I find this discussion fascinating.

@ Pre GN said:
I don't believe that you were misled, but rather I think you or the person you spoke to may misunderstand.

The author specifically references his source above as the Gracenote website which clearly states,
"when iTunes consumers search for information about an artist all of that information comes from Gracenote." (emphasis added for clarity). The official Gracenote website description is the source of the misinformation.

@ Pre GN also said:
Implying that iTunes uses freedb as a data source simply because you can import songs tagged by some other app with freedb data is misleading at best. "FUD" at its finest.

Could you clarify and specifically refer to the implied statement to which you are referring? I have read, and re-read the posts above and I am unable to discern any misleading statements nor FUD.

@ Pre GN also said:
Anyone can license CD technology, or Bluray, etc, be they Sony competitor or not. Why should Gracenote technology be any different?

CD and Blu-ray are both examples of industry wide standards with associations that have multiple participants. Gracenote is to be a 100% subsidiary of Sony America, not an industry standard nor an association. Gracenote's business is miniscule in the Sony scale of things. The "customer relationships" that may be potentially damaged are insignificant if Sony thinks they may get the upper hand in the much larger electronics industry competition.

Whether or not Sony actually has designs to spy on their competitors, I have a hard time believing that Sony's competitors will be so naive as to let Sony into their products via the trojan horse that is Gracenote. It is too easy for them to change to another supplier to alleviate the very real potential risks.

The likely outcome of all of this is that Gracenote will be absorbed into Sony as an internal resource, and no longer used to support any but the most inept Sony competitors.