# iTunes Match: $24.99/year, Matches Ripped Tunes, Offers Them In The Cloud



## ehMax (Feb 17, 2000)

Today, in addition to Lion, iOS 5 and the other iCloud features, Apple rolled out iTunes in the Cloud. Free for songs you've purchased through iTunes, and for $24.99/year for a new service called iTunes Match.

iCloud sets out to making syncing music easier, especially songs you've purchased through iTunes. Songs you've already purchased will show up in a purchase history and any music purchased can be re-downloaded to any device at no additional charge. Steve said it was the "first time we've seen this in the music industry."

If you buy a song on your Mac in iTunes, it gets pushed (not streamed) to mobile devices and vice versa. You'll always have your songs, automatically, wherever you are, on up to 10 devices. All this, for purchased songs, is free.

As far as music you've ripped yourself, iTunes has 18 million songs in the music store and Apple will use a feature called iTunes Match to give you the same benefits on songs you've ripped, as songs you've purchased. Library is scanned and matched and any songs that remain can be uploaded. Songs that are matched are upgraded to 256KBps, AAC, DRM-free, with all the benefits above, including push syncing and all the rest.

It's $24.99 per year, even for "20,000 songs."


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## ehMax (Feb 17, 2000)

Still kind of confused by this service...

Say there were some with large libraries of music that were acquired over the years by whatever means legit or not. Does this service scan your library, you pay Apple $25 a year, and now suddenly that library is blessed by the Apple / label licensing gods and it's now legit? What happens if you don't pay after a year? Does all this music stay up there in the cloud?

It also appears that now anyone who has ever bought a song from iTunes, now gets their library upgraded to 256KBps, AAC, DRM-free. Where some of us in the past paid the iTunes+ upgrade fee. 

Unless I'm reading this wrong, kind of feels like a kick in the pants for staying all "legit" over the years with iTunes?

Kind of confused.


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## sheamus (May 20, 2010)

I want to know what happens to those files after my subscription is up? I don't really care abour the cloud storage of my music, but upgrading my 14 year old mp3's would be nice. The ripping software wasn't great back then. They I would cancel my subscription the following year.


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## eMacMan (Nov 27, 2006)

sheamus said:


> i want to know what happens to those files after my subscription is up? I don't really care abour the cloud storage of my music, but upgrading my 14 year old mp3's would be nice. The ripping software wasn't great back then. They i would cancel my subscription the following year.


+1


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## cap10subtext (Oct 13, 2005)

ehMax said:


> Still kind of confused by this service...
> 
> Say there were some with large libraries of music that were acquired over the years by whatever means legit or not. Does this service scan your library, you pay Apple $25 a year, and now suddenly that library is blessed by the Apple / label licensing gods and it's now legit? What happens if you don't pay after a year? Does all this music stay up there in the cloud?
> 
> ...


Totally. My understanding is that you can probably back up your ripped to an external, then pay your subscription and it'll match with what's on the cloud. And personally I think it'll probably be a bit of a rip off in some ways to people like me because if it's ripped, it's probably not on itunes. 

Having said that... I could see doing this for a year or two and introducing myself to a TON of new music.


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## fjnmusic (Oct 29, 2006)

Also, will your MobileMe membership cover for the next number of years if you're already paid up until, say, September? Would you get a refund on the unused part? Why buy the cow if you can get the milk fir free comes to mind. I like the idea of the backup system, though, and push beats stream ten times out of ten.


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## fyrefly (Apr 16, 2005)

fjnmusic said:


> Also, will your MobileMe membership cover for the next number of years if you're already paid up until, say, September? Would you get a refund on the unused part? Why buy the cow if you can get the milk fir free comes to mind. I like the idea of the backup system, though, and push beats stream ten times out of ten.


All MobileMe subscriptions (even ones that expired in the last few weeks apparently) were extended until June 30, 2012. 

So far, Apple hasn't said anything about refunds for people who are already renwewed (or are mid-pay-year).

They have said there's a refund system for those that have MobileMe boxes with unused codes tho.


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## SINC (Feb 16, 2001)

Mine was last renewed in Feb/2011 and is now good until June/2012:


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## Chimpur (May 1, 2009)

SINC said:


> Mine was last renewed in Feb/2011 and is now good until June/2012:


Mine was due to be renewed in early August. and as per everyone its extended to June 2012.

Speaking of iTunes 10.3 the download page shows 10.3, but then once I click on the link it sends me to ver 10.2.2 still.


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## Paddy (Jul 13, 2004)

fyrefly said:


> All MobileMe subscriptions (even ones that expired in the last few weeks apparently) were extended until June 30, 2012.
> 
> So far, Apple hasn't said anything about refunds for people who are already renwewed (or are mid-pay-year).
> 
> They have said there's a refund system for those that have MobileMe boxes with unused codes tho.


Nobody will be getting any refunds because Apple has extended the service for everyone who currently has it until June 30, 2012. So for someone whose MobileMe service expired next week, this is an entire year of "free" service.


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## cap10subtext (Oct 13, 2005)

Hmmm... watching the keynote I thought there was a sort of subscription service with iTunes Match. I guess not. Not sure if this would be worth it after all... Have a lot of ripped music but so much of it was from iTunes anyways.


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## Guest (Jun 7, 2011)

I'm a bit (well a lot) skeptical that iTunes Match will be available outside the US, and if it is then the catalog you have to choose from would be much much smaller. The way copyright and usage rights and the like all work I just can't see this being something that is going to be a blanket all-over-the-world type thing and will be selectively available per country and possibly with limited catalogs in some countries.


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## Paul82 (Sep 19, 2007)

Paddy said:


> Nobody will be getting any refunds because Apple has extended the service for everyone who currently has it until June 30, 2012. So for someone whose MobileMe service expired next week, this is an entire year of "free" service.


Incorrect, for those of us that had a previously unused MobileMe box redemption code waiting to auto-renew they are issuing refunds. When I logged in there was a link to click to submit a request for a refund for it.


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## Andrew Pratt (Feb 16, 2007)

Yeah I wonder how well it will work outside the US as well.


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## fyrefly (Apr 16, 2005)

Paddy said:


> Nobody will be getting any refunds because Apple has extended the service for everyone who currently has it until June 30, 2012. So for someone whose MobileMe service expired next week, this is an entire year of "free" service.


Yeah but that's the rub. It's not a big deal, but if someone paid their $99 in Feb and it's now free, that means they've technically "paid" for 7 months of service that others (those who's service is just about to expire or just did) are now getting for free. 



mguertin said:


> I'm a bit (well a lot) skeptical that iTunes Match will be available outside the US, and if it is then the catalog you have to choose from would be much much smaller. The way copyright and usage rights and the like all work I just can't see this being something that is going to be a blanket all-over-the-world type thing and will be selectively available per country and possibly with limited catalogs in some countries.


This is exactly right. I'm sure that Apple will be working hard to get the labels on board ASAP in multiple territories - but even now, with iTunes 10.3 (which is still not downloadable) the fine print says "Music features available in the U.S. only". 

Time will tell if we'll get those services by the time iCloud/iTunes Match launches in the fall, or if it'll take longer. Canada's iBook Store has taken forever to get many/any non-Gutenberg (aka Free) titles in it.


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## iMatt (Dec 3, 2004)

Here's my bit of wishful thinking on the Canadian version of iTunes Match: 

This is the country where the rights holders' representatives have for years lobbied, often very successfully, for levies on blank media. These levies have effectively become (even if this was not the intent) a kind of licence-to-pirate. 

Now along comes iTunes Match. For a flat fee, you get unlimited virtual storage of all your songs, along with as many fresh 256 kbps copies as you want even if your original was a 96 k file downloaded from Napster in 1998. (Plus "real" online storage of whatever isn't available on iTunes.)

I know there are differences, probably including many legal ones that aren't obvious to us non-lawyers, but doesn't iTunes Match sound a lot like a Canadian-style private-copying levy? Could it be that this will be easier to set up in Canada than most of us assume?


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

I think some of you guys are not understanding how iTunes Match will work. You will not be uploading anything unless the music is not in the iTunes collection and then you would have to choose to do so. Why would anyone need to back up what you are receiving from iTunes Match, you already have it.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

ehMax said:


> Still kind of confused by this service...
> 
> Say there were some with large libraries of music that were acquired over the years by whatever means legit or not. Does this service scan your library, you pay Apple $25 a year, and now suddenly that library is blessed by the Apple / label licensing gods and it's now legit? What happens if you don't pay after a year? Does all this music stay up there in the cloud?
> 
> ...


You're kind of assuming that people with ripped libraries are downloaders... 

I made the decision about 8 years ago when the digital writing was on the wall to rip all 500+ CDs in my collection and then sell the CDs. I made back about $1000 and that paid for the Mini to be used as the server at the time and the backup hard drives. Once some of my friends saw what I had done they did the exact same thing.

I don't see how it is a kick in the pants for staying legit in any way.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

mguertin said:


> I'm a bit (well a lot) skeptical that iTunes Match will be available outside the US, and if it is then the catalog you have to choose from would be much much smaller. The way copyright and usage rights and the like all work I just can't see this being something that is going to be a blanket all-over-the-world type thing and will be selectively available per country and possibly with limited catalogs in some countries.


Hmmm, could be not sure, but right now our copyright laws are laxer than they are in the US so I don't think right now it would be a problem in Canada. At any rate there is no copying involved at all and perhaps this is the loophole.


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## iMatt (Dec 3, 2004)

screature said:


> At any rate there is no copying involved at all and perhaps this is the loophole.


Well, not strictly speaking. But where iTunes Match gets interesting re piracy is that it will give you access to an iTunes version of whatever you have in your library (as long as ITMS has it), without having to indicate where it originally came from.

Most people are honest -- what's in their library is simply ripped from their purchased CDs. But again, if you have a bunch of Beatles albums downloaded from BitTorrent, LimeWire, Napster, etc., your annual fee now lets you swap those MP3s for DRM-free 256 kbps AAC files from Apple. You can download them to local drives on all your authorized devices, and you can keep them after you stop paying the annual fee.

That's why this sounds very similar to the blank-media levy to me -- the fee you pay makes your ill-gotten copies legit.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

iMatt said:


> Well, not strictly speaking. But where iTunes Match gets interesting re piracy is that it will give you access to an iTunes version of whatever you have in your library (as long as ITMS has it), without having to indicate where it originally came from.
> 
> Most people are honest -- what's in their library is simply ripped from their purchased CDs. But again, if you have a bunch of Beatles albums downloaded from BitTorrent, LimeWire, Napster, etc., your annual fee now lets you swap those MP3s for DRM-free 256 kbps AAC files from Apple. *You can download them to local drives on all your authorized devices, and you can keep them after you stop paying the annual fee.*
> 
> That's why this sounds very similar to the blank-media levy to me -- the fee you pay makes your ill-gotten copies legit.


I don't think that is what it will do, based on my reading and understanding it will keep a catalogue of your catalogue in the iCloud and simply stream to you the songs as you select them... It would make no sense to download them to you when you already have them.

What it says on the Apple site is:



> And all the music iTunes matches *plays back* at 256-Kbps iTunes Plus quality — even if your original copy was of lower quality.


There is no mention of download and as I said it would make no sense for it to be a download. The beauty for me is this way a 16GB iPod can now effectively have access to my entire collection which is over 200GB so long as I have a WiFi connection. This is what makes it friggin' great as far as I am concerned.


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## iMatt (Dec 3, 2004)

screature said:


> I don't think that is what it will do, based on my reading and understanding it will keep a catalogue of your catalogue in the iCloud and simply stream to you the songs as you select them... It would make no sense to download them to you when you already have them.


Actually, there would be a very good reason for downloading: streaming for each listen hogs way more bandwidth than just keeping a local copy...




> There is no mention of download and as I said it would make no sense for it to be a download. The beauty for me is this way a 16GB iPod can now effectively have access to my entire collection which is over 200GB so long as I have a WiFi connection. This is what makes it friggin' great as far as I am concerned.


...but you do appear to be right about whether iTunes Match downloads or streams.

Where I got the notion that it downloads is up the page:



> New purchases. Automatically everywhere.
> iCloud automatically downloads any new music purchase to all your devices...
> 
> Your past purchases. Available on all your devices.
> Now you can download music you’ve previously purchased to all your devices....


So, new and past iTunes purchases can be downloaded at will, but not iTunes Match tracks.

To me, the only reason that makes sense is licensing: you are purchasing a license to listen to a high-quality stream anywhere, but not to download a copy permanently.

Anyway, I stand corrected. Your $25 does not turn your old downloads legit permanently.

Edit: but then again, the same page also says:



> If you want *all the benefits* of iTunes in the Cloud for music you haven’t purchased from iTunes, iTunes Match is the perfect solution.


So I'm still not completely sure what the deal is, though probably that "all the benefits" is just a slight exaggeration.


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## Guest (Jun 7, 2011)

iMatt said:


> So I'm still not completely sure what the deal is, though probably that "all the benefits" is just a slight exaggeration.


Yep that's the burning question and I guess we'll have to wait until this actually goes into place to find out. Given that it's a yearly fee and they are DRM free it would pretty much have to be streaming and not downloading that is happening though. For me it's really just not worth it, if I want to play the songs that are in my music library I will stream them from my music library (at least until UBB rears it's ugly head again).


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## fjnmusic (Oct 29, 2006)

My understanding from what little Stevie said is that all of your iTunes catalogue songs can be _pushed_ to all of your devices if you so choose, effectively turning your crappy 96K versions into 256K ones at no extra charge (apart from the $24.99 annal fee). There are many kids I know out there who have nothing BUT pirated music, so I'm not sure how this works for them. I don't know if iTunes can differentiate between a pirated copy and a ripped copy, or perhaps that doesn't matter. Perhaps once they buy into the iTunes philosophy for 25 bucks a year, they'll be more likely to purchase from iTunes in the future. We shall see, as my good friend Dr. G likes to say.


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## iMatt (Dec 3, 2004)

Based on Apple's iCloud press release, I'm now quite sure I had it right all along:

Apple - Press Info - Apple Introduces iCloud



> iTunes® in the Cloud lets you download your previously purchased iTunes music to all your iOS devices at no additional cost, and new music purchases can be downloaded automatically to all your devices. In addition, music not purchased from iTunes can gain the same benefits by using iTunes Match, a service that *replaces your music with a 256 kbps AAC DRM-free version* if we can match it to the over 18 million songs in the iTunes Store®, it makes the matched music available in minutes (instead of weeks to upload your entire music library), and uploads only the small percentage of unmatched music.


I think that makes it pretty clear that that Match is not a streaming service. You can replace anything in your library with a new, local, iTunes copy if you want. Which I think is a great thing, because I ripped most of my CDs at too low a bit rate (when hard drives were significantly smaller), and it's a PITA to re-rip everything.

IMO Apple is banking on most people not replacing their low-bitrate files in one fell swoop, but only downloading from iTunes Match incrementally, when they listen to a song/album. 

So the fact that it's an annual instead of one-time fee covers a number of things: upgrading files (whether done en masse or incrementally), cloud storage (both virtual for matched tracks and real, for unmatched tracks), and unlimited downloads as you rotate the local supply of music on your smaller-capacity devices.


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## screature (May 14, 2007)

iMatt said:


> Based on Apple's iCloud press release, I'm now quite sure I had it right all along:
> 
> Apple - Press Info - Apple Introduces iCloud
> 
> ...


I still think it downloads only iTunes purchases and stream matches.... I can't see how it could be otherwise for the money, not to mention the copyright issues. It would make no financial sense... 

We will just have to wait and find out.


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## iMatt (Dec 3, 2004)

screature said:


> I still think it downloads only iTunes purchases and stream matches.... I can't see how it could be otherwise for the money, not to mention the copyright issues. It would make no financial sense...
> 
> We will just have to wait and find out.



So why mention DRM-free? DRM is just a fancy term for copy protection, and streaming without the ability to store a copy is probably the most complete form of copy protection there is.

I think the finances have surely been worked out based on the assumption that [some high %] of what's on people's hard drives is ripped from CDs they own and [some low %] isn't. So a $25/year blanket fee covers both a royalty to the industry and a payment to Apple for bandwidth and any storage of non-matched tracks. 

Now, if you're the recording industry and you're getting zero for all those torrents floating around, even just a small cut of $25/year/user for all of a person's library -- even what they've already purchased legitimately -- sounds good, doesn't it?

(Even though it's nowhere near the 10 cents/track I stupidly calculated at first.)


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## nomik2 (Nov 5, 2007)




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## Pat McCrotch (Jun 19, 2006)

The one thing I wonder about is unreleased music. Musicians usually have loads of unreleased music on their iTunes. I have recorded rehearsals and live concerts, unreleased EPs and even ruff mixes of songs lacking vocals and other instruments for studio work. Is apple willing to host all that stuff for 25$ a year?

Let's say I'm an experimental music artist that got a government grant to make music based on my own farts. I spend hours a day in my log cabin recording and editing my fart music and over a year have accumulated a plethora of hour long high quality wav files that could total 50 gigs easily. What's the limit? How is apple gonna host all this stuff?


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## iMatt (Dec 3, 2004)

Pat, as I understand it the answer to your first paragraph is yes, Apple says they'll host all that for $25/year.

As for your hypothetical "fartiste", I think such people would be so few that Apple would just let them be. If they really caused a storage and bandwidth problem, maybe they'd put a size-based (instead of track-based) cap on the amount of "unmatched" storage.

Like any service company, Apple has to be planning on a few outliers hogging resources and being a drain; the vast majority having a few thousand matched tracks and a few dozen unmatched, with occasional new purchases from iTunes; and another group of outliers at the other end who are almost pure profit because they sign up but under-use the service.


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