Kirsten - no to all your questions.

The information on tracks, artists, etc. is not actually encoded on the CD, but it is attached to a unique code for the CD - but held in a database in cyberworld.

This doesn't mean that when you put a CD up at CDBaby, even with a bar code, that information is included in the big database in the net.

My sister just released a CD, now for sale at CDBaby, with a bar-code, and her artist info and so forth is not in the giant database as of yet.

I agree that Discmakers is probably the best place to ask this question. I believe the CDDB is the 'master' that most of the various software that tags files references.