Bug 207402

Summary: WISH: support for lyrics & album art id3 tags
Product: [Applications] amarok Reporter: Justin Newman <eqisow>
Component: generalAssignee: Amarok Developers <amarok-bugs-dist>
Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE    
Severity: wishlist CC: aashiks, dtlabz, get.sonic, tobias
Priority: NOR    
Version: unspecified   
Target Milestone: ---   
Platform: Fedora RPMs   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Justin Newman 2009-09-15 00:43:48 UTC
Version:            (using KDE 4.3.1)
OS:                Linux
Installed from:    Fedora RPMs

Many media players now use and support both album art and lyrics id3 tags. Additionally, they are both official tags in id3v2. Amarok should support (1) attempting to read these tags before fetching lyrics/album art from the net and (2) writing these tags instead of storing it in the local database.

For (1), reading from these tags would make switching TO Amarok easier for a large number of people.

For (2), writing these tags would (a) make losing your database less painful and (b) make using various applications to access the same library more hassle free.
Comment 1 Myriam Schweingruber 2009-09-15 01:02:10 UTC

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 176402 ***
Comment 2 Justin Newman 2009-09-15 01:09:11 UTC
I think this is not quite a duplicate, as it's about writing as well as reading, and lyric tags as well. It's more of a "full id3v2 tag support" request.

At the very least, the lyric part is a separate bug.

(changed status, if you still think it's a dup, will leave it alone)
Comment 3 Syam 2009-09-15 15:24:05 UTC
I agree with Justin. This is not a duplicate, but taking this approach would solve the bug 176402.
IMHO, preference should always be given for embedded information. If album art, lyrics etc. are available in the file, it need not be fetched from other sources.
Comment 4 Ashik Salahudeen 2009-10-01 04:42:15 UTC
I dont think this bug is a duplicate too. A lot of my files are tagged with Album art and since amarok cannot/does not make use of this information, I am forced to turn to other programs that do :( . Amarok is one of the best I have used and this killer feature would make it even better IMHO :)
Comment 5 Myriam Schweingruber 2009-10-01 10:48:58 UTC
Is a dupe, since one solves the other, how else would you call it. No use to keep both open.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 176402 ***
Comment 6 Tony John 2009-10-01 18:57:05 UTC
I don't think this is a duplicate, either. Solving 176402 would only solve a part of what's reported here. It wouldn't cover support for lyrics and writing tags back to the file instead of saving it to a local database.

My portable media player displays embedded album art and lyrics only and hence this is one feature I'd really really like in Amarok.
Comment 7 Justin Newman 2009-10-01 20:19:11 UTC
Indeed. This bug solves 176402, but 176402 does not solve this one.
Comment 8 Syam 2009-10-05 07:00:35 UTC
(In reply to comment #7)
Justin, (or Mark Kretschmann) can you please re-open this valid wish?
Comment 9 Justin Newman 2009-10-05 08:04:43 UTC
(In reply to comment #8)
I would love to, but I already re-opened it once. If the developers don't agree with me, I don't suppose it's my job to make their life more difficult.

I would like to see it re-opened as well though. Perhaps if somebody feels like arguing with them more than I do they could send an email to somebody.
Comment 10 Mark Kretschmann 2009-10-05 10:13:13 UTC
Writing lyrics and covers to the files will never be supported by Amarok. The reason is simple: Legal issues.

Both lyrics and covers are copyrighted material. Amarok cannot write them to files without infringing laws in many countries. Sorry :)


(PS: A 3rd party Amarok Script could however do this)
Comment 11 Syam 2009-10-05 10:29:33 UTC
(In reply to comment #10)
No way! If that's a valid argument, KWrite should not be able to write to files because some user *might* use it to save copyrighted text. And Konqueror (the web browser) should not be able to support saving of images or copying of text from a web page. These *could* be copyrighted material too. And the whole idea of 'wiki' would have to be abandoned too.. :-(

This is *not* same as disabling MP3 playback because the coding/decoding tech is patented. Disabling the *tool* for fear of the user can't work!

And what difference (legally) is there between saving to the audio file and saving to Amarok database? Isn't the 'database' just another file?

Please put some thought in to it.
Comment 12 Justin Newman 2009-10-05 16:42:23 UTC
(In reply to comment #10)
For that matter, what about other tag writing programs? MusicBrainz Picard is GPL and already does exactly this (for album art, at least). None of the major distros that I know of have issues shipping Picard in their free/main repos.

Plus, as Syam said, Amarok is already writing album art *and* lyrics into a database. What's the difference between writing it into a database and writing it into a file? Are the databases not stored on the local computer? Is there not a *file* it's written into somewhere?

Look, I realize that I'm not the one putting my ass on the line legally, but this is a downright ridiculous stance. Almost any software including audio/video encoders, torrent software, browsers (as noted above), and, yes, album art taggers *can* be used to infringe copyright. However, it also seems that it's been pretty much decided in all/most countries (including the US) that developers of said software are insulated.

If the RIAA could start knocking out makers of torrent software, don't you think they would have by now? Consider that most torrent clients, including the official 'utorrent' client as well as GPL ktorrent, even have built in search that directs to one of the larger public trackers. This, to me, seems very similar in principal to Amarok's album art fetching function.

Either way, even without the writing part, this bug covers lyrics tag reading as well (which I admittedly care much less about, but still).
Comment 13 Syam 2009-10-13 03:17:21 UTC
Any updates on this? Supporting this will make Amarok rock even more. I really love v2.2, but without album art it looks sooo dull.
Comment 14 shaddowy2 2011-01-23 14:57:59 UTC
*** This bug has been confirmed by popular vote. ***