[RobertKohr]

He talks about some issues of if you have pirated music, google wouldn't likely be able to target you, but that is nonsense. A ripped copy of a song put up online can be as unique as a fingerprint (and if put up by a record company, could have a fingerprint). This could be detected by google, and they could report you.

But, it isn't illegal to own pirated music. It is just illegal to distribute them. So perhaps this isn't a problem?

[pyre]

  > A ripped copy of a song put up online can be
  > as unique as a fingerprint

If they are just MD5'ing the file, then changes to the metadata could cause this fingerprint to change.

  > But, it isn't illegal to own pirated music. It is
  > just illegal to distribute them. So perhaps this
  > isn't a problem?

Record companies (IIRC) have successfully argued that streaming your own music to yourself is a 'broadcast/performance' to a single person. There are many ways that they could attempt to go after this.

[Arelius]

It's trivial to just skip the header and metadata sectors, and just MD5/SHA the actual bitstream. With a bit more compute resources you can do the same for the decompressed audio stream, but that'd likely prove less advantageous.

[RexRollman]

That's interesting, as I use Exact Audio Copy with Accurate Rip, which actually compares my rips to other user's rips to ensure it was done properly. This means that I have FLAC files that would compare to other user's; sans the differences in Metadata.

[pyre]

Well, when the BSA^wRIAA auditors come to your door, you'll just have to show them your CD collection! If you don't have any pirated material, then you have nothing to hide!

[RexRollman]

I actually no longer keep CDs. Since no one sells lossless music, aside from mostly indie artists, I purchase used CDs, which I then rip and throw away (Amazon is a great source for used CDs, by the way).

I like having lots of music, and paying for it, but I am not a fan of owning a physical CDs.

[brigade]

Presumably that's checksumming the decoded output, not the compressed bitstream.

[Arelius]

But in theory, if you are using the same version of the encoder, with the same settings, it should be pretty easy to end up with a bit identical compressed copy also, at least easy enough that it happens occasionally.

[sirclueless]

> it isn't illegal to own pirated music

IANAL, but it was always my impression that that owning and pirating music was illegal, but it was just that the lucrative civil damages suits come from targeting distributors. If Google Music becomes a central hosting platform, then subpoenaing them for information about customers with known contraband music might become trivial technically and therefore economically feasible.