  This way any "adult content" tag methodology could leverage
> the
> methods already adopted, and be more universal across media types
> (meaning,
> not just audio files).
>
> We could nay-say and do nothing, or we can get off our butts and do
> something.  Even if something doesn't work, I'd rather have tried to make
> it
> work than not.
>
> Fail fast, succeed sooner.
>
> Pat
>
>
>>From: "Tom Sorensen" <tsorensen at gmail.com>
>>Reply-To: id3v2 at id3.org
>>To: id3v2 at id3.org
>>Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
>>Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 15:20:40 -0400
>>
>>If you want a new Genre, just make one. There is no list of
>>pre-defined genres for ID3v2. You'd then have to modify whatever
>>player to not play any music that belonged in that genre (and see
>>below for the issues with that).
>>
>>But that's not what you really want. You want a flag that a music
>>player would have to check before playing (or, since you seem
>>concerned about the title, before even displaying). Certainly
>>possible; there are other similar flags in the ID3v2 spec currently.
>>
>>I'll go ahead and object to it as pointless though. Since:
>>
>>A) nobody implements anything like this in current players (software
>>or hardware), and it would be 3-5 years before that would change (and
>>that's being optimistic; more likely it would never be implemented.
>>ID3v2.4 is 5 years old now and still has very low uptake),
>>
>>B) it would be completely trivial to bypass and/or disable anyway
>>since you cannot prevent someone from changing the tag (or removing it
>>entirely).
>>
>>Tom Sorensen
>>
>>On 9/15/06, Tim Reinarts <tim_reinarts at soniqcast.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Do you have any provisions in the latest spec for adding an "adult
>>>content"
>>>genre category?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>I would propose that such a tag would allow parents to control the
>>> content
>>>being used by their children.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Media player manufacturers can then implement a feature that allows
>>>parents
>>>to prevent the player from accessing files with an Adult Content genre.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>It concerns me that some of the most popular content on many sites like
>>>MTV's URGE are songs with explicit titles.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Regards,
>>>
>>>Tim Reinarts
>>
>>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>>For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>>
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>


---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org


From sales at tagtuner.com  Wed Sep 13 02:15:40 2006
From: sales at tagtuner.com (Kirill)
Date: Wed, 13 Sep 2006 12:15:40 +0300
Subject: [ID3 Dev] Software for your list
Message-ID: <149260610968.20060913121540@tagtuner.com>

Hello,

Hello id3.org team,

I would like to ask you for including my ID3v2 enabled software into
your software list.

Project Page: www.tagtuner.com

The personal licenses are available on request for the id3.org team.

-- 
Best regards,
 Kirill                          mailto:sales at tagtuner.com


---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org


From andrew.kernahan at googlemail.com  Thu Sep 21 01:12:25 2006
From: andrew.kernahan at googlemail.com (Andrew Kernahan)
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2006 09:12:25 +0100
Subject: [ID3 Dev] ID3v2 footer
In-Reply-To: <80b294240609202324n4d0bc8eei2a012160c5a8bfab@mail.gmail.com>
References: <80b294240609202324n4d0bc8eei2a012160c5a8bfab@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1b3bacd80609210112i2d6cc520n54039eebfc1b14db@mail.gmail.com>

Hi,

Footers are only used for tags which are to be appended to the audio file.

Also, please note that this functionality was only defined in v2.4.0, as
most commercial mp3
players do not support v.2.4.0, I would not recommend using appended tags.

Andy.

On 21/09/06, Gaurav Arora <gaurav.ar at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi All,
> I am a newbie to ID3v2, I want to know whether Footer is comulsory for
> clips that carry ID3v2 tags.
> Any help will be appreciated.
> Thanks
> Gaurav
>



-- 
Andy.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.id3.org/pipermail/id3v2/attachments/20060921/979a46a8/attachment.html>

From tsorensen at gmail.com  Fri Sep 15 19:44:25 2006
From: tsorensen at gmail.com (Tom Sorensen)
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 22:44:25 -0400
Subject: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
In-Reply-To: <BAY120-F412590E67DE63E1DCD8ACA02F0@phx.gbl>
References: <4da424620609151220i7465acc9m1355e1ed5fb0b165@mail.gmail.com>
	 <BAY120-F412590E67DE63E1DCD8ACA02F0@phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <4da424620609151944i65feee92p9f1ce506fff46cf6@mail.gmail.com>

The only solution is to have it as part of a DRM wrapper. Something
that is, in theory, not changeable or removable. There is absolutely
no other way to do it that's not easily circumventable.

In theory you could do it outside of such a method, in something like
an ID3 tag, but only if you force every toolset and library to
recognize, support, and refuse to "downgrade" the flag. But even then
anyone with a compiler and source code (or even a specification) could
circumvent it; it's just a matter of how difficult it is to do.

And I would like to point out that all of the similar efforts to do
such automatic ratings and restrictions has either been a market
failure (V-chip) or reasonably easy to disable/fool/circumvent (web
surfing software). It winds up being a parental responsibility to
educate and trust your children. And yes, I have two girls of my own.

That said, pursuing such a system is not inherently bad. Go for it.
But you'll have to get Apple and Microsoft to buy in (and hopefully
come to a common standard) or else it won't succeed -- they're the two
big guys on the block at this point, especially Apple with its
combined hardware and software sales.

And yes, multiple levels of designation are definitely a good idea.

Tom

On 9/15/06, Pat Furrie <pfurrie at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Tom,
>
> Now, I don't know if Tim's suggestion is workable.  But he does bring up a
> problem he's at least giving some thought to solving, and I'm certain other
> people have had this as a problem with which to deal.  It's the sort of
> thing that brought about the ratings codes in movies (quite some time ago)
> and ratings on TV (more recently).  I've got kids of my own who I want to
> have some way of helping distinguish which music is appropriate.
>
> You've pointed out a couple of challenges.  Perhaps you could provide some
> constructive analysis.  Devil's advocate is too easy; anyone can do that.
> But as they say, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the
> problem.  Tim isn't looking for why it won't work, he's looking for ways to
> make it work.
>
> Tim: I'd like to see a set of method with more granularity than just "adult"
> or not.  "Adult" is a bit slippery, and is defined differently by different
> people.  However, the existance of certain key words and concepts are more
> objective.  You might want to look at how TV has done ratings, and model it
> after that.  This way any "adult content" tag methodology could leverage the
> methods already adopted, and be more universal across media types (meaning,
> not just audio files).
>
> We could nay-say and do nothing, or we can get off our butts and do
> something.  Even if something doesn't work, I'd rather have tried to make it
> work than not.
>
> Fail fast, succeed sooner.
>
> Pat
>
>
> >From: "Tom Sorensen" <tsorensen at gmail.com>
> >Reply-To: id3v2 at id3.org
> >To: id3v2 at id3.org
> >Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
> >Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 15:20:40 -0400
> >
> >If you want a new Genre, just make one. There is no list of
> >pre-defined genres for ID3v2. You'd then have to modify whatever
> >player to not play any music that belonged in that genre (and see
> >below for the issues with that).
> >
> >But that's not what you really want. You want a flag that a music
> >player would have to check before playing (or, since you seem
> >concerned about the title, before even displaying). Certainly
> >possible; there are other similar flags in the ID3v2 spec currently.
> >
> >I'll go ahead and object to it as pointless though. Since:
> >
> >A) nobody implements anything like this in current players (software
> >or hardware), and it would be 3-5 years before that would change (and
> >that's being optimistic; more likely it would never be implemented.
> >ID3v2.4 is 5 years old now and still has very low uptake),
> >
> >B) it would be completely trivial to bypass and/or disable anyway
> >since you cannot prevent someone from changing the tag (or removing it
> >entirely).
> >
> >Tom Sorensen
> >
> >On 9/15/06, Tim Reinarts <tim_reinarts at soniqcast.com> wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>Do you have any provisions in the latest spec for adding an "adult
> >>content"
> >>genre category?
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>I would propose that such a tag would allow parents to control the content
> >>being used by their children.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>Media player manufacturers can then implement a feature that allows
> >>parents
> >>to prevent the player from accessing files with an Adult Content genre.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>It concerns me that some of the most popular content on many sites like
> >>MTV's URGE are songs with explicit titles.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>Regards,
> >>
> >>Tim Reinarts
> >
> >---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
> >For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
> >
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>
>

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org


From tsorensen at gmail.com  Mon Sep 18 05:40:16 2006
From: tsorensen at gmail.com (Tom Sorensen)
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 08:40:16 -0400
Subject: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
In-Reply-To: <BAY120-F48982B4DF19EE0F65BAC8A02F0@phx.gbl>
References: <4da424620609152009k36243056nf909039bbd5dd86c@mail.gmail.com>
	 <BAY120-F48982B4DF19EE0F65BAC8A02F0@phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <4da424620609180540v30c3d00fr9bc393ab415dd050@mail.gmail.com>

On 9/16/06, Pat Furrie <pfurrie at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Whoever had the idea of giving songs/music/media a single "genre"
> classification from the outset was fantastically short-sighted.

They were fantastically limited by having a single byte to implement
genres into. You could argue that ID3v1 was a bad idea in the first
place, but there are historical reasons for its small size, location,
and format as well.

> In terms of the current "adult" genre concept, we have a problem that,
> should we apply a new "adult" genre to the list, then that's it: a song is
> no longer rock or jazz or classical or whatever.  It is adult.

No, because ID3v2.3 and .4 support multiple genres. Admittedly the
support in 2.3 is rather vague, but that hasn't stopped a lot of
people from using it. If nothing else, space delimited genres with
substring searches works fairly well (which, again, is how iTunes
implements it).

> Bit map the genre/category/groups information.

This has been suggested before and it's a complete disaster waiting to
happen. What happens when someone creates a whole new genre that
doesn't easily fall into previous ones? Trying to shoehorn new genres
into old ones is more of an issue, IMO, than having disagreements on
what genre a song belongs to, or mispellings, or any of the other
issues with free-form Genre fields.

> Who decides?  A database, run wiki-style

That's not a solution because it doesn't help embedded devices. And
those are far too large a part of the market to simply ignore.

> Some people will say that "a limited genre set is insufficient" yet they
> seem satisfied with the current tiny number of ID3 genres.

The number is tiny only if you restrict yourself to the ID3v1 list --
which is specifically deprecated in the ID3v2 spec.

I wouldn't mind seeing a "Content Rating" field in the spec, as you
and others have given valid uses that don't require iron-clad
protection (which, again, is what Tim basically asked for at the start
of the thread -- it has diverged since). And it's definitely a better
idea than having an additional entry in Genre.

And, as a final (offtopic) note -- if you've bought a TV 13" or larger
since 2000, you have a V-chip enabled TV. And all broadcasters are
required to put identifiers in their shows that the V-chip uses. It's
still virtually unused, and most people don't even know that their TV
has the feature.

Tom

> >From: "Tom Sorensen" <tsorensen at gmail.com>
> >Reply-To: id3v2 at id3.org
> >To: id3v2 at id3.org
> >Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
> >Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 23:09:23 -0400
> >
> >If that's all you want, then creating your own Genre tags is perfectly
> >sufficient. Then create a playlist that excludes those tags. It's that
> >simple.
> >
> >If you wanted to get a bit more advanced then you'd have to create a
> >custom ID3v2 tag (XRTG maybe) and modify software to be aware of that
> >tag when generating playlists, etc. It wouldn't buy you much more than
> >what using additional genres would, except then you're not "polluting"
> >the genre field.
> >
> >But that's not what the original poster asked for. And yes, it is
> >beyond the scope of an ID3 tag (or any other similar tag), due to the
> >very nature of the problem.
> >
> >Tom
> >
> >On 9/15/06, Ben Allison <benski at winamp.com> wrote:
> >>Tom,
> >>
> >>I think you might be taking this a bit too far.  Or at least certainly
> >>beyond the scope of an ID3v2 tag :)
> >>
> >>It could certainly be useful even if it's insecure.  What if I want to put
> >>my music collection on 'shuffle' for a party, but want to easily filter
> >>out anything with inappropriate lyrics.  Or I'm preparing a setlist for a
> >>radio show - I couldn't play an unedited 'Money' from Pink Floyd's DSOM on
> >>the air, even though the rest of the album (and the rest of the
> >>discography) is OK.
> >>
> >>-Ben
> >>
> >> > The only solution is to have it as part of a DRM wrapper. Something
> >> > that is, in theory, not changeable or removable. There is absolutely
> >> > no other way to do it that's not easily circumventable.
> >> >
> >> > In theory you could do it outside of such a method, in something like
> >> > an ID3 tag, but only if you force every toolset and library to
> >> > recognize, support, and refuse to "downgrade" the flag. But even then
> >> > anyone with a compiler and source code (or even a specification) could
> >> > circumvent it; it's just a matter of how difficult it is to do.
> >> >
> >> > And I would like to point out that all of the similar efforts to do
> >> > such automatic ratings and restrictions has either been a market
> >> > failure (V-chip) or reasonably easy to disable/fool/circumvent (web
> >> > surfing software). It winds up being a parental responsibility to
> >> > educate and trust your children. And yes, I have two girls of my own.
> >> >
> >> > That said, pursuing such a system is not inherently bad. Go for it.
> >> > But you'll have to get Apple and Microsoft to buy in (and hopefully
> >> > come to a common standard) or else it won't succeed -- they're the two
> >> > big guys on the block at this point, especially Apple with its
> >> > combined hardware and software sales.
> >> >
> >> > And yes, multiple levels of designation are definitely a good idea.
> >> >
> >> > Tom
> >> >
> >> > On 9/15/06, Pat Furrie <pfurrie at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >> >> Tom,
> >> >>
> >> >> Now, I don't know if Tim's suggestion is workable.  But he does bring
> >>up
> >> >> a
> >> >> problem he's at least giving some thought to solving, and I'm certain
> >> >> other
> >> >> people have had this as a problem with which to deal.  It's the sort
> >>of
> >> >> thing that brought about the ratings codes in movies (quite some time
> >> >> ago)
> >> >> and ratings on TV (more recently).  I've got kids of my own who I want
> >> >> to
> >> >> have some way of helping distinguish which music is appropriate.
> >> >>
> >> >> You've pointed out a couple of challenges.  Perhaps you could provide
> >> >> some
> >> >> constructive analysis.  Devil's advocate is too easy; anyone can do
> >> >> that.
> >> >> But as they say, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of
> >>the
> >> >> problem.  Tim isn't looking for why it won't work, he's looking for
> >>ways
> >> >> to
> >> >> make it work.
> >> >>
> >> >> Tim: I'd like to see a set of method with more granularity than just
> >> >> "adult"
> >> >> or not.  "Adult" is a bit slippery, and is defined differently by
> >> >> different
> >> >> people.  However, the existance of certain key words and concepts are
> >> >> more
> >> >> objective.  You might want to look at how TV has done ratings, and
> >>model
> >> >> it
> >> >> after that.  This way any "adult content" tag methodology could
> >>leverage
> >> >> the
> >> >> methods already adopted, and be more universal across media types
> >> >> (meaning,
> >> >> not just audio files).
> >> >>
> >> >> We could nay-say and do nothing, or we can get off our butts and do
> >> >> something.  Even if something doesn't work, I'd rather have tried to
> >> >> make it
> >> >> work than not.
> >> >>
> >> >> Fail fast, succeed sooner.
> >> >>
> >> >> Pat
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> >From: "Tom Sorensen" <tsorensen at gmail.com>
> >> >> >Reply-To: id3v2 at id3.org
> >> >> >To: id3v2 at id3.org
> >> >> >Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
> >> >> >Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 15:20:40 -0400
> >> >> >
> >> >> >If you want a new Genre, just make one. There is no list of
> >> >> >pre-defined genres for ID3v2. You'd then have to modify whatever
> >> >> >player to not play any music that belonged in that genre (and see
> >> >> >below for the issues with that).
> >> >> >
> >> >> >But that's not what you really want. You want a flag that a music
> >> >> >player would have to check before playing (or, since you seem
> >> >> >concerned about the title, before even displaying). Certainly
> >> >> >possible; there are other similar flags in the ID3v2 spec currently.
> >> >> >
> >> >> >I'll go ahead and object to it as pointless though. Since:
> >> >> >
> >> >> >A) nobody implements anything like this in current players (software
> >> >> >or hardware), and it would be 3-5 years before that would change (and
> >> >> >that's being optimistic; more likely it would never be implemented.
> >> >> >ID3v2.4 is 5 years old now and still has very low uptake),
> >> >> >
> >> >> >B) it would be completely trivial to bypass and/or disable anyway
> >> >> >since you cannot prevent someone from changing the tag (or removing
> >>it
> >> >> >entirely).
> >> >> >
> >> >> >Tom Sorensen
> >> >> >
> >> >> >On 9/15/06, Tim Reinarts <tim_reinarts at soniqcast.com> wrote:
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >>Do you have any provisions in the latest spec for adding an "adult
> >> >> >>content"
> >> >> >>genre category?
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >>I would propose that such a tag would allow parents to control the
> >> >> content
> >> >> >>being used by their children.
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >>Media player manufacturers can then implement a feature that allows
> >> >> >>parents
> >> >> >>to prevent the player from accessing files with an Adult Content
> >> >> genre.
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >>It concerns me that some of the most popular content on many sites
> >> >> like
> >> >> >>MTV's URGE are songs with explicit titles.
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >>Regards,
> >> >> >>
> >> >> >>Tim Reinarts
> >> >> >
> >> >> >---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> >> >To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
> >> >> >For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
> >> >> >
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> >> To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
> >> >> For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
> >> > For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
> >> >
> >>
> >>
> >>---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
> >>For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
> >>
> >>
> >
> >---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
> >For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
> >
>
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>
>

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org


From jmartin92 at comcast.net  Fri Sep 15 21:01:54 2006
From: jmartin92 at comcast.net (Jim)
Date: Sat, 16 Sep 2006 00:01:54 -0400
Subject: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
References: <4da424620609151220i7465acc9m1355e1ed5fb0b165@mail.gmail.com> <BAY120-F412590E67DE63E1DCD8ACA02F0@phx.gbl> <4da424620609151944i65feee92p9f1ce506fff46cf6@mail.gmail.com> <4026.69.175.177.145.1158375751.squirrel@mail.winamp.com> <4da424620609152009k36243056nf909039bbd5dd86c@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <00f301c6d944$dfbc7030$6501a8c0@xp1800desk>

Maybe what would be best is some kind of generic "rating" frame?  It could
have numerical (or text) values that could mean whatever you want them
to...whether that would be a content rating system (like 1 = G, 2 = PG, 3 =
R, etc or simply 0=suitable for all, 1 = adults only) or a quality rating
system (like a standard 1 stars, 2 stars, etc) or anything else you wanted
to use it for.

Then players could probably easily add some features to allow you to select
or play songs/files based on the rating values you choose.  Since it could
have any meaning, it would be more useful than just a parental filter,
although it wouldn't be included in any of the online databases (which I
would personally not want anyway).

(Does the ID3v2 spec already define a rating frame?  I admit I don't know if
it does or not.  And this could probably be easily achieved using a user
defined text frame too.)



---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org


From jmlafora at telefonica.net  Mon Sep 18 19:28:59 2006
From: jmlafora at telefonica.net (Jose M. Lafora)
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2006 04:28:59 +0200
Subject: [ID3 Dev] Display idtag device
Message-ID: <000001c6db93$62c15270$2101a8c0@HP17632190952>

 
Most DVDs play mp3 but song info (idtag) has to be watched through TV. Is
there any device (hardware) to display idtag instead of turning TV on?
 
Regards,
 
Jos? M. Lafora
jmlafora at telefonica.net
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.id3.org/pipermail/id3v2/attachments/20060919/366ce8ea/attachment.html>

From pfurrie at hotmail.com  Fri Sep 15 20:09:13 2006
From: pfurrie at hotmail.com (Pat Furrie)
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 23:09:13 -0400
Subject: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
In-Reply-To: <4da424620609151944i65feee92p9f1ce506fff46cf6@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <BAY120-F1717CC84475C203875A3E5A02F0@phx.gbl>

Tom,

Does it need to be iron-clad in its implementation in order to succeed?  
Yes, if the kid is making an effort, I suspect they can get around it.  
However, my kids aren't actively trying to listen to content I would set as 
offlimits.  They browse our music library through our Squeezebox, but we 
don't have a ratings mechanism to prevent them from stumbling into music 
which might have otherwise objectionable lyrics.

Yes, parental control and responsibility is a part of this.  But isn't that 
the whole point?  Tim was looking for a means by which he can exhert his 
parental control in a meaningful way.  I'd like the same thing.  Yes, if the 
kid finds some hack around it, then either they're being expressly 
contemptous of my authority or showing signs of original thinking.  Or they 
just want accidentally wander into content that I'd otherwise not have them 
listening to (and I know I have content which fits into that category, and I 
have also wondered how a software solution might aid in that effort).

Gist is: it doesn't have to be perfect to be useful.  The best software I 
work on is done evelutionarily.  When I try to make it all perfect 
out-of-the-gate, its doomed.  Yes, I'd like to get it right from the get-go, 
but often times, that doesn't seem to be the best approach.

I'd rather encourage Tim to try and fail rather than not try at all.

Pat



>From: "Tom Sorensen" <tsorensen at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: id3v2 at id3.org
>To: id3v2 at id3.org
>Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
>Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 22:44:25 -0400
>
>The only solution is to have it as part of a DRM wrapper. Something
>that is, in theory, not changeable or removable. There is absolutely
>no other way to do it that's not easily circumventable.
>
>In theory you could do it outside of such a method, in something like
>an ID3 tag, but only if you force every toolset and library to
>recognize, support, and refuse to "downgrade" the flag. But even then
>anyone with a compiler and source code (or even a specification) could
>circumvent it; it's just a matter of how difficult it is to do.
>
>And I would like to point out that all of the similar efforts to do
>such automatic ratings and restrictions has either been a market
>failure (V-chip) or reasonably easy to disable/fool/circumvent (web
>surfing software). It winds up being a parental responsibility to
>educate and trust your children. And yes, I have two girls of my own.
>
>That said, pursuing such a system is not inherently bad. Go for it.
>But you'll have to get Apple and Microsoft to buy in (and hopefully
>come to a common standard) or else it won't succeed -- they're the two
>big guys on the block at this point, especially Apple with its
>combined hardware and software sales.
>
>And yes, multiple levels of designation are definitely a good idea.
>
>Tom
>
>On 9/15/06, Pat Furrie <pfurrie at hotmail.com> wrote:
>>Tom,
>>
>>Now, I don't know if Tim's suggestion is workable.  But he does bring up a
>>problem he's at least giving some thought to solving, and I'm certain 
>>other
>>people have had this as a problem with which to deal.  It's the sort of
>>thing that brought about the ratings codes in movies (quite some time ago)
>>and ratings on TV (more recently).  I've got kids of my own who I want to
>>have some way of helping distinguish which music is appropriate.
>>
>>You've pointed out a couple of challenges.  Perhaps you could provide some
>>constructive analysis.  Devil's advocate is too easy; anyone can do that.
>>But as they say, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the
>>problem.  Tim isn't looking for why it won't work, he's looking for ways 
>>to
>>make it work.
>>
>>Tim: I'd like to see a set of method with more granularity than just 
>>"adult"
>>or not.  "Adult" is a bit slippery, and is defined differently by 
>>different
>>people.  However, the existance of certain key words and concepts are more
>>objective.  You might want to look at how TV has done ratings, and model 
>>it
>>after that.  This way any "adult content" tag methodology could leverage 
>>the
>>methods already adopted, and be more universal across media types 
>>(meaning,
>>not just audio files).
>>
>>We could nay-say and do nothing, or we can get off our butts and do
>>something.  Even if something doesn't work, I'd rather have tried to make 
>>it
>>work than not.
>>
>>Fail fast, succeed sooner.
>>
>>Pat
>>
>>
>> >From: "Tom Sorensen" <tsorensen at gmail.com>
>> >Reply-To: id3v2 at id3.org
>> >To: id3v2 at id3.org
>> >Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
>> >Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 15:20:40 -0400
>> >
>> >If you want a new Genre, just make one. There is no list of
>> >pre-defined genres for ID3v2. You'd then have to modify whatever
>> >player to not play any music that belonged in that genre (and see
>> >below for the issues with that).
>> >
>> >But that's not what you really want. You want a flag that a music
>> >player would have to check before playing (or, since you seem
>> >concerned about the title, before even displaying). Certainly
>> >possible; there are other similar flags in the ID3v2 spec currently.
>> >
>> >I'll go ahead and object to it as pointless though. Since:
>> >
>> >A) nobody implements anything like this in current players (software
>> >or hardware), and it would be 3-5 years before that would change (and
>> >that's being optimistic; more likely it would never be implemented.
>> >ID3v2.4 is 5 years old now and still has very low uptake),
>> >
>> >B) it would be completely trivial to bypass and/or disable anyway
>> >since you cannot prevent someone from changing the tag (or removing it
>> >entirely).
>> >
>> >Tom Sorensen
>> >
>> >On 9/15/06, Tim Reinarts <tim_reinarts at soniqcast.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>Do you have any provisions in the latest spec for adding an "adult
>> >>content"
>> >>genre category?
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>I would propose that such a tag would allow parents to control the 
>>content
>> >>being used by their children.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>Media player manufacturers can then implement a feature that allows
>> >>parents
>> >>to prevent the player from accessing files with an Adult Content genre.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>It concerns me that some of the most popular content on many sites like
>> >>MTV's URGE are songs with explicit titles.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>Regards,
>> >>
>> >>Tim Reinarts
>> >
>> >---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>> >For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>>For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>>
>>
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>



---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org


From rmanson at gracenote.com  Mon Sep 18 19:13:13 2006
From: rmanson at gracenote.com (Robert Manson)
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 19:13:13 -0700
Subject: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
Message-ID: <A6996A40FEABDA4784FD8F23705F16190A8BB0@EMAIL1.gracenote.gracenote.com>

>As far as new genres, I can imagine it being based on user input to a
wiki-
>style database, where new genres are proposed and discussed and
ultimately 
>decided for inclusion by users who care enough to take the time.  
>The bit-mapped category space in the metadata includes unassigned bits,

>just for this purpose.

This assumes that genres will never be merged together or separated into
two or more sub-genres.  If someone is running an application that has
not been updated to the latest changes in the mapping they would see
incorrect genre(s) if he or she got a hold of a file that had been
tagged with the new system.  Therefore, for bitmaps to work you need a
separate field that contains a version number.

Musicologists have numerous ways of categorizing music and each is
entirely subjective.  AMG, Muse, and Gracenote all have different genre
systems for example.  I would like to see a genre system that supported
different sources (similar to how UFID works) for the genre system.

Such a genre frame might look like this
<Header for 'Extended Genre Frame', ID: "XCON">
Text encoding           $xx
Genre system identifier <text string according to encoding>
Genre String            <text string(s) according to encoding>
Auxiliary Data    	<up to 64 bytes binary data>

Such a scheme would allow for bitmapping, versioning and other
mechanisms in the auxiliary data section. The auxiliary data would be in
a format identified by whoever created the particular genre system.  The
Genre system identifier would allow applications to recognize genres
systems it trusts and recognizes.  However, the genre string section
would allow applications that don't recognize a particular genre system
identifier to still display something.

-Rob
-----Original Message-----
From: Pat Furrie [mailto:pfurrie at hotmail.com] 
Sent: Monday, September 18, 2006 6:31 PM
To: id3v2 at id3.org
Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion


>
>>In terms of the current "adult" genre concept, we have a problem that,
>>should we apply a new "adult" genre to the list, then that's it: a
song is
>>no longer rock or jazz or classical or whatever.  It is adult.
>
>No, because ID3v2.3 and .4 support multiple genres. Admittedly the
>support in 2.3 is rather vague, but that hasn't stopped a lot of
>people from using it. If nothing else, space delimited genres with
>substring searches works fairly well (which, again, is how iTunes
>implements it).
>
>>Bit map the genre/category/groups information.
>
>This has been suggested before and it's a complete disaster waiting to
>happen. What happens when someone creates a whole new genre that
>doesn't easily fall into previous ones? Trying to shoehorn new genres
>into old ones is more of an issue, IMO, than having disagreements on
>what genre a song belongs to, or mispellings, or any of the other
>issues with free-form Genre fields.

I like to see a central user-driven category database which can be
shared, 
in order to spread any categorization effort.  How do you possibly
implement 
that with free-form genre fields?

You can go to a ridiculous extreme and suggest there is an infinite
number 
of genres out there, or take a more practical approach, one which finds
a 
good middle ground, between the previous limited one-byte indexed
version 
and anarchy of the free-form model.

As far as new genres, I can imagine it being based on user input to a 
wiki-style database, where new genres are proposed and discussed and 
ultimately decided for inclusion by users who care enough to take the
time.  
The bit-mapped category space in the metadata includes unassigned bits,
just 
for this purpose.

But as more genres types are added, the field for potential new ones 
diminishes, as the new ones help fill in the gaps for things which were 
previously difficult to categorize.  The more time goes on, the slower
the 
inclusion or new categories becomes.


>>Who decides?  A database, run wiki-style
>
>That's not a solution because it doesn't help embedded devices. And
>those are far too large a part of the market to simply ignore.

Not moving forward isn't a solution.  Many of the embedded devices are
flash 
upgradeable.  For the rest, they get loaded from PCs which can be 
compatible, can do a search on the database for playlists based on a
rich 
but standardized category schema -- those more limited players benefit
by 
virtue of that connection.

And a user-driven model is a good way to go.  So a song might be
classified 
in multiple genres.  That's the whole point.

This isn't "a disaster waiting to happen."

>>Some people will say that "a limited genre set is insufficient" yet
they
>>seem satisfied with the current tiny number of ID3 genres.
>
>The number is tiny only if you restrict yourself to the ID3v1 list --
>which is specifically deprecated in the ID3v2 spec.

My idea of computers are as tools to make life easier and more
enjoyable.  
Being chained to mine in order to categorize thousands of songs doesn't
fit 
either of those goals.  But being able to easily pick out specific kinds
of 
music based on multiple criteria does make life easier and more
enjoyable.

Data works for people best when it is entered just once.  After that,
you 
leverage the effort of the original data entry to help many people.

If you want free form, have it in labeling the bit-mapped categories
with 
terms that you like, in the language you use, with the spelling and
wording 
you prefer.  But the bit-map doesn't get affected in that model, unless
you 
specifically change your music's categorization.  At that point, the
better 
meta-data editing software gives you the option of sharing your new data

entry to the catetorizations to the shared master database, where it
gets 
included or weighted with other people's input in order to give others
the 
benefit of your categorization insights.

I'm a music novice.  I like to listen, and I like to pick out different 
kinds of music at different times based on my mood or what is going on.
I 
dont' know enough about it to tell for sure what "genres" it all is, but

certain other stuff, it would be great for sorting and filtering
selections. 
  Tonight I'd like to hear instrumental rock music with orchestral 
accompaniment, particularly violins, which has an upbeat mood.  I don't
want 
to build a complex playlist, I just want to select these elements from a

list of category elements, and have our living room player run them
directly 
from our server.

The server and the player already exist in our house, but not the
ability to 
pull out that kind of a selection on a whim (or even with lots of
effort).  
And I can imagine wanting just that sort of music the other day, but
didn't 
have the means to do it.

Why?  I know I'm not the only one out there who wants to choose what to
play 
from their music library easily.  I know the entrenched single-genre
model 
is silly.  I know there are no technical limitations to being able to
doing 
it.  The only thing which seems missing is the vision of people who
might be 
in a position to effect change.


>I wouldn't mind seeing a "Content Rating" field in the spec, as you
>and others have given valid uses that don't require iron-clad
>protection (which, again, is what Tim basically asked for at the start
>of the thread -- it has diverged since). And it's definitely a better
>idea than having an additional entry in Genre.

This is just another categorization, and it needs its own set of flags
in 
order to define what is "adult" about it; just calling something "adult"
is 
too coarse.


>And, as a final (offtopic) note -- if you've bought a TV 13" or larger
>since 2000, you have a V-chip enabled TV. And all broadcasters are
>required to put identifiers in their shows that the V-chip uses. It's
>still virtually unused, and most people don't even know that their TV
>has the feature.

There are a lot of features in Windows which many (most) people I know
are 
unaware, but I wouldn't want them done away with.  For those who know or

those who care to use them, they are useful.  Same with a set of music 
"adult" flags and the V-chip.

Pat



---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org


---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org


From rmanson at gracenote.com  Tue Sep 19 19:11:56 2006
From: rmanson at gracenote.com (Robert Manson)
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2006 19:11:56 -0700
Subject: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
Message-ID: <A6996A40FEABDA4784FD8F23705F16190A8BB1@EMAIL1.gracenote.gracenote.com>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musicologist


By two genres merging I meant that one of them becomes invalid.  Without
a versioning scheme you will supply correct genre information if a "bit"
has been invalidated.

How do you ensure against invalid combinations of bits being set, for
example, Male Solo-Vocalist and Female Solo-Vocalist both being set?

What kinds of scenarios would a bitmap approach address that having
string based genres [taken from predefined sets] could not address.
For example:
Jazz, Female Vocalist, Soundtrack, Mellow

-Rob

-----Original Message-----
From: Pat Furrie [mailto:pfurrie at hotmail.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2006 6:13 PM
To: id3v2 at id3.org
Subject: RE: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion


> >As far as new genres, I can imagine it being based on user input to a
>wiki-
> >style database, where new genres are proposed and discussed and
>ultimately
> >decided for inclusion by users who care enough to take the time.
> >The bit-mapped category space in the metadata includes unassigned
bits,
>
> >just for this purpose.
>
>This assumes that genres will never be merged together or separated
into
>two or more sub-genres.  If someone is running an application that has
>not been updated to the latest changes in the mapping they would see
>incorrect genre(s) if he or she got a hold of a file that had been
>tagged with the new system.  Therefore, for bitmaps to work you need a
>separate field that contains a version number.

Actually, I don't know that it does or doesn't assume what you suggest.
You 
certainly make an interesting point.  Let's look at this a little more 
closely:

First, the idea of two genres merging.  I suppose that could happen, so 
let's imagine a scenario where we have a piece of music that has been 
defined as to exist in both the categories of "rock" and "jazz."
Initially, 
both of these descriptors (and maybe others, too) are toggled on for the

song.  Later, as music evolves, some new combination genre comes into
being, 
let's call it "razz."  Do we eliminate the "rock" and "jazz" bits of the

song in favor of the new "razz" genre, at least for the original song?
I 
suspect not, though perhaps it meets the qualifications, and can have
that 
bit set later by the updating routine built into your iTunes version 9.

This doesn't break anything in your system, though, even if you aren't 
updated.

The next day, I give you a new piece of music I created myself, in the 
"razz" style, and I've politely pre-set all the category descriptor
flags 
that I feel best suit the it.  This includes, of course, the new "razz" 
descriptor bit, which may well be new to some of your audio programs.  
However, that bit, "sanctioned" by the community driven audio category 
database, was carved out from one of the bits in the "reserved for
future 
use" section of the bit-map space.  What does happens when the new music
is 
loaded on your computer?  It might notice it, and understanding that
this 
bit lies outside of its pre-defined category space for the version of
the 
descriptors it is aware of, triggers a routine to go fetch either a
whole 
new set of descriptors, or (better), just the changes to the descriptor 
list.  Time to fetch: less than a second.  What if you aren't online?
No 
biggie: the added descriptor doesn't break anything.  At such a time
that 
the descriptor list is updated, the bit will be more useful (having a 
human-meaningful term to associate with that particular bit).

When the new bit does finally get updated on the computer, the computer
may 
also find it is time to check for any media changes which have occured
since 
the last update.  Your computer forwards the last update date to the 
database server, and a query is run to produce a list of all music which
has 
had record updates since that time.  Your computer will compare that
list 
with its own, and make changes based on preference you've previously set

(you may have your system preferences set to only point out possible 
changes, but don't make them until you give it the go-ahead).  For
instance, 
some old rock song was used in the 2008 remake of "Citizen Kane," and
now 
that song has been updated to have the "soundtrack" bit set.  You find
this 
useful, as going back and continually updating your 30,000 file music 
collection is a pain in the butt, though when you have a movie party at
your 
house, it is nice to have an automatically generated playlist which was
set 
to pull up "soundtracks" and "rock," also include this new member of the

soundtrack club.  In fact, you might have also had that playlist search
fine 
tune the selections with some boolean operations on the mood of the
music, 
adding descriptor such as "triumphant" and "inspirational" but
forbidding 
anything that might also include "slow" or had the regional descriptor
of 
"Asian" set.

Allowing updates over time allows the descriptor richness of your
collection 
to grow, without anywhere near the amount of effort it would take to do
it 
manually.  You can adjust your own database, here and there, as you see
fit, 
but by and large, you find that most of the category choices are
reasonable, 
particularly since they allow a musical piece to cover all the genres
you 
expected, even if they might also include a few you didn't expect.

Also, so you understand, as I see it, bit mapped descriptors would work
in a 
manner so as to construct "genres" (a vague term).  For instance, while 
there would be a "rock" descriptor, there wouldn't be "hard rock" or
"pop 
rock" descriptors.  Instead, there would be "pop" and "hard"
descriptors, 
and a file can have any combination turned on in order to describe it.
As 
you add descriptors, the total number of combinations grows
exponentially 
(as opposed to linearly).  Yes, it is a finite number of combinations,
but 
the number is still very large, and by breaking down the popular genre
terms 
to their constituent parts, you cover all the current bases very well.
I'm 
certain that any current genre description systems can be included in
this 
way.  Many of them share a large number of genre types, and those that
may 
be unique can be constructed from elemental descriptors taken from
those.  
In addition, many new descriptor would be added (far more than would be 
created by inclusion of elemental genre descriptors from current
schemes).  
Allowing for descriptors in the areas of mood, region, tempo, key, 
instruments, modifiers, and misc, great richness in description can be 
achieved while using agreed-upon terms.

During a rough first draft, I identified nearly 50 moods alone.  My
first 
thought was that there would be at least 1000 bits.  That first draft
fills 
in less than 500 between all those master category headings.  But
remember: 
as each new descriptor term is added, it becomes more difficult to find
a 
descriptor which doesn't already have something in the list which would 
suitably work in its place.


>Musicologists have numerous ways of categorizing music and each is
>entirely subjective.

Is "Musicologists" really a word?  ;)


Pat



---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org


---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org


From bmearns at coe.neu.edu  Sat Sep 16 05:16:44 2006
From: bmearns at coe.neu.edu (Brian Mearns)
Date: Sat, 16 Sep 2006 08:16:44 -0400
Subject: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
In-Reply-To: <BAY120-F260558B11F9F64FC3F2813A02F0@phx.gbl>
References: <BAY120-F260558B11F9F64FC3F2813A02F0@phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <450BEB2C.7000809@coe.neu.edu>

I guess "object" wasn't quite the correct word for me to use. Looking 
back, my point wasn't (or at least shouldn't've been) that this 
shouldn't be implemented or that I would try to stop someone from 
implementing it, or that I would throw a fit if it is. I meant to imply 
that I just didn't think it's worthwhile. However, some of the other 
comments, about auto-playlists and what not, point out some valuable use 
cases, where I can see that it would be worthwhile.

I guess more to the point I was trying to make (albeit, not very well) 
is that parent's should not be relying on these types of devices as a 
replacement for good parenting. Just because you've installed the 
V-chip, doesn't mean that everything your kids see on television is 
going to be appropriate, and even if it was, that doesn't mean that you 
can just sit them in front of the television and use it as a baby 
sitter. That's still bad parenting regardless of what's on. Same with 
any form of censorship that gets applied to music. Whether it's 
effective at stopping them from listening to it or not, it's not 
effective at addressing the real issue which is not the music, but their 
  own behavior and language. I can imagine that these types of devices 
could be useful tools for parents in conjunction with instilling proper 
behaviors and values, I just think it's important that people realize 
it's not the answer in itself.

-Brian

Pat Furrie wrote:
> Brian,
> 
> While utilities might come into existance to disable to flag, so what?  
> The lock on the front door of my house is easily foiled by learning how 
> to make a use a bump key from YouTube, but I still lock the door.  Do 
> you?  Probably.
> 
> And is it censorship?  Again, so what if it is?  I don't tell the kids 
> what my wife and I do in the bedroom.  Censorship?  So what.  Part of 
> being a parent is making choices about what a kid is exposed to at a 
> certain age.  For mine, they get differing levels of access based on 
> their ability to deal with it.  You can call it censorship, I'll call it 
> limiting.
> 
> We're just looking for tools to help us set up limiting for our kids.  
> I'm not going to stop trying just because some kids might try to get 
> around it.  Others aren't.  Even if you disagree, why would you care if 
> someone tried, or that the tools were made to exist in order to make 
> that attempt?
> 
> Don't censor the effort.
> 
> Pat
> 
> 
>> From: Brian Mearns <bmearns at coe.neu.edu>
>> Reply-To: id3v2 at id3.org
>> To: id3v2 at id3.org
>> Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
>> Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 23:25:35 -0400
>>
>> >Tim isn't looking for why it won't work, he's looking
>> > for ways to make it work.
>>
>> Spoken like a true manager.
>>
>> Personally, I have minor objections to this as a matter of principle; 
>> it's a minor form of censorship, though granted it's no worse than the 
>> V-chip and similar technologies. But sheltering your kids from the 
>> world isn't protecting them. Even if you prevent them from playing 
>> certain songs because of language of "adult-themes", they're still 
>> going to be exposed to it else where; on tv, in movies, from their 
>> friends, siblings, class-mates, &c. The important thing is to teach 
>> your kids the difference between what they see or hear, and what's 
>> appropriate for them to say or do. And no amount of sheltering will 
>> make up for good parenting. Now I know that sounds very high and 
>> mighty, and I'm not trying to accuse anyone of being a bad parent; I 
>> understand there's a lot of scary stuff out there and we want to 
>> protect our kids from it. But like I said, they're going to be exposed 
>> to it one way or another, and hiding it from them, not addressing the 
>> real issue, is only going to make it harder to cope with when they 
>> finally are.
>>
>> Alright, so that was less ID3 and more rant. Come down to it, like Tom 
>> said, you can't possibly prevent someone from editing the file they've 
>> downloaded. If this system really did take off, it wouldn't take more 
>> than a few days before download.com is filled with freeware apps to 
>> disable to flag, and blogs all over the web have instructions on how 
>> to do it in note pad.
>>
>> -Brian Mearns
>>
>> Pat Furrie wrote:
>>> Tom,
>>>
>>> Now, I don't know if Tim's suggestion is workable.  But he does bring 
>>> up a problem he's at least giving some thought to solving, and I'm 
>>> certain other people have had this as a problem with which to deal.  
>>> It's the sort of thing that brought about the ratings codes in movies 
>>> (quite some time ago) and ratings on TV (more recently).  I've got 
>>> kids of my own who I want to have some way of helping distinguish 
>>> which music is appropriate.
>>>
>>> You've pointed out a couple of challenges.  Perhaps you could provide 
>>> some constructive analysis.  Devil's advocate is too easy; anyone can 
>>> do that.  But as they say, if you're not part of the solution, you're 
>>> part of the problem.  Tim isn't looking for why it won't work, he's 
>>> looking for ways to make it work.
>>>
>>> Tim: I'd like to see a set of method with more granularity than just 
>>> "adult" or not.  "Adult" is a bit slippery, and is defined 
>>> differently by different people.  However, the existance of certain 
>>> key words and concepts are more objective.  You might want to look at 
>>> how TV has done ratings, and model it after that.  This way any 
>>> "adult content" tag methodology could leverage the methods already 
>>> adopted, and be more universal across media types (meaning, not just 
>>> audio files).
>>>
>>> We could nay-say and do nothing, or we can get off our butts and do 
>>> something.  Even if something doesn't work, I'd rather have tried to 
>>> make it work than not.
>>>
>>> Fail fast, succeed sooner.
>>>
>>> Pat
>>>
>>>
>>>> From: "Tom Sorensen" <tsorensen at gmail.com>
>>>> Reply-To: id3v2 at id3.org
>>>> To: id3v2 at id3.org
>>>> Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
>>>> Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 15:20:40 -0400
>>>>
>>>> If you want a new Genre, just make one. There is no list of
>>>> pre-defined genres for ID3v2. You'd then have to modify whatever
>>>> player to not play any music that belonged in that genre (and see
>>>> below for the issues with that).
>>>>
>>>> But that's not what you really want. You want a flag that a music
>>>> player would have to check before playing (or, since you seem
>>>> concerned about the title, before even displaying). Certainly
>>>> possible; there are other similar flags in the ID3v2 spec currently.
>>>>
>>>> I'll go ahead and object to it as pointless though. Since:
>>>>
>>>> A) nobody implements anything like this in current players (software
>>>> or hardware), and it would be 3-5 years before that would change (and
>>>> that's being optimistic; more likely it would never be implemented.
>>>> ID3v2.4 is 5 years old now and still has very low uptake),
>>>>
>>>> B) it would be completely trivial to bypass and/or disable anyway
>>>> since you cannot prevent someone from changing the tag (or removing it
>>>> entirely).
>>>>
>>>> Tom Sorensen
>>>>
>>>> On 9/15/06, Tim Reinarts <tim_reinarts at soniqcast.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Do you have any provisions in the latest spec for adding an "adult 
>>>>> content"
>>>>> genre category?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I would propose that such a tag would allow parents to control the 
>>>>> content
>>>>> being used by their children.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Media player manufacturers can then implement a feature that allows 
>>>>> parents
>>>>> to prevent the player from accessing files with an Adult Content 
>>>>> genre.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> It concerns me that some of the most popular content on many sites 
>>>>> like
>>>>> MTV's URGE are songs with explicit titles.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>
>>>>> Tim Reinarts
>>>>
>>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>>>> For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>>> For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>>>
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>> For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>>
> 
> 
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
> 

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org


From benski at winamp.com  Fri Sep 15 20:02:31 2006
From: benski at winamp.com (Ben Allison)
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 23:02:31 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
In-Reply-To: <4da424620609151944i65feee92p9f1ce506fff46cf6@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4da424620609151220i7465acc9m1355e1ed5fb0b165@mail.gmail.com> 
    <BAY120-F412590E67DE63E1DCD8ACA02F0@phx.gbl>
    <4da424620609151944i65feee92p9f1ce506fff46cf6@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4026.69.175.177.145.1158375751.squirrel@mail.winamp.com>

Tom,

I think you might be taking this a bit too far.  Or at least certainly
beyond the scope of an ID3v2 tag :)

It could certainly be useful even if it's insecure.  What if I want to put
my music collection on 'shuffle' for a party, but want to easily filter
out anything with inappropriate lyrics.  Or I'm preparing a setlist for a
radio show - I couldn't play an unedited 'Money' from Pink Floyd's DSOM on
the air, even though the rest of the album (and the rest of the
discography) is OK.

-Ben

> The only solution is to have it as part of a DRM wrapper. Something
> that is, in theory, not changeable or removable. There is absolutely
> no other way to do it that's not easily circumventable.
>
> In theory you could do it outside of such a method, in something like
> an ID3 tag, but only if you force every toolset and library to
> recognize, support, and refuse to "downgrade" the flag. But even then
> anyone with a compiler and source code (or even a specification) could
> circumvent it; it's just a matter of how difficult it is to do.
>
> And I would like to point out that all of the similar efforts to do
> such automatic ratings and restrictions has either been a market
> failure (V-chip) or reasonably easy to disable/fool/circumvent (web
> surfing software). It winds up being a parental responsibility to
> educate and trust your children. And yes, I have two girls of my own.
>
> That said, pursuing such a system is not inherently bad. Go for it.
> But you'll have to get Apple and Microsoft to buy in (and hopefully
> come to a common standard) or else it won't succeed -- they're the two
> big guys on the block at this point, especially Apple with its
> combined hardware and software sales.
>
> And yes, multiple levels of designation are definitely a good idea.
>
> Tom
>
> On 9/15/06, Pat Furrie <pfurrie at hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Tom,
>>
>> Now, I don't know if Tim's suggestion is workable.  But he does bring up
>> a
>> problem he's at least giving some thought to solving, and I'm certain
>> other
>> people have had this as a problem with which to deal.  It's the sort of
>> thing that brought about the ratings codes in movies (quite some time
>> ago)
>> and ratings on TV (more recently).  I've got kids of my own who I want
>> to
>> have some way of helping distinguish which music is appropriate.
>>
>> You've pointed out a couple of challenges.  Perhaps you could provide
>> some
>> constructive analysis.  Devil's advocate is too easy; anyone can do
>> that.
>> But as they say, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the
>> problem.  Tim isn't looking for why it won't work, he's looking for ways
>> to
>> make it work.
>>
>> Tim: I'd like to see a set of method with more granularity than just
>> "adult"
>> or not.  "Adult" is a bit slippery, and is defined differently by
>> different
>> people.  However, the existance of certain key words and concepts are
>> more
>> objective.  You might want to look at how TV has done ratings, and model
>> it
>> after that.  This way any "adult content" tag methodology could leverage
>> the
>> methods already adopted, and be more universal across media types
>> (meaning,
>> not just audio files).
>>
>> We could nay-say and do nothing, or we can get off our butts and do
>> something.  Even if something doesn't work, I'd rather have tried to
>> make it
>> work than not.
>>
>> Fail fast, succeed sooner.
>>
>> Pat
>>
>>
>> >From: "Tom Sorensen" <tsorensen at gmail.com>
>> >Reply-To: id3v2 at id3.org
>> >To: id3v2 at id3.org
>> >Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
>> >Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 15:20:40 -0400
>> >
>> >If you want a new Genre, just make one. There is no list of
>> >pre-defined genres for ID3v2. You'd then have to modify whatever
>> >player to not play any music that belonged in that genre (and see
>> >below for the issues with that).
>> >
>> >But that's not what you really want. You want a flag that a music
>> >player would have to check before playing (or, since you seem
>> >concerned about the title, before even displaying). Certainly
>> >possible; there are other similar flags in the ID3v2 spec currently.
>> >
>> >I'll go ahead and object to it as pointless though. Since:
>> >
>> >A) nobody implements anything like this in current players (software
>> >or hardware), and it would be 3-5 years before that would change (and
>> >that's being optimistic; more likely it would never be implemented.
>> >ID3v2.4 is 5 years old now and still has very low uptake),
>> >
>> >B) it would be completely trivial to bypass and/or disable anyway
>> >since you cannot prevent someone from changing the tag (or removing it
>> >entirely).
>> >
>> >Tom Sorensen
>> >
>> >On 9/15/06, Tim Reinarts <tim_reinarts at soniqcast.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>Do you have any provisions in the latest spec for adding an "adult
>> >>content"
>> >>genre category?
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>I would propose that such a tag would allow parents to control the
>> content
>> >>being used by their children.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>Media player manufacturers can then implement a feature that allows
>> >>parents
>> >>to prevent the player from accessing files with an Adult Content
>> genre.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>It concerns me that some of the most popular content on many sites
>> like
>> >>MTV's URGE are songs with explicit titles.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>Regards,
>> >>
>> >>Tim Reinarts
>> >
>> >---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>> >For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>> For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>>
>>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>


---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org


From chris.newell at rd.bbc.co.uk  Fri Sep 22 07:03:39 2006
From: chris.newell at rd.bbc.co.uk (Chris Newell)
Date: Fri, 22 Sep 2006 15:03:39 +0100
Subject: [ID3 Dev] Accessibility extension - second draft
Message-ID: <6.2.0.14.2.20060921164440.027bad90@pop3>

Dear all,

Attached is the third and hopefully final draft of the proposed ID3v2 Accessibility addendum with the following minor changes:

-  the link to the ID3v2.3.0 specification has been corrected.

-  there is an additional note: "Editing text fields in ID3 tags may result in the retention of irrelevant ATXT frames and  
gaps in the provision of audio text unless action is taken to amend the corresponding ATXT frames."

Best regards,

Chris
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.id3.org/pipermail/id3v2/attachments/20060922/dd1f5b48/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
____________________________________________ 

Chris Newell 
Lead Technologist 
Technology Group
BBC New Media & Technology
Kingswood Warren, Woodland Way, Tadworth
Surrey  KT20 6NP   UK

Tel:    +44 (0)1737 839659
Fax:    +44 (0)1737 839665
mailto:chris.newell at rd.bbc.co.uk
   
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.id3.org/pipermail/id3v2/attachments/20060922/dd1f5b48/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org

From tim_reinarts at soniqcast.com  Mon Sep 18 06:39:45 2006
From: tim_reinarts at soniqcast.com (Tim Reinarts)
Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2006 08:39:45 -0500
Subject: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
Message-ID: <62701456AACF52429880743B6DFE9F6140F8AA@SCLAN-S.soniqcast.lan>

Admittedly, I am new to the ID3 meta data world.
And I know I can create my own genre and edit the meta data on my MP3's
to support the genre. Of course I could place all the "acceptable"
content on my son's player and hide the USB cable too. 

And I fully understand that any implementation of an adult content
rating system will likely have a potential to be circumvented. But my
kids are younger. As they get older, I actually hope they are smart
enough to find a work-around. When they are at that age, they will
likely be able to handle the type of content I am currently trying to
protect them from. When they reach that age, if I have done my job as a
parent they will be able to make their own decisions. 

> But sheltering your kids from the world 
> isn't protecting them. Even if you prevent 
> them from playing certain songs because of 
> language of "adult-themes", they're still 
> going to be exposed to it else where; on 
> tv, in movies," 

Even though this comment likely came from a non-parent, I agree. I can't
say I like my kids seeing adds for Viagra on prime-time TV either. The
FCC needs to do a better job of regulating what we see on TV (my
opinion). But just because this stuff surrounds us doesn't mean we
should throw our arms up and surrender. I feel we are MORALLY OBLIGATED
to provide parents with a method to help to control what our YOUNG kids
are exposed to. 

What I am looking for is an industry-wide supported tool to help
parents. Where the player manufacturers are looking to boast more
features, you'd think the big players would jump on board with this
(Apple and Microsoft take note). V-chip is a good example of a feature
that does not get enough press time. More marketing dollars could be
spent educating users.

Again I am not looking for a system that is bullet-proof. I like Pat's
analogy about locking your front door. 
But give me the tools to be a good parent. I think if we as a technology
community can implement this sort of feature, it would set a good
example for other technologies and markets. 

I'm happy to see I have provoked some dialogue about this. It shows I am
not alone.

Enough ranting

-----Original Message-----
From: Pat Furrie [mailto:pfurrie at hotmail.com] 
Sent: Friday, September 15, 2006 11:18 PM
To: id3v2 at id3.org
Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion

Brian,

While utilities might come into existance to disable to flag, so what?
The 
lock on the front door of my house is easily foiled by learning how to
make 
a use a bump key from YouTube, but I still lock the door.  Do you?  
Probably.

And is it censorship?  Again, so what if it is?  I don't tell the kids
what 
my wife and I do in the bedroom.  Censorship?  So what.  Part of being a

parent is making choices about what a kid is exposed to at a certain
age.  
For mine, they get differing levels of access based on their ability to
deal 
with it.  You can call it censorship, I'll call it limiting.

We're just looking for tools to help us set up limiting for our kids.
I'm 
not going to stop trying just because some kids might try to get around
it.  
Others aren't.  Even if you disagree, why would you care if someone
tried, 
or that the tools were made to exist in order to make that attempt?

Don't censor the effort.

Pat


>From: Brian Mearns <bmearns at coe.neu.edu>
>Reply-To: id3v2 at id3.org
>To: id3v2 at id3.org
>Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
>Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 23:25:35 -0400
>
> >Tim isn't looking for why it won't work, he's looking
> > for ways to make it work.
>
>Spoken like a true manager.
>
>Personally, I have minor objections to this as a matter of principle;
it's 
>a minor form of censorship, though granted it's no worse than the
V-chip 
>and similar technologies. But sheltering your kids from the world isn't

>protecting them. Even if you prevent them from playing certain songs 
>because of language of "adult-themes", they're still going to be
exposed to 
>it else where; on tv, in movies, from their friends, siblings,
class-mates, 
>&c. The important thing is to teach your kids the difference between
what 
>they see or hear, and what's appropriate for them to say or do. And no 
>amount of sheltering will make up for good parenting. Now I know that 
>sounds very high and mighty, and I'm not trying to accuse anyone of
being a 
>bad parent; I understand there's a lot of scary stuff out there and we
want 
>to protect our kids from it. But like I said, they're going to be
exposed 
>to it one way or another, and hiding it from them, not addressing the
real 
>issue, is only going to make it harder to cope with when they finally
are.
>
>Alright, so that was less ID3 and more rant. Come down to it, like Tom 
>said, you can't possibly prevent someone from editing the file they've 
>downloaded. If this system really did take off, it wouldn't take more
than 
>a few days before download.com is filled with freeware apps to disable
to 
>flag, and blogs all over the web have instructions on how to do it in
note 
>pad.
>
>-Brian Mearns
>
>Pat Furrie wrote:
>>Tom,
>>
>>Now, I don't know if Tim's suggestion is workable.  But he does bring
up a 
>>problem he's at least giving some thought to solving, and I'm certain 
>>other people have had this as a problem with which to deal.  It's the
sort 
>>of thing that brought about the ratings codes in movies (quite some
time 
>>ago) and ratings on TV (more recently).  I've got kids of my own who I

>>want to have some way of helping distinguish which music is
appropriate.
>>
>>You've pointed out a couple of challenges.  Perhaps you could provide
some 
>>constructive analysis.  Devil's advocate is too easy; anyone can do
that.  
>>But as they say, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of
the 
>>problem.  Tim isn't looking for why it won't work, he's looking for
ways 
>>to make it work.
>>
>>Tim: I'd like to see a set of method with more granularity than just 
>>"adult" or not.  "Adult" is a bit slippery, and is defined differently
by 
>>different people.  However, the existance of certain key words and 
>>concepts are more objective.  You might want to look at how TV has
done 
>>ratings, and model it after that.  This way any "adult content" tag 
>>methodology could leverage the methods already adopted, and be more 
>>universal across media types (meaning, not just audio files).
>>
>>We could nay-say and do nothing, or we can get off our butts and do 
>>something.  Even if something doesn't work, I'd rather have tried to
make 
>>it work than not.
>>
>>Fail fast, succeed sooner.
>>
>>Pat
>>
>>
>>>From: "Tom Sorensen" <tsorensen at gmail.com>
>>>Reply-To: id3v2 at id3.org
>>>To: id3v2 at id3.org
>>>Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
>>>Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 15:20:40 -0400
>>>
>>>If you want a new Genre, just make one. There is no list of
>>>pre-defined genres for ID3v2. You'd then have to modify whatever
>>>player to not play any music that belonged in that genre (and see
>>>below for the issues with that).
>>>
>>>But that's not what you really want. You want a flag that a music
>>>player would have to check before playing (or, since you seem
>>>concerned about the title, before even displaying). Certainly
>>>possible; there are other similar flags in the ID3v2 spec currently.
>>>
>>>I'll go ahead and object to it as pointless though. Since:
>>>
>>>A) nobody implements anything like this in current players (software
>>>or hardware), and it would be 3-5 years before that would change (and
>>>that's being optimistic; more likely it would never be implemented.
>>>ID3v2.4 is 5 years old now and still has very low uptake),
>>>
>>>B) it would be completely trivial to bypass and/or disable anyway
>>>since you cannot prevent someone from changing the tag (or removing
it
>>>entirely).
>>>
>>>Tom Sorensen
>>>
>>>On 9/15/06, Tim Reinarts <tim_reinarts at soniqcast.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Do you have any provisions in the latest spec for adding an "adult 
>>>>content"
>>>>genre category?
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>I would propose that such a tag would allow parents to control the 
>>>>content
>>>>being used by their children.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Media player manufacturers can then implement a feature that allows 
>>>>parents
>>>>to prevent the player from accessing files with an Adult Content
genre.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>It concerns me that some of the most popular content on many sites
like
>>>>MTV's URGE are songs with explicit titles.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Regards,
>>>>
>>>>Tim Reinarts
>>>
>>>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>>>For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>>For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>>
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>



---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org


---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org


From mitch at honnert.com  Fri Sep 15 21:52:54 2006
From: mitch at honnert.com (Mitchell S. Honnert)
Date: Sat, 16 Sep 2006 00:52:54 -0400
Subject: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
In-Reply-To: <BAY120-F48982B4DF19EE0F65BAC8A02F0@phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <20060916045253.KRLB11137.gx4.fuse.net@avoca>

Pat,

>Yes, I know that there is a ID3 means for multi-genre classification, but
>that's just not used.  Why?  Because it doesn't cross the threshold of 
>having enough added value in the way it is implemented.
Personally, I think the reason multi-genre support never became popular is
the ambiguity in the TCON frame's spec.  I'd love to know the actual
history, but it's my guess that early implementers of the ID3v2.3 spec
weren't really sure what to make of the description of the TCON frame
(especially the "Several references" part), so they just opted for the easy
approach, only implementing a single genre value.

In my ID3 library, I've chosen to implement multiple genre values in the
TCON frame in the same way that ID3-TagIT does it, a nullchar-delimited list
of genre names (ignoring the whole "modifier" business).  If the popular MP3
players supported this, you would have a workable implementation of a
content rating.  I could not only say that a track was "Hard Rock", I could
add that it was "Adult Language" or "Instrumental" or "Live" as well.

All things being equal, of course I'd rather have a custom "Content Rating"
frame.  It's just a shame that a multi-value TCON frame was never able to
get off the ground because this would have at least provided a workable
solution to the content rating issue.

>Computer monitors display colors in a 24 bit color space: 8 bits red, 8
>bits green, 8 bits blue.  There are an infinite number of variations that 
>exist between all of the colors that those 24 bits can represent, but we 
>defer to the standardization of the 24 bit scheme.
Well, not "infinite". A heck of a lot, but not infinite.  I say this not to
be pedantic, but to illustrate a flaw in your analogy.  The colors in a 24
bit scheme are finite.  Of course there aren't names for each of the colors,
but the colors themselves are objectively quantifiable.  Not so with genres.
There truly *are* an infinite number of genres.  Further compounding the
problem is the subjective nature of genres.  A given color has an objective
red/green/blue ratio.  But is a given track "Rock", "Rock and Roll",
"Classic Rock", "Southern Rock", "Rockabilly", "Classic Rock"? Even if you
could set up a wiki which maintained a finite list of genres, you'd still
have to assign your genres to a track.

Maintaining a list of genres would be a never-ending and thankless job.
Whether it's for genres or content rating descriptions, all I need is a
standardized container; I'll come up with the contents myself.

 - Mitchell S. Honnert




-----Original Message-----
From: Pat Furrie [mailto:pfurrie at hotmail.com] 
Sent: Saturday, September 16, 2006 12:07 AM
To: id3v2 at id3.org
Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion

On the subject of genre (from the idea of "polluting the genre field"):

The whole genre concept is way overdue for a makeover.

If you don't like the term "genre," fine.  Pick a synonym.  Classification.

Categories.  Groups.  Families.  Whatever.

Whoever had the idea of giving songs/music/media a single "genre" 
classification from the outset was fantastically short-sighted.

In terms of the current "adult" genre concept, we have a problem that, 
should we apply a new "adult" genre to the list, then that's it: a song is 
no longer rock or jazz or classical or whatever.  It is adult.

Yes, I know that there is a ID3 means for multi-genre classification, but 
that's just not used.  Why?  Because it doesn't cross the threshold of 
having enough added value in the way it is implemented.

In the spirit of "being constructive," here's my suggestion:

Bit map the genre/category/groups information.

Divide up this data field into many unique genre "descriptors" which cover 
the gamut of descriptive types, in a heirarchical (sp?) structure, and 
configured so as few or as many descriptors can be flagged for a given file.

The descriptors cover a range of major topics, from classical genre types, 
to local descriptions (New Orleans, Asian, French, etc), instrument types 
(strings, percussion, horns, etc), band type (orchestral, quartet, acapella,

etc), mood (happy, inspirational, flamboyant), and others (such as a set of 
"adult" bits).

Who decides?  A database, run wiki-style, which maintains all the 
classifications that users give input to.  The same sort of mechanism for 
mediation which exist for wiki articles also exists for genre disputes.  
Some fields for certain media are locked when there is no dispute about a 
song being in that catagory (if the song has trumpets, it has trumpets).

So what if a song ends up classified as both rock and jazz?  Some stuff will

have mutliple classications -- that's the whole point.

New classification terms can end up in the database through a submission 
process...

And I don't even suppose to know all the answers to this... but this plan 
would, better than any other current method, help categorize in a rich, 
descriptive, and easy way all the media in most people's music libraries.

If somebody has a better idea that takes care of the myriad of problems with

the current implementation, let's here them.  Here are the criteria we need 
to keep in mind:

1) Rich description
2) Ease of application for user
3) Ease of application to entire music database
4) Consistency of categorization
5) Able to grow while maintaining all of the above

Computer monitors display colors in a 24 bit color space: 8 bits red, 8 bits

green, 8 bits blue.  There are an infinite number of variations that exist 
between all of the colors that those 24 bits can represent, but we defer to 
the standardization of the 24 bit scheme.  There are sufficient combinations

of those three simple components to make up a wide assortment of colors, 
enough for most people.  There are precious few people who are after color 
perfection in a larger bit-mapped color space, and even in those differing 
schemes, the total number of colors is still finite.

What really matter is not that we have an infinite variety, but that we have

a sufficient variety.

Some people will say that "a limited genre set is insufficient" yet they 
seem satisfied with the current tiny number of ID3 genres.  Others will 
concoct examples of "genres" which are such statistical outlyers that the 
extreme example is patently absurd.

The point is to help a large majority of typical users be able to have a 
means of categorizing their ever-growing computer-based music collection 
with the least amount of effort possible.  Least amount of effort?  That's 
one of the things that computers are supposed to help us do.

Pat



>From: "Tom Sorensen" <tsorensen at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: id3v2 at id3.org
>To: id3v2 at id3.org
>Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
>Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 23:09:23 -0400
>
>If that's all you want, then creating your own Genre tags is perfectly
>sufficient. Then create a playlist that excludes those tags. It's that
>simple.
>
>If you wanted to get a bit more advanced then you'd have to create a
>custom ID3v2 tag (XRTG maybe) and modify software to be aware of that
>tag when generating playlists, etc. It wouldn't buy you much more than
>what using additional genres would, except then you're not "polluting"
>the genre field.
>
>But that's not what the original poster asked for. And yes, it is
>beyond the scope of an ID3 tag (or any other similar tag), due to the
>very nature of the problem.
>
>Tom
>
>On 9/15/06, Ben Allison <benski at winamp.com> wrote:
>>Tom,
>>
>>I think you might be taking this a bit too far.  Or at least certainly
>>beyond the scope of an ID3v2 tag :)
>>
>>It could certainly be useful even if it's insecure.  What if I want to put
>>my music collection on 'shuffle' for a party, but want to easily filter
>>out anything with inappropriate lyrics.  Or I'm preparing a setlist for a
>>radio show - I couldn't play an unedited 'Money' from Pink Floyd's DSOM on
>>the air, even though the rest of the album (and the rest of the
>>discography) is OK.
>>
>>-Ben
>>
>> > The only solution is to have it as part of a DRM wrapper. Something
>> > that is, in theory, not changeable or removable. There is absolutely
>> > no other way to do it that's not easily circumventable.
>> >
>> > In theory you could do it outside of such a method, in something like
>> > an ID3 tag, but only if you force every toolset and library to
>> > recognize, support, and refuse to "downgrade" the flag. But even then
>> > anyone with a compiler and source code (or even a specification) could
>> > circumvent it; it's just a matter of how difficult it is to do.
>> >
>> > And I would like to point out that all of the similar efforts to do
>> > such automatic ratings and restrictions has either been a market
>> > failure (V-chip) or reasonably easy to disable/fool/circumvent (web
>> > surfing software). It winds up being a parental responsibility to
>> > educate and trust your children. And yes, I have two girls of my own.
>> >
>> > That said, pursuing such a system is not inherently bad. Go for it.
>> > But you'll have to get Apple and Microsoft to buy in (and hopefully
>> > come to a common standard) or else it won't succeed -- they're the two
>> > big guys on the block at this point, especially Apple with its
>> > combined hardware and software sales.
>> >
>> > And yes, multiple levels of designation are definitely a good idea.
>> >
>> > Tom
>> >
>> > On 9/15/06, Pat Furrie <pfurrie at hotmail.com> wrote:
>> >> Tom,
>> >>
>> >> Now, I don't know if Tim's suggestion is workable.  But he does bring 
>>up
>> >> a
>> >> problem he's at least giving some thought to solving, and I'm certain
>> >> other
>> >> people have had this as a problem with which to deal.  It's the sort 
>>of
>> >> thing that brought about the ratings codes in movies (quite some time
>> >> ago)
>> >> and ratings on TV (more recently).  I've got kids of my own who I want
>> >> to
>> >> have some way of helping distinguish which music is appropriate.
>> >>
>> >> You've pointed out a couple of challenges.  Perhaps you could provide
>> >> some
>> >> constructive analysis.  Devil's advocate is too easy; anyone can do
>> >> that.
>> >> But as they say, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of 
>>the
>> >> problem.  Tim isn't looking for why it won't work, he's looking for 
>>ways
>> >> to
>> >> make it work.
>> >>
>> >> Tim: I'd like to see a set of method with more granularity than just
>> >> "adult"
>> >> or not.  "Adult" is a bit slippery, and is defined differently by
>> >> different
>> >> people.  However, the existance of certain key words and concepts are
>> >> more
>> >> objective.  You might want to look at how TV has done ratings, and 
>>model
>> >> it
>> >> after that.  This way any "adult content" tag methodology could 
>>leverage
>> >> the
>> >> methods already adopted, and be more universal across media types
>> >> (meaning,
>> >> not just audio files).
>> >>
>> >> We could nay-say and do nothing, or we can get off our butts and do
>> >> something.  Even if something doesn't work, I'd rather have tried to
>> >> make it
>> >> work than not.
>> >>
>> >> Fail fast, succeed sooner.
>> >>
>> >> Pat
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> >From: "Tom Sorensen" <tsorensen at gmail.com>
>> >> >Reply-To: id3v2 at id3.org
>> >> >To: id3v2 at id3.org
>> >> >Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
>> >> >Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 15:20:40 -0400
>> >> >
>> >> >If you want a new Genre, just make one. There is no list of
>> >> >pre-defined genres for ID3v2. You'd then have to modify whatever
>> >> >player to not play any music that belonged in that genre (and see
>> >> >below for the issues with that).
>> >> >
>> >> >But that's not what you really want. You want a flag that a music
>> >> >player would have to check before playing (or, since you seem
>> >> >concerned about the title, before even displaying). Certainly
>> >> >possible; there are other similar flags in the ID3v2 spec currently.
>> >> >
>> >> >I'll go ahead and object to it as pointless though. Since:
>> >> >
>> >> >A) nobody implements anything like this in current players (software
>> >> >or hardware), and it would be 3-5 years before that would change (and
>> >> >that's being optimistic; more likely it would never be implemented.
>> >> >ID3v2.4 is 5 years old now and still has very low uptake),
>> >> >
>> >> >B) it would be completely trivial to bypass and/or disable anyway
>> >> >since you cannot prevent someone from changing the tag (or removing 
>>it
>> >> >entirely).
>> >> >
>> >> >Tom Sorensen
>> >> >
>> >> >On 9/15/06, Tim Reinarts <tim_reinarts at soniqcast.com> wrote:
>> >> >>
>> >> >>
>> >> >>
>> >> >>
>> >> >>Do you have any provisions in the latest spec for adding an "adult
>> >> >>content"
>> >> >>genre category?
>> >> >>
>> >> >>
>> >> >>
>> >> >>I would propose that such a tag would allow parents to control the
>> >> content
>> >> >>being used by their children.
>> >> >>
>> >> >>
>> >> >>
>> >> >>Media player manufacturers can then implement a feature that allows
>> >> >>parents
>> >> >>to prevent the player from accessing files with an Adult Content
>> >> genre.
>> >> >>
>> >> >>
>> >> >>
>> >> >>It concerns me that some of the most popular content on many sites
>> >> like
>> >> >>MTV's URGE are songs with explicit titles.
>> >> >>
>> >> >>
>> >> >>
>> >> >>Regards,
>> >> >>
>> >> >>Tim Reinarts
>> >> >
>> >> >---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >> >To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>> >> >For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >> To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>> >> For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>> > For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>> >
>>
>>
>>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>>For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>>
>>
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>



---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org




---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org


From tim_reinarts at soniqcast.com  Fri Sep 15 11:35:30 2006
From: tim_reinarts at soniqcast.com (Tim Reinarts)
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 13:35:30 -0500
Subject: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
Message-ID: <62701456AACF52429880743B6DFE9F6140F8A9@SCLAN-S.soniqcast.lan>

Do you have any provisions in the latest spec for adding an "adult
content" genre category?

 

I would propose that such a tag would allow parents to control the
content being used by their children.

 

Media player manufacturers can then implement a feature that allows
parents to prevent the player from accessing files with an Adult Content
genre.

 

It concerns me that some of the most popular content on many sites like
MTV's URGE are songs with explicit titles.

 

Regards,

Tim Reinarts

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.id3.org/pipermail/id3v2/attachments/20060915/acd12742/attachment.html>

From tsorensen at gmail.com  Fri Sep 15 20:09:23 2006
From: tsorensen at gmail.com (Tom Sorensen)
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 23:09:23 -0400
Subject: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
In-Reply-To: <4026.69.175.177.145.1158375751.squirrel@mail.winamp.com>
References: <4da424620609151220i7465acc9m1355e1ed5fb0b165@mail.gmail.com>
	 <BAY120-F412590E67DE63E1DCD8ACA02F0@phx.gbl>
	 <4da424620609151944i65feee92p9f1ce506fff46cf6@mail.gmail.com>
	 <4026.69.175.177.145.1158375751.squirrel@mail.winamp.com>
Message-ID: <4da424620609152009k36243056nf909039bbd5dd86c@mail.gmail.com>

If that's all you want, then creating your own Genre tags is perfectly
sufficient. Then create a playlist that excludes those tags. It's that
simple.

If you wanted to get a bit more advanced then you'd have to create a
custom ID3v2 tag (XRTG maybe) and modify software to be aware of that
tag when generating playlists, etc. It wouldn't buy you much more than
what using additional genres would, except then you're not "polluting"
the genre field.

But that's not what the original poster asked for. And yes, it is
beyond the scope of an ID3 tag (or any other similar tag), due to the
very nature of the problem.

Tom

On 9/15/06, Ben Allison <benski at winamp.com> wrote:
> Tom,
>
> I think you might be taking this a bit too far.  Or at least certainly
> beyond the scope of an ID3v2 tag :)
>
> It could certainly be useful even if it's insecure.  What if I want to put
> my music collection on 'shuffle' for a party, but want to easily filter
> out anything with inappropriate lyrics.  Or I'm preparing a setlist for a
> radio show - I couldn't play an unedited 'Money' from Pink Floyd's DSOM on
> the air, even though the rest of the album (and the rest of the
> discography) is OK.
>
> -Ben
>
> > The only solution is to have it as part of a DRM wrapper. Something
> > that is, in theory, not changeable or removable. There is absolutely
> > no other way to do it that's not easily circumventable.
> >
> > In theory you could do it outside of such a method, in something like
> > an ID3 tag, but only if you force every toolset and library to
> > recognize, support, and refuse to "downgrade" the flag. But even then
> > anyone with a compiler and source code (or even a specification) could
> > circumvent it; it's just a matter of how difficult it is to do.
> >
> > And I would like to point out that all of the similar efforts to do
> > such automatic ratings and restrictions has either been a market
> > failure (V-chip) or reasonably easy to disable/fool/circumvent (web
> > surfing software). It winds up being a parental responsibility to
> > educate and trust your children. And yes, I have two girls of my own.
> >
> > That said, pursuing such a system is not inherently bad. Go for it.
> > But you'll have to get Apple and Microsoft to buy in (and hopefully
> > come to a common standard) or else it won't succeed -- they're the two
> > big guys on the block at this point, especially Apple with its
> > combined hardware and software sales.
> >
> > And yes, multiple levels of designation are definitely a good idea.
> >
> > Tom
> >
> > On 9/15/06, Pat Furrie <pfurrie at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >> Tom,
> >>
> >> Now, I don't know if Tim's suggestion is workable.  But he does bring up
> >> a
> >> problem he's at least giving some thought to solving, and I'm certain
> >> other
> >> people have had this as a problem with which to deal.  It's the sort of
> >> thing that brought about the ratings codes in movies (quite some time
> >> ago)
> >> and ratings on TV (more recently).  I've got kids of my own who I want
> >> to
> >> have some way of helping distinguish which music is appropriate.
> >>
> >> You've pointed out a couple of challenges.  Perhaps you could provide
> >> some
> >> constructive analysis.  Devil's advocate is too easy; anyone can do
> >> that.
> >> But as they say, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the
> >> problem.  Tim isn't looking for why it won't work, he's looking for ways
> >> to
> >> make it work.
> >>
> >> Tim: I'd like to see a set of method with more granularity than just
> >> "adult"
> >> or not.  "Adult" is a bit slippery, and is defined differently by
> >> different
> >> people.  However, the existance of certain key words and concepts are
> >> more
> >> objective.  You might want to look at how TV has done ratings, and model
> >> it
> >> after that.  This way any "adult content" tag methodology could leverage
> >> the
> >> methods already adopted, and be more universal across media types
> >> (meaning,
> >> not just audio files).
> >>
> >> We could nay-say and do nothing, or we can get off our butts and do
> >> something.  Even if something doesn't work, I'd rather have tried to
> >> make it
> >> work than not.
> >>
> >> Fail fast, succeed sooner.
> >>
> >> Pat
> >>
> >>
> >> >From: "Tom Sorensen" <tsorensen at gmail.com>
> >> >Reply-To: id3v2 at id3.org
> >> >To: id3v2 at id3.org
> >> >Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
> >> >Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 15:20:40 -0400
> >> >
> >> >If you want a new Genre, just make one. There is no list of
> >> >pre-defined genres for ID3v2. You'd then have to modify whatever
> >> >player to not play any music that belonged in that genre (and see
> >> >below for the issues with that).
> >> >
> >> >But that's not what you really want. You want a flag that a music
> >> >player would have to check before playing (or, since you seem
> >> >concerned about the title, before even displaying). Certainly
> >> >possible; there are other similar flags in the ID3v2 spec currently.
> >> >
> >> >I'll go ahead and object to it as pointless though. Since:
> >> >
> >> >A) nobody implements anything like this in current players (software
> >> >or hardware), and it would be 3-5 years before that would change (and
> >> >that's being optimistic; more likely it would never be implemented.
> >> >ID3v2.4 is 5 years old now and still has very low uptake),
> >> >
> >> >B) it would be completely trivial to bypass and/or disable anyway
> >> >since you cannot prevent someone from changing the tag (or removing it
> >> >entirely).
> >> >
> >> >Tom Sorensen
> >> >
> >> >On 9/15/06, Tim Reinarts <tim_reinarts at soniqcast.com> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>Do you have any provisions in the latest spec for adding an "adult
> >> >>content"
> >> >>genre category?
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>I would propose that such a tag would allow parents to control the
> >> content
> >> >>being used by their children.
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>Media player manufacturers can then implement a feature that allows
> >> >>parents
> >> >>to prevent the player from accessing files with an Adult Content
> >> genre.
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>It concerns me that some of the most popular content on many sites
> >> like
> >> >>MTV's URGE are songs with explicit titles.
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>Regards,
> >> >>
> >> >>Tim Reinarts
> >> >
> >> >---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> >To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
> >> >For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
> >> >
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
> >> For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
> >>
> >>
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
> > For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
> >
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>
>

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org


From bmearns at coe.neu.edu  Sun Sep 17 09:40:43 2006
From: bmearns at coe.neu.edu (Brian Mearns)
Date: Sun, 17 Sep 2006 12:40:43 -0400
Subject: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
In-Reply-To: <BAY120-F37656ACB47C4422ADCEBA7A02C0@phx.gbl>
References: <BAY120-F37656ACB47C4422ADCEBA7A02C0@phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <450D7A8B.7090309@coe.neu.edu>

Pat, et al.,

Well my solution to the problem is to not use the V-chip or other such 
devices, and instead, do your best to keep track of what kids 
watch/listen to, and in case something slips through under your radar 
(it inevitably will), make sure they're set up with an understanding of 
what's real and what's not, what's appropriate and what's not. But 
that's only my PERSONAL choice, I would not try to force that on anyone, 
and I understand it may not work in all situations or for everybody. As 
I mentioned in the last round, I didn't mean to suggest that they 
SHOUDLN'T be used, only that, as you said, they're only a tool, not the 
full solution.

And you misunderstood the meaning when I mentioned parents using the 
television as a baby sitter. What you described was using the television 
for educational purpose. By all means, I think that's great! What I 
meant by "babysitter" was when parents are too tired, too lazy, or to 
incompetent to deal with or entertain their kids, so they sit them in 
front of the television instead of actually dealing with the fact that 
they're parents. At the risk of being absolute, I would classify this as 
crappy parenting under any circumstance. That's not to say kids 
shouldn't watch TV, or that they should only watch educational tv, or 
they should only watch with a parent. But when a kid is throwing a fit 
(because they're a kid, that's a big part of what they do) and their 
parent doesn't know how to deal with it, doesn't know how to discipline 
them or calm them down, or is to lazy to do so, so they just sit the kid 
in front of the TV; that parent is abdicating what is probably the 
greatest responsibility they will ever have, and *that* is crappy parenting.

Anyway, I have no problems with the proposed addition of the 
adult-content flag or whatever ends up being decided on for 
implementation. I already recanted and respecified my original objection 
and noted that other peoples' comments pointed out some use cases that I 
  can certainly see as useful. If any of those cases are useful to you, 
or any other cases you can come up with, than it might be worthwhile to 
implement it. For me, it's not. That's all.

-Brian

Pat Furrie wrote:
> Brian,
> 
> Personally, I don't have a V-chip enabled TV set at home, but I can 
> still imagine how it might be useful, even if the kids might find ways 
> to circumvent it.  Ultimately, it is a tool.  It might not work 
> perfectly every time, but it is an attempt.  If you have a better 
> solution, by all means, let's hear it.
> 
> Yes, some parents use TVs for babysittters, and in some cases, depending 
> on the situation, that constitutes crappy parenting.  Do we toss out 
> TVs?  What about the times when it works, when kids are put in front of 
> programs which can more effectively teach them than the best teacher in 
> the county?  That's how I felt when I watched the PBS series "The 
> Mechanical Universe" for the first time, and learned more calculus in a 
> half hour than I did in several hours of college calculus class.
> 
> Some kids will hear inappropriate music whether there is an adult tag or 
> not.  But others might be relieved of it.  How much good does it need to 
> be able to do before it is considered a worthy effort?
> 
> Pat
> 
> 
> 
>> From: Brian Mearns <bmearns at coe.neu.edu>
>> Reply-To: id3v2 at id3.org
>> To: id3v2 at id3.org
>> Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
>> Date: Sat, 16 Sep 2006 08:16:44 -0400
>>
>> I guess "object" wasn't quite the correct word for me to use. Looking 
>> back, my point wasn't (or at least shouldn't've been) that this 
>> shouldn't be implemented or that I would try to stop someone from 
>> implementing it, or that I would throw a fit if it is. I meant to 
>> imply that I just didn't think it's worthwhile. However, some of the 
>> other comments, about auto-playlists and what not, point out some 
>> valuable use cases, where I can see that it would be worthwhile.
>>
>> I guess more to the point I was trying to make (albeit, not very well) 
>> is that parent's should not be relying on these types of devices as a 
>> replacement for good parenting. Just because you've installed the 
>> V-chip, doesn't mean that everything your kids see on television is 
>> going to be appropriate, and even if it was, that doesn't mean that 
>> you can just sit them in front of the television and use it as a baby 
>> sitter. That's still bad parenting regardless of what's on. Same with 
>> any form of censorship that gets applied to music. Whether it's 
>> effective at stopping them from listening to it or not, it's not 
>> effective at addressing the real issue which is not the music, but 
>> their  own behavior and language. I can imagine that these types of 
>> devices could be useful tools for parents in conjunction with 
>> instilling proper behaviors and values, I just think it's important 
>> that people realize it's not the answer in itself.
>>
>> -Brian
>>
>> Pat Furrie wrote:
>>> Brian,
>>>
>>> While utilities might come into existance to disable to flag, so 
>>> what?  The lock on the front door of my house is easily foiled by 
>>> learning how to make a use a bump key from YouTube, but I still lock 
>>> the door.  Do you?  Probably.
>>>
>>> And is it censorship?  Again, so what if it is?  I don't tell the 
>>> kids what my wife and I do in the bedroom.  Censorship?  So what.  
>>> Part of being a parent is making choices about what a kid is exposed 
>>> to at a certain age.  For mine, they get differing levels of access 
>>> based on their ability to deal with it.  You can call it censorship, 
>>> I'll call it limiting.
>>>
>>> We're just looking for tools to help us set up limiting for our 
>>> kids.  I'm not going to stop trying just because some kids might try 
>>> to get around it.  Others aren't.  Even if you disagree, why would 
>>> you care if someone tried, or that the tools were made to exist in 
>>> order to make that attempt?
>>>
>>> Don't censor the effort.
>>>
>>> Pat
>>>
>>>
>>>> From: Brian Mearns <bmearns at coe.neu.edu>
>>>> Reply-To: id3v2 at id3.org
>>>> To: id3v2 at id3.org
>>>> Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
>>>> Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 23:25:35 -0400
>>>>
>>>> >Tim isn't looking for why it won't work, he's looking
>>>> > for ways to make it work.
>>>>
>>>> Spoken like a true manager.
>>>>
>>>> Personally, I have minor objections to this as a matter of 
>>>> principle; it's a minor form of censorship, though granted it's no 
>>>> worse than the V-chip and similar technologies. But sheltering your 
>>>> kids from the world isn't protecting them. Even if you prevent them 
>>>> from playing certain songs because of language of "adult-themes", 
>>>> they're still going to be exposed to it else where; on tv, in 
>>>> movies, from their friends, siblings, class-mates, &c. The important 
>>>> thing is to teach your kids the difference between what they see or 
>>>> hear, and what's appropriate for them to say or do. And no amount of 
>>>> sheltering will make up for good parenting. Now I know that sounds 
>>>> very high and mighty, and I'm not trying to accuse anyone of being a 
>>>> bad parent; I understand there's a lot of scary stuff out there and 
>>>> we want to protect our kids from it. But like I said, they're going 
>>>> to be exposed to it one way or another, and hiding it from them, not 
>>>> addressing the real issue, is only going to make it harder to cope 
>>>> with when they finally are.
>>>>
>>>> Alright, so that was less ID3 and more rant. Come down to it, like 
>>>> Tom said, you can't possibly prevent someone from editing the file 
>>>> they've downloaded. If this system really did take off, it wouldn't 
>>>> take more than a few days before download.com is filled with 
>>>> freeware apps to disable to flag, and blogs all over the web have 
>>>> instructions on how to do it in note pad.
>>>>
>>>> -Brian Mearns
>>>>
>>>> Pat Furrie wrote:
>>>>> Tom,
>>>>>
>>>>> Now, I don't know if Tim's suggestion is workable.  But he does 
>>>>> bring up a problem he's at least giving some thought to solving, 
>>>>> and I'm certain other people have had this as a problem with which 
>>>>> to deal.  It's the sort of thing that brought about the ratings 
>>>>> codes in movies (quite some time ago) and ratings on TV (more 
>>>>> recently).  I've got kids of my own who I want to have some way of 
>>>>> helping distinguish which music is appropriate.
>>>>>
>>>>> You've pointed out a couple of challenges.  Perhaps you could 
>>>>> provide some constructive analysis.  Devil's advocate is too easy; 
>>>>> anyone can do that.  But as they say, if you're not part of the 
>>>>> solution, you're part of the problem.  Tim isn't looking for why it 
>>>>> won't work, he's looking for ways to make it work.
>>>>>
>>>>> Tim: I'd like to see a set of method with more granularity than 
>>>>> just "adult" or not.  "Adult" is a bit slippery, and is defined 
>>>>> differently by different people.  However, the existance of certain 
>>>>> key words and concepts are more objective.  You might want to look 
>>>>> at how TV has done ratings, and model it after that.  This way any 
>>>>> "adult content" tag methodology could leverage the methods already 
>>>>> adopted, and be more universal across media types (meaning, not 
>>>>> just audio files).
>>>>>
>>>>> We could nay-say and do nothing, or we can get off our butts and do 
>>>>> something.  Even if something doesn't work, I'd rather have tried 
>>>>> to make it work than not.
>>>>>
>>>>> Fail fast, succeed sooner.
>>>>>
>>>>> Pat
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> From: "Tom Sorensen" <tsorensen at gmail.com>
>>>>>> Reply-To: id3v2 at id3.org
>>>>>> To: id3v2 at id3.org
>>>>>> Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
>>>>>> Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 15:20:40 -0400
>>>>>>
>>>>>> If you want a new Genre, just make one. There is no list of
>>>>>> pre-defined genres for ID3v2. You'd then have to modify whatever
>>>>>> player to not play any music that belonged in that genre (and see
>>>>>> below for the issues with that).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> But that's not what you really want. You want a flag that a music
>>>>>> player would have to check before playing (or, since you seem
>>>>>> concerned about the title, before even displaying). Certainly
>>>>>> possible; there are other similar flags in the ID3v2 spec currently.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'll go ahead and object to it as pointless though. Since:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> A) nobody implements anything like this in current players (software
>>>>>> or hardware), and it would be 3-5 years before that would change (and
>>>>>> that's being optimistic; more likely it would never be implemented.
>>>>>> ID3v2.4 is 5 years old now and still has very low uptake),
>>>>>>
>>>>>> B) it would be completely trivial to bypass and/or disable anyway
>>>>>> since you cannot prevent someone from changing the tag (or 
>>>>>> removing it
>>>>>> entirely).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Tom Sorensen
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 9/15/06, Tim Reinarts <tim_reinarts at soniqcast.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Do you have any provisions in the latest spec for adding an 
>>>>>>> "adult content"
>>>>>>> genre category?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I would propose that such a tag would allow parents to control 
>>>>>>> the content
>>>>>>> being used by their children.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Media player manufacturers can then implement a feature that 
>>>>>>> allows parents
>>>>>>> to prevent the player from accessing files with an Adult Content 
>>>>>>> genre.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> It concerns me that some of the most popular content on many 
>>>>>>> sites like
>>>>>>> MTV's URGE are songs with explicit titles.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Tim Reinarts
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>>>>>> For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>>>>> For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>>>> For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>>> For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>>>
>>
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>> For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>>
> 
> 
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
> 

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org


From gaurav.ar at gmail.com  Thu Sep 21 01:14:29 2006
From: gaurav.ar at gmail.com (Gaurav Arora)
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2006 13:44:29 +0530
Subject: [ID3 Dev] ID3v2 footer
In-Reply-To: <1b3bacd80609210112i2d6cc520n54039eebfc1b14db@mail.gmail.com>
References: <80b294240609202324n4d0bc8eei2a012160c5a8bfab@mail.gmail.com>
	 <1b3bacd80609210112i2d6cc520n54039eebfc1b14db@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <80b294240609210114v6fe7cfd0u12634fda8ce4d3ae@mail.gmail.com>

Thanks for your reply Andy.
-Gaurav


On 9/21/06, Andrew Kernahan <andrew.kernahan at googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi,
>
> Footers are only used for tags which are to be appended to the audio file.
>
> Also, please note that this functionality was only defined in v2.4.0, as
> most commercial mp3
> players do not support v.2.4.0, I would not recommend using appended tags.
>
>
> Andy.
>
> On 21/09/06, Gaurav Arora <gaurav.ar at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Hi All,
> > I am a newbie to ID3v2, I want to know whether Footer is comulsory for
> > clips that carry ID3v2 tags.
> > Any help will be appreciated.
> > Thanks
> > Gaurav
> >
>
>
>
> --
> Andy.




-- 
C ya
Gaurav
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.id3.org/pipermail/id3v2/attachments/20060921/26005c21/attachment.html>

From pfurrie at hotmail.com  Fri Sep 15 21:07:25 2006
From: pfurrie at hotmail.com (Pat Furrie)
Date: Sat, 16 Sep 2006 00:07:25 -0400
Subject: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
In-Reply-To: <4da424620609152009k36243056nf909039bbd5dd86c@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <BAY120-F48982B4DF19EE0F65BAC8A02F0@phx.gbl>

On the subject of genre (from the idea of "polluting the genre field"):

The whole genre concept is way overdue for a makeover.

If you don't like the term "genre," fine.  Pick a synonym.  Classification.  
Categories.  Groups.  Families.  Whatever.

Whoever had the idea of giving songs/music/media a single "genre" 
classification from the outset was fantastically short-sighted.

In terms of the current "adult" genre concept, we have a problem that, 
should we apply a new "adult" genre to the list, then that's it: a song is 
no longer rock or jazz or classical or whatever.  It is adult.

Yes, I know that there is a ID3 means for multi-genre classification, but 
that's just not used.  Why?  Because it doesn't cross the threshold of 
having enough added value in the way it is implemented.

In the spirit of "being constructive," here's my suggestion:

Bit map the genre/category/groups information.

Divide up this data field into many unique genre "descriptors" which cover 
the gamut of descriptive types, in a heirarchical (sp?) structure, and 
configured so as few or as many descriptors can be flagged for a given file.

The descriptors cover a range of major topics, from classical genre types, 
to local descriptions (New Orleans, Asian, French, etc), instrument types 
(strings, percussion, horns, etc), band type (orchestral, quartet, acapella, 
etc), mood (happy, inspirational, flamboyant), and others (such as a set of 
"adult" bits).

Who decides?  A database, run wiki-style, which maintains all the 
classifications that users give input to.  The same sort of mechanism for 
mediation which exist for wiki articles also exists for genre disputes.  
Some fields for certain media are locked when there is no dispute about a 
song being in that catagory (if the song has trumpets, it has trumpets).

So what if a song ends up classified as both rock and jazz?  Some stuff will 
have mutliple classications -- that's the whole point.

New classification terms can end up in the database through a submission 
process...

And I don't even suppose to know all the answers to this... but this plan 
would, better than any other current method, help categorize in a rich, 
descriptive, and easy way all the media in most people's music libraries.

If somebody has a better idea that takes care of the myriad of problems with 
the current implementation, let's here them.  Here are the criteria we need 
to keep in mind:

1) Rich description
2) Ease of application for user
3) Ease of application to entire music database
4) Consistency of categorization
5) Able to grow while maintaining all of the above

Computer monitors display colors in a 24 bit color space: 8 bits red, 8 bits 
green, 8 bits blue.  There are an infinite number of variations that exist 
between all of the colors that those 24 bits can represent, but we defer to 
the standardization of the 24 bit scheme.  There are sufficient combinations 
of those three simple components to make up a wide assortment of colors, 
enough for most people.  There are precious few people who are after color 
perfection in a larger bit-mapped color space, and even in those differing 
schemes, the total number of colors is still finite.

What really matter is not that we have an infinite variety, but that we have 
a sufficient variety.

Some people will say that "a limited genre set is insufficient" yet they 
seem satisfied with the current tiny number of ID3 genres.  Others will 
concoct examples of "genres" which are such statistical outlyers that the 
extreme example is patently absurd.

The point is to help a large majority of typical users be able to have a 
means of categorizing their ever-growing computer-based music collection 
with the least amount of effort possible.  Least amount of effort?  That's 
one of the things that computers are supposed to help us do.

Pat



>From: "Tom Sorensen" <tsorensen at gmail.com>
>Reply-To: id3v2 at id3.org
>To: id3v2 at id3.org
>Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
>Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 23:09:23 -0400
>
>If that's all you want, then creating your own Genre tags is perfectly
>sufficient. Then create a playlist that excludes those tags. It's that
>simple.
>
>If you wanted to get a bit more advanced then you'd have to create a
>custom ID3v2 tag (XRTG maybe) and modify software to be aware of that
>tag when generating playlists, etc. It wouldn't buy you much more than
>what using additional genres would, except then you're not "polluting"
>the genre field.
>
>But that's not what the original poster asked for. And yes, it is
>beyond the scope of an ID3 tag (or any other similar tag), due to the
>very nature of the problem.
>
>Tom
>
>On 9/15/06, Ben Allison <benski at winamp.com> wrote:
>>Tom,
>>
>>I think you might be taking this a bit too far.  Or at least certainly
>>beyond the scope of an ID3v2 tag :)
>>
>>It could certainly be useful even if it's insecure.  What if I want to put
>>my music collection on 'shuffle' for a party, but want to easily filter
>>out anything with inappropriate lyrics.  Or I'm preparing a setlist for a
>>radio show - I couldn't play an unedited 'Money' from Pink Floyd's DSOM on
>>the air, even though the rest of the album (and the rest of the
>>discography) is OK.
>>
>>-Ben
>>
>> > The only solution is to have it as part of a DRM wrapper. Something
>> > that is, in theory, not changeable or removable. There is absolutely
>> > no other way to do it that's not easily circumventable.
>> >
>> > In theory you could do it outside of such a method, in something like
>> > an ID3 tag, but only if you force every toolset and library to
>> > recognize, support, and refuse to "downgrade" the flag. But even then
>> > anyone with a compiler and source code (or even a specification) could
>> > circumvent it; it's just a matter of how difficult it is to do.
>> >
>> > And I would like to point out that all of the similar efforts to do
>> > such automatic ratings and restrictions has either been a market
>> > failure (V-chip) or reasonably easy to disable/fool/circumvent (web
>> > surfing software). It winds up being a parental responsibility to
>> > educate and trust your children. And yes, I have two girls of my own.
>> >
>> > That said, pursuing such a system is not inherently bad. Go for it.
>> > But you'll have to get Apple and Microsoft to buy in (and hopefully
>> > come to a common standard) or else it won't succeed -- they're the two
>> > big guys on the block at this point, especially Apple with its
>> > combined hardware and software sales.
>> >
>> > And yes, multiple levels of designation are definitely a good idea.
>> >
>> > Tom
>> >
>> > On 9/15/06, Pat Furrie <pfurrie at hotmail.com> wrote:
>> >> Tom,
>> >>
>> >> Now, I don't know if Tim's suggestion is workable.  But he does bring 
>>up
>> >> a
>> >> problem he's at least giving some thought to solving, and I'm certain
>> >> other
>> >> people have had this as a problem with which to deal.  It's the sort 
>>of
>> >> thing that brought about the ratings codes in movies (quite some time
>> >> ago)
>> >> and ratings on TV (more recently).  I've got kids of my own who I want
>> >> to
>> >> have some way of helping distinguish which music is appropriate.
>> >>
>> >> You've pointed out a couple of challenges.  Perhaps you could provide
>> >> some
>> >> constructive analysis.  Devil's advocate is too easy; anyone can do
>> >> that.
>> >> But as they say, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of 
>>the
>> >> problem.  Tim isn't looking for why it won't work, he's looking for 
>>ways
>> >> to
>> >> make it work.
>> >>
>> >> Tim: I'd like to see a set of method with more granularity than just
>> >> "adult"
>> >> or not.  "Adult" is a bit slippery, and is defined differently by
>> >> different
>> >> people.  However, the existance of certain key words and concepts are
>> >> more
>> >> objective.  You might want to look at how TV has done ratings, and 
>>model
>> >> it
>> >> after that.  This way any "adult content" tag methodology could 
>>leverage
>> >> the
>> >> methods already adopted, and be more universal across media types
>> >> (meaning,
>> >> not just audio files).
>> >>
>> >> We could nay-say and do nothing, or we can get off our butts and do
>> >> something.  Even if something doesn't work, I'd rather have tried to
>> >> make it
>> >> work than not.
>> >>
>> >> Fail fast, succeed sooner.
>> >>
>> >> Pat
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> >From: "Tom Sorensen" <tsorensen at gmail.com>
>> >> >Reply-To: id3v2 at id3.org
>> >> >To: id3v2 at id3.org
>> >> >Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
>> >> >Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 15:20:40 -0400
>> >> >
>> >> >If you want a new Genre, just make one. There is no list of
>> >> >pre-defined genres for ID3v2. You'd then have to modify whatever
>> >> >player to not play any music that belonged in that genre (and see
>> >> >below for the issues with that).
>> >> >
>> >> >But that's not what you really want. You want a flag that a music
>> >> >player would have to check before playing (or, since you seem
>> >> >concerned about the title, before even displaying). Certainly
>> >> >possible; there are other similar flags in the ID3v2 spec currently.
>> >> >
>> >> >I'll go ahead and object to it as pointless though. Since:
>> >> >
>> >> >A) nobody implements anything like this in current players (software
>> >> >or hardware), and it would be 3-5 years before that would change (and
>> >> >that's being optimistic; more likely it would never be implemented.
>> >> >ID3v2.4 is 5 years old now and still has very low uptake),
>> >> >
>> >> >B) it would be completely trivial to bypass and/or disable anyway
>> >> >since you cannot prevent someone from changing the tag (or removing 
>>it
>> >> >entirely).
>> >> >
>> >> >Tom Sorensen
>> >> >
>> >> >On 9/15/06, Tim Reinarts <tim_reinarts at soniqcast.com> wrote:
>> >> >>
>> >> >>
>> >> >>
>> >> >>
>> >> >>Do you have any provisions in the latest spec for adding an "adult
>> >> >>content"
>> >> >>genre category?
>> >> >>
>> >> >>
>> >> >>
>> >> >>I would propose that such a tag would allow parents to control the
>> >> content
>> >> >>being used by their children.
>> >> >>
>> >> >>
>> >> >>
>> >> >>Media player manufacturers can then implement a feature that allows
>> >> >>parents
>> >> >>to prevent the player from accessing files with an Adult Content
>> >> genre.
>> >> >>
>> >> >>
>> >> >>
>> >> >>It concerns me that some of the most popular content on many sites
>> >> like
>> >> >>MTV's URGE are songs with explicit titles.
>> >> >>
>> >> >>
>> >> >>
>> >> >>Regards,
>> >> >>
>> >> >>Tim Reinarts
>> >> >
>> >> >---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >> >To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>> >> >For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >> To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>> >> For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>> > For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>> >
>>
>>
>>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>>To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>>For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>>
>>
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>



---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org


From pfurrie at hotmail.com  Fri Sep 15 19:29:57 2006
From: pfurrie at hotmail.com (Pat Furrie)
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 22:29:57 -0400
Subject: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
In-Reply-To: <1506.10.180.190.16.1158371913.squirrel@mail.winamp.com>
Message-ID: <BAY120-F224E18733713CEF8EE73FEA02F0@phx.gbl>

Ben,

That information is more helpful.  Still, what might be the holdup in 
getting those databases to carry that kind of info?

Pat


>From: "Ben Allison" <benski at winamp.com>
>Reply-To: id3v2 at id3.org
>To: id3v2 at id3.org
>Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
>Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 21:58:33 -0400 (EDT)
>
>Pat, et al.
>
>Microsoft's ASF tagging system has a "Parental Rating" tag that is
>supposed to contain text like "G" "PG", "R" (aka the MPAA movie ratings).
>
>Even just an 'explicit lyrics' flag might work.  At least in the US, some
>CDs are sold with such a sticker - might even be a legal requirement.
>
>Implementing it in a player is pretty trivial.
>
>Getting databases like CDDB or FreeDB to start carrying the information
>could be difficult.
>
>Getting people who distribute content online to start using the flag is
>the real challenge.
>
> > Tom,
> >
> > Now, I don't know if Tim's suggestion is workable.  But he does bring up 
>a
> > problem he's at least giving some thought to solving, and I'm certain
> > other
> > people have had this as a problem with which to deal.  It's the sort of
> > thing that brought about the ratings codes in movies (quite some time 
>ago)
> > and ratings on TV (more recently).  I've got kids of my own who I want 
>to
> > have some way of helping distinguish which music is appropriate.
> >
> > You've pointed out a couple of challenges.  Perhaps you could provide 
>some
> > constructive analysis.  Devil's advocate is too easy; anyone can do 
>that.
> > But as they say, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the
> > problem.  Tim isn't looking for why it won't work, he's looking for ways
> > to
> > make it work.
> >
> > Tim: I'd like to see a set of method with more granularity than just
> > "adult"
> > or not.  "Adult" is a bit slippery, and is defined differently by
> > different
> > people.  However, the existance of certain key words and concepts are 
>more
> > objective.  You might want to look at how TV has done ratings, and model
> > it
> > after that.  This way any "adult content" tag methodology could leverage
> > the
> > methods already adopted, and be more universal across media types
> > (meaning,
> > not just audio files).
> >
> > We could nay-say and do nothing, or we can get off our butts and do
> > something.  Even if something doesn't work, I'd rather have tried to 
>make
> > it
> > work than not.
> >
> > Fail fast, succeed sooner.
> >
> > Pat
> >
> >
> >>From: "Tom Sorensen" <tsorensen at gmail.com>
> >>Reply-To: id3v2 at id3.org
> >>To: id3v2 at id3.org
> >>Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
> >>Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 15:20:40 -0400
> >>
> >>If you want a new Genre, just make one. There is no list of
> >>pre-defined genres for ID3v2. You'd then have to modify whatever
> >>player to not play any music that belonged in that genre (and see
> >>below for the issues with that).
> >>
> >>But that's not what you really want. You want a flag that a music
> >>player would have to check before playing (or, since you seem
> >>concerned about the title, before even displaying). Certainly
> >>possible; there are other similar flags in the ID3v2 spec currently.
> >>
> >>I'll go ahead and object to it as pointless though. Since:
> >>
> >>A) nobody implements anything like this in current players (software
> >>or hardware), and it would be 3-5 years before that would change (and
> >>that's being optimistic; more likely it would never be implemented.
> >>ID3v2.4 is 5 years old now and still has very low uptake),
> >>
> >>B) it would be completely trivial to bypass and/or disable anyway
> >>since you cannot prevent someone from changing the tag (or removing it
> >>entirely).
> >>
> >>Tom Sorensen
> >>
> >>On 9/15/06, Tim Reinarts <tim_reinarts at soniqcast.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>Do you have any provisions in the latest spec for adding an "adult
> >>>content"
> >>>genre category?
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>I would propose that such a tag would allow parents to control the
> >>> content
> >>>being used by their children.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>Media player manufacturers can then implement a feature that allows
> >>>parents
> >>>to prevent the player from accessing files with an Adult Content genre.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>It concerns me that some of the most popular content on many sites like
> >>>MTV's URGE are songs with explicit titles.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>Regards,
> >>>
> >>>Tim Reinarts
> >>
> >>---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >>To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
> >>For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
> > For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
> >
>
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------
>To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
>For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>



---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org


From mitch at honnert.com  Fri Sep 15 20:54:17 2006
From: mitch at honnert.com (Mitchell S. Honnert)
Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 23:54:17 -0400
Subject: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
In-Reply-To: <4da424620609152009k36243056nf909039bbd5dd86c@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20060916035417.JQJL5373.gx5.fuse.net@avoca>

For what it's worth at this point in the discussion, I would find a "Content
Rating" frame useful.  Admittedly, it's nearly impossible to secure, but
that doesn't render the frame useless or even not useful enough to
implement.  

For example, I've written an audio file manager that implements "Randomizer
Profiles".  I can select the "80's Music" profile and immediately I'm
listening to random tracks selected from my library that match the criteria
"Where Year is between 1980 and 1989; Where Genre Not In ('Spoken Word',
'Comedy', 'Audio Book')".  It would be nice to be able to add some kind of
content rating filtering to the criteria in my Randomizer Profiles.

I'm not looking for something that can't be hacked.  I'm just looking for a
way that I can play some random tracks that would be appropriate to my
audience.  I like Fatboy Slim's song "In Heaven", but I don't want it coming
up in my player while my wife's friends from church are sitting in the next
room.

As for the censorship issue, yeah it would be a kind of censorship.  But for
the very reason that it's unsecured, it would be guaranteed to only be self
imposed censorship.

 - Mitchell S. Honnert

PS: It'd be a steep uphill battle getting any new ID3 frame to be used by
any meaningful numbers, especially one that implements something as
controversial as censorship.  But personally, I would think that the path to
acceptance would start with the big media player applications (WinAmp, WMP,
iTunes, etc), not through the content providers.  Get the feature
implemented so people can tag their own content and use whatever creative
ways of filtering the application developers come up with.  Then the demand
for pre-tagged content would come and perhaps the content providers would
provide it.  Just a theory.
 


-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Sorensen [mailto:tsorensen at gmail.com] 
Sent: Friday, September 15, 2006 11:09 PM
To: id3v2 at id3.org
Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion

If that's all you want, then creating your own Genre tags is perfectly
sufficient. Then create a playlist that excludes those tags. It's that
simple.

If you wanted to get a bit more advanced then you'd have to create a
custom ID3v2 tag (XRTG maybe) and modify software to be aware of that
tag when generating playlists, etc. It wouldn't buy you much more than
what using additional genres would, except then you're not "polluting"
the genre field.

But that's not what the original poster asked for. And yes, it is
beyond the scope of an ID3 tag (or any other similar tag), due to the
very nature of the problem.

Tom

On 9/15/06, Ben Allison <benski at winamp.com> wrote:
> Tom,
>
> I think you might be taking this a bit too far.  Or at least certainly
> beyond the scope of an ID3v2 tag :)
>
> It could certainly be useful even if it's insecure.  What if I want to put
> my music collection on 'shuffle' for a party, but want to easily filter
> out anything with inappropriate lyrics.  Or I'm preparing a setlist for a
> radio show - I couldn't play an unedited 'Money' from Pink Floyd's DSOM on
> the air, even though the rest of the album (and the rest of the
> discography) is OK.
>
> -Ben
>
> > The only solution is to have it as part of a DRM wrapper. Something
> > that is, in theory, not changeable or removable. There is absolutely
> > no other way to do it that's not easily circumventable.
> >
> > In theory you could do it outside of such a method, in something like
> > an ID3 tag, but only if you force every toolset and library to
> > recognize, support, and refuse to "downgrade" the flag. But even then
> > anyone with a compiler and source code (or even a specification) could
> > circumvent it; it's just a matter of how difficult it is to do.
> >
> > And I would like to point out that all of the similar efforts to do
> > such automatic ratings and restrictions has either been a market
> > failure (V-chip) or reasonably easy to disable/fool/circumvent (web
> > surfing software). It winds up being a parental responsibility to
> > educate and trust your children. And yes, I have two girls of my own.
> >
> > That said, pursuing such a system is not inherently bad. Go for it.
> > But you'll have to get Apple and Microsoft to buy in (and hopefully
> > come to a common standard) or else it won't succeed -- they're the two
> > big guys on the block at this point, especially Apple with its
> > combined hardware and software sales.
> >
> > And yes, multiple levels of designation are definitely a good idea.
> >
> > Tom
> >
> > On 9/15/06, Pat Furrie <pfurrie at hotmail.com> wrote:
> >> Tom,
> >>
> >> Now, I don't know if Tim's suggestion is workable.  But he does bring
up
> >> a
> >> problem he's at least giving some thought to solving, and I'm certain
> >> other
> >> people have had this as a problem with which to deal.  It's the sort of
> >> thing that brought about the ratings codes in movies (quite some time
> >> ago)
> >> and ratings on TV (more recently).  I've got kids of my own who I want
> >> to
> >> have some way of helping distinguish which music is appropriate.
> >>
> >> You've pointed out a couple of challenges.  Perhaps you could provide
> >> some
> >> constructive analysis.  Devil's advocate is too easy; anyone can do
> >> that.
> >> But as they say, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the
> >> problem.  Tim isn't looking for why it won't work, he's looking for
ways
> >> to
> >> make it work.
> >>
> >> Tim: I'd like to see a set of method with more granularity than just
> >> "adult"
> >> or not.  "Adult" is a bit slippery, and is defined differently by
> >> different
> >> people.  However, the existance of certain key words and concepts are
> >> more
> >> objective.  You might want to look at how TV has done ratings, and
model
> >> it
> >> after that.  This way any "adult content" tag methodology could
leverage
> >> the
> >> methods already adopted, and be more universal across media types
> >> (meaning,
> >> not just audio files).
> >>
> >> We could nay-say and do nothing, or we can get off our butts and do
> >> something.  Even if something doesn't work, I'd rather have tried to
> >> make it
> >> work than not.
> >>
> >> Fail fast, succeed sooner.
> >>
> >> Pat
> >>
> >>
> >> >From: "Tom Sorensen" <tsorensen at gmail.com>
> >> >Reply-To: id3v2 at id3.org
> >> >To: id3v2 at id3.org
> >> >Subject: Re: [ID3 Dev] Genre suggestion
> >> >Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2006 15:20:40 -0400
> >> >
> >> >If you want a new Genre, just make one. There is no list of
> >> >pre-defined genres for ID3v2. You'd then have to modify whatever
> >> >player to not play any music that belonged in that genre (and see
> >> >below for the issues with that).
> >> >
> >> >But that's not what you really want. You want a flag that a music
> >> >player would have to check before playing (or, since you seem
> >> >concerned about the title, before even displaying). Certainly
> >> >possible; there are other similar flags in the ID3v2 spec currently.
> >> >
> >> >I'll go ahead and object to it as pointless though. Since:
> >> >
> >> >A) nobody implements anything like this in current players (software
> >> >or hardware), and it would be 3-5 years before that would change (and
> >> >that's being optimistic; more likely it would never be implemented.
> >> >ID3v2.4 is 5 years old now and still has very low uptake),
> >> >
> >> >B) it would be completely trivial to bypass and/or disable anyway
> >> >since you cannot prevent someone from changing the tag (or removing it
> >> >entirely).
> >> >
> >> >Tom Sorensen
> >> >
> >> >On 9/15/06, Tim Reinarts <tim_reinarts at soniqcast.com> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>Do you have any provisions in the latest spec for adding an "adult
> >> >>content"
> >> >>genre category?
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>I would propose that such a tag would allow parents to control the
> >> content
> >> >>being used by their children.
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>Media player manufacturers can then implement a feature that allows
> >> >>parents
> >> >>to prevent the player from accessing files with an Adult Content
> >> genre.
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>It concerns me that some of the most popular content on many sites
> >> like
> >> >>MTV's URGE are songs with explicit titles.
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>Regards,
> >> >>
> >> >>Tim Reinarts
> >> >
> >> >---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> >To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
> >> >For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
> >> >
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
> >> For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
> >>
> >>
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> > To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
> > For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
> >
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
> For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org
>
>

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org




---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: id3v2-unsubscribe at id3.org
For additional commands, e-mail: id3v2-help at id3.org