Getting Cover Art / Internet Lookup stopped working (1 Viewer)

[hwahrmann]

I just learned that "Album Cover Lookup" and "Internet lookup" stopped working.

Both function use Amazon as a source.
As from August 15th, Amazon renamed the Ecommerce Service to "Product Advertising API" and they require registration.
So i registered myself and got a key pair (public/private).
Every request that i do needs now to be signed with my secret key.

As the name says that key must not be distributed, which i would need to do in an Open Source program.
i know that i could hide the secret key in e.g. a C++ dll, but anyone debugging the program could easily see what is retrieved via the dll.

So i have several choices choices:

1. Every MPTagThat user needs to register at Amazon to get his key pair, which i will use then- - seems not to be practical
2. There seems to be a way using X.509 certificates. need to check if that is possible without violating their T&C
3. Write a C++ program which does all the signing stuff
4. Find other sources for Cover Arts and Album lookup

while 4 is already on my todo list i should also unvestigate in 2 and 3.
However this will take time, which is currently limited.
i hope to be back on track within the next 3-4 weeks.

 

[tourettes]

1. Every MPTagThat user needs to register at Amazon to get his key pair, which i will use then- - seems not to be practical

Might be impractical, but it is a small fee to pay from the service the people are getting from Amazon.

3. Write a C++ program which does all the signing stuff

Not safe, if you store the key in the DLL (even encrypted) someone with debugging skills is able to retrieve it from there.

4. Find other sources for Cover Arts and Album lookup

I think it would be best thing to add few other sources (there are few good ones, that are containing lot of different music styles than Amazon so it would be even plus to have multiple sources).

With 1 & 4 users could chose if they want to use Amazon (and create an account) or some other source (I personally would use the other source as my music library is hit & miss when fetching stuff from Amazon).

 

[Curry]

Have you looked into using MusicBrainz which more or less does anything you need and is a mature community powered initiative?

 

[ronilse]

Hi,
It's not that much work to register & get keys to use to have image art, but ofc a other site where account it's needed it's preferred.

Regards
Roy

 

[hwahrmann]

Have you looked into using MusicBrainz which more or less does anything you need and is a mature community powered initiative?

I'm using MusicBrainz already to Identiofy unknown files and can easily use that for the "Tag From Internet" function.
But still missing the cover art retrieval, which MB does not provide.

But as Roy stated out, it is not very difficult for someone to request the amazon keys and i'm still trying to find out alternate sites. one of them might be Discogs.

 

[Curry]

But as Roy stated out, it is not very difficult for someone to request the amazon keys and i'm still trying to find out alternate sites. one of them might be Discogs.

Given that a program I frequently use to full satisfaction has become completely useless for me 3 weeks ago - are you going to release a patch which allows a user to input his own Amazon keypairs until a more structural solution is found?

 

[Curry]

This is also an option, way I read it they won't complain about an MPTagThat account with key that you hardcode into the app unlike Amazon

 

[tourettes]

One of them might be Discogs.

That seems to be pretty good one (I use it with MP3Tag as that site has better catalog for non-popular CDs). It would be nice to allow that site to be used as the metadata source as well.

 

[hwahrmann]

But as Roy stated out, it is not very difficult for someone to request the amazon keys and i'm still trying to find out alternate sites. one of them might be Discogs.

Given that a program I frequently use to full satisfaction has become completely useless for me 3 weeks ago - are you going to release a patch which allows a user to input his own Amazon keypairs until a more structural solution is found?

Full understand you concerns.
Unfortunately it requires also a lot of development. so it is not just releasing a patch only.
i hope to find somne time this week.

 

[hwahrmann]

Amazon lookup now working again with latest updates.

will work now on introducing other sources