Decius wrote:

Such is the situation with Apple's new DRM-free music: songs sold without DRM still have a user's full name and account e-mail embedded in them

My mind sees a parallel in technique between this and the "lets purge Myspace of child sex offenders" thing. If someone is stupid enough to be a convicted child sex offender and registers at a social networking site with their real name, location, sex and age, they deserve to get purged. If someone is stupid enough to buy music from iTunes and not spoof this embedded contact info before they share it, they deserve any sort of repercussions that could from from later being identified.

None of this would hold water in court I'm afraid. Much too easy to spoof so I doubt anyone will get popped by the RIAA because of this. I think the theory postulated in the article is correct: This will be a way of examining that casual piracy effect, possibly a back channel way of examing social networks of music tastes.

RE: Apple hides account info in DRM-free music, too