CS-iTunes Cracks Piano Case

The revelation that recordings by late British concert pianist Joyce Hatto are actually the works of other performers came to light only after a music critic popped one of her CDs into an iTunes-equipped computer.

The critic expected iTunes to dutifully identify Hatto’s disc and recordings, but received a surprise when the program said the works were those of someone completely different.

Hatto had been a widely-hailed pianist in the years before her 2006 death. The New Scientist blog about the incident said her recordings showed a “masterful command” of works by the likes of Liszt and Schubert.

What iTunes found was a digital fingerprint in her music. When it checked that against Gracenote’s CDDB, it revealed to the critic that L