[corford]

I haven't had a chance to google for a source so take this as anecdotal but I vaguely remember reading an interview with the people behind it (when Shazam first launched in the UK) and in it they said they were ripping thousands of CDs a day/week (can't remember which) and running each track through their algo. Can't remember if they bought the CDs or had some deal in place with the record labels.

[zerr]

Interesting. So as with many other "innovative" startups - the content is the crucial thing.

As already pointed here, audio fingerprinting is not a new thing. Although, they might have added some twists in order to were able to patent it.