When you play a track from your computer the music player (not just iTunes) looks for information encoded into the file to display artist, album, name and other information. If it can't find it, it goes to an online database. If it finds an exact match you should be OK, but where it can't it often downloads something it thinks is similar (which might just be identical track length).

The principal database is Gracenote, which is very comprehensive but can't be expected to know about obscure recordings from long ago, or even more recent ones by small independent labels who haven't' submitted the data.

There is at least one other database, used by at least one player, which is unable to distinguish between artists or bands who share a name. There are at least two other musicians called 'Howard Jones', and I hear that one of them did quite well, but he and the rest of us are all lumped together in a single entry. Similarly, my ceilidh band shares its name with a Japanese rock band and a classical flute quartet - unlikely to confuse anyone but a computer.

What is really annoying is when it becomes impossible to get rid of the incorrect information, especially when it is attached to your own recordings.

The answer is to turn off the option for the player to go online, however when it works properly this is a useful feature.