I just subscribed to Music Match on my laptop.
Now I am trying to add my main computer that has the majority of my music to Music Match as well but I get an error:
"This computer is already associated with an apple ID"
What does that even mean? Of course it is associated with an apple ID. Isn't the whole point that I can add up to 10 devices under the same ID?
I don't get it.
It must have been associated with another id at some point in time. This isn't the association for playing content that's been around for years to protect music and videos. When Apple introduced the ability to download past purchases, this started, For autodownload o fpurchases, download of past purchases and now itunes match, each device for those functions can only be associated with one Apple ID and you have to wait 90 days to change it. Our household has 3 or 4 id's and multiple computers and we were hit with this. Even on one machine with multiple OS level login accounts, only one id per machine was allowed for autodownloads. So two kids sharing a machine with two apple id's are stuck. Only one could activate automatic downloads and past purchase downloads. My hunch is this came about as part of the licensing for iCloud and iTunes match to prevent piracy.
Do you have another id that you use? You can sign in to itunes with that and check the account. It has a section that lists the devices associated with an id for auto downloads and itunes match.
More info here : http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4627
I did some actual experiments on an iPod and I can confirm a few facts.
There is indeed a 90-day rule, it comes in to effect whenever you download "content" from the iTunes Cloud. (all the words in bold are important): It is not just relevant for iTiunes Match.
- the lock will indeed then prevent you from downloading content already purchased from the cloud under a different AppleID for 90 days.
- however you can still transfer, during this 90 days, content from a different AppleID from iTunes on a computer by syncing, and then play it OK.
- you can also download NEW content under a different AppleID to the one your device is locked/associated too. You just can not re-download previously purchased content.
- any content already on your device before it become "locked" is unaffected and can be played (even if it has a different AppleID).
- you can still stream content purchased under a different AppleID previously where streaming is available!
- IMPORTANT! all this does NOT apply to Apps! It just applies to movies/tv/music. So even if you lock your device you can still happily switch Appleids for App downloading. This detail confused me for a long time as most places I Googled did not distinguish this.
I hope this helps some people as it confused me until I tested it out!
Why this mess? I put it down to arcane licensing restrictions by the film/tv industry.
I am having this same problem. I am the ONLY person using this computer. I have two apple ID's, but I have never downloaded, purchased anything or used the other one at all.
I have checked my account, and it only shows my one apple ID being ever authorized on this computer. This may be a dumb question....but 2 weeks ago I sent my computer in to the apple depot and had the logic board replaced. I had to re-authorize everything, re-install some things, all kinds of weird things. Is this my problem?
What does this mean? "This computer is already associated with an apple ID"
