It looks like each song, although having no DRM, is still associated with an AppleID and can't be played on devices that aren't authorized with that ID -- so any "piracy" cold only work with a limited number of devices ...

... at least, I *think* that's the deal ;-)

To follow-up on this, it looks like it did not automagically replace the old 128 kbps files -- it seems you have to do that manually by deleting the 128 version and downloading the 256 one ...

Although its still somewhat of a mystery why I now have more songs on my library than when I began -- I have yet to crunch through the whole thing but perhaps it duplicated some stuff for some reason ...

In other news, the iTunes Match feature on my iPhone and iPad is pretty boss -- it now lists my entire library that's now in the iCloud with a button to download if I want them on either device. Neat!

Hey, be quiet! You are NOT helping me keep from trying it out! Ha

Yeah, I read that you have to delete the older version first then download


I wonder if you can bypass the AppleID thing if you burn the music to CD then rip it again?

And, does Match use your cloud ID or your apple ID? (I know, same thing, but what I want to know is if you have multiple iCloud ID's but one master apple ID, will it work on all devices?)

Kate, read this http://forums.macrumors.com/showpost.php?p=13850490&postcount=58

Couple things.

The files do not have DRM on them. They can be played anywhere that regular ripped AAC files can be played.

The only thing tied to your AppleID is the devices connected to use iTunes Match. Essentially you are just logging into your account and acknowledging that you want to have access to everything in the cloud.

What you end up creating is a "master collection" in the cloud that all of your devices can see and access music from. If you are merging several computers that each have slightly different music on them, you will see the combined list after you are done.

Seems to answer lots of questions, doesn't it.

Thank you

And here's a MacWorld article that explains even more =)

Wow! Okay, just now starting to go through and replacing all the old 128k versions with the Matched 256k ones -- if nothing else, this alone is definitely worth the $25 =D

1st attempt: iTunes spent all day "accessing iTunes Store".

And I mean ALL day. I ended up force quitting iTunes.

Finally got it, but some songs have the iCloud with an ! in it. Clicking on it gives me this:
This item was not added to iCloud because an error occurred.

and there are a LOT of mine that don't have an iCloud symbol. Not sure how to upgrade my music?