Gracenote works differently from Shazam. Apparently it identifies recorded music by measuring the exact length of cuts (obviously I don't understand this very well). When we place a CD into the CD player of our computer the computer sends a query to the Gracenote database which then (hopefully) identifies the disc and tells us what it is. What it has in common with Shazam is that, rather amazingly, it works. It also played the starring role in solving the puzzle of the recording career of the English pianist Joyce Hatto.

Hatto died in 2006, thirty years after she stopped performing in public, apparently due to health issues. Until that time her performing career had garnered mixed reviews. From around 2002 until after her death her husband released over 100 CDs of what was reported to be recordings of Hatto performing. Many of these were enthusiastically received and she was even referred to as "the greatest living pianist that almost no one has ever heard of". Something, however, seemed a bit off, and critics reported that some of the recordings released as Hatto recordings were surprisingly similar to those of other artists. In 2007, as Wikipedia tells it:

When Brian Ventura, a financial analyst from Mount Vernon, New York, put the recording of Liszt's Transcendental Études credited to Hatto into his computer, the Gracenote database used by the iTunes software identified the disc not as a recording by Hatto but as one by László Simon. On checking online samples of the Simon recording, Ventura found it to be remarkably similar to the version credited to Hatto.