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Family iTunes match

My family members all have separate apple IDs. Could we pay for one iTunes match service? We don't want to pay $125 a year.

Posted on Jan 15, 2012 10:54 AM

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Posted on Jan 15, 2012 11:21 AM

Yes you can share the service, however there are a few things to consider.


There is a limit of 10 devices (5 of which can be computers)


All your libraries will be merged. This includes playlists etc.


Only purchases made on the Apple ID you use for match will show up as purchased. Others will be matched or uploaded, which will go against the limit of 25,000 songs. This is my an issue if that limit will come into play.


If you have old iTunes purchases on any other accounts (with DRM) then I believe they will not be eligible. There is a work round this, but it involves burning the tracks to a CD and ripping them.

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Jan 15, 2012 11:21 AM in response to Mattser42

Yes you can share the service, however there are a few things to consider.


There is a limit of 10 devices (5 of which can be computers)


All your libraries will be merged. This includes playlists etc.


Only purchases made on the Apple ID you use for match will show up as purchased. Others will be matched or uploaded, which will go against the limit of 25,000 songs. This is my an issue if that limit will come into play.


If you have old iTunes purchases on any other accounts (with DRM) then I believe they will not be eligible. There is a work round this, but it involves burning the tracks to a CD and ripping them.

Jan 15, 2012 12:20 PM in response to Mattser42

The service is linked to an ID - tmk, Apple hasn't offered a group rate if you have multiple Apple ID's.


This is actually a good question that I don't believe has come up before. Obviously the family could share an ID, but then your music in iCloud would be mix of music between the family members, which you may not want. But if you purchase a subscription mainly for the Matching and not the iCloud storage itself, then sharing that between family members might violate the TOS. I honestly don't know - it's different than something like Spotify, as there's really no music permanently downloaded, but iTM does allow for Matched downloads that you can save on a remote computer or another device.

Jan 15, 2012 12:26 PM in response to Community User

This is a fairly common issue for debate generally, with people sharing Apps/music purchased on their accounts, and the legality of it.


Whatever the actual legalities, and there is a risk of this thread descending into a load of quotes from the terms of service, my opinion has always been that abuse of this is restricted by two things:


Firstly the 5 computer limit, which means that any sharing can't be too widespread.


Secondly (and probably most importantly) the fact that if you want to share things in this way you have to let everyone know your Apple ID and password, which gives them the ability to purchase things using your credit card. This very much restricts the ability to share the info.


Things like home sharing demonstrate that Apple are fairly relaxed about people sharing music within their home with family members.

Jan 15, 2012 2:18 PM in response to Mattser42

Alright, I think I understand your question and I will say yes and no.


First if all of your family makes purchases with the same apple id then yes you can all use the same itunes match.


If everyone signs in under a different apple store id to make purchases and that is the way you want to keep it then no you cannot share.


I have found this out to be correct by playing with this exstensively.


I have a close friend that I share music back and forth with and I wanted to share my itunes match with so we could easily share our music. When I signed his phone in under my store and then turned itunes match on everything was fine, but when I went back to general>store and signed him back out to make sure that he paid for things with his credit card then it automatically signed him out of match.


The only way for another individual to share your itunes match is for them to keep their itunes store id signed in to the same as the one linked with match and all purchases from that device (included, books for ibook, apps from the appstore and anything else itunes store related) will have to be made with that store id. If you sign out at any time and sign into another account IT WILL delete the match out of the device wether computer or ios device.


My wife and I use the same store id but use different icould ids and we share match.


But Her phone and my phone is signed into the same store id and we make all purchases from that id.


I didn't want my buddy making purchases with my id so He had to pay and set up his account for hiself.


If your family members all use the same computer but all use different store id's for purchases you will not be able to use the same computer and have different match accounts on the same computer. If you sign your computer up with a match account then that computer is linked with your match account and if you try to sign into another match account it will give you a message saying that you will not be able to sign into another one for 90 days or do any kind of downloading from another for 90 days.


Apple set this up to keep people from SHARING/PIRATING files by letting mutiple match accounts be run from one computer.


I know that it's frustrating when you have mutiple family members that use that same computer but different store id's but you have to sacrifice somewhere if your going to share or you'll all have to pay the 25 dollars and all sync your match accounts on different computers unless I'm missing a work around for this.


Unless your a Mac user and have parrelles then you can do it, but it is a little more complicated.

Jan 15, 2012 3:02 PM in response to carltonfrombedford

carltonfrombedford wrote:


......


If your family members all use the same computer but all use different store id's for purchases you will not be able to use the same computer and have different match accounts on the same computer. If you sign your computer up with a match account then that computer is linked with your match account and if you try to sign into another match account it will give you a message saying that you will not be able to sign into another one for 90 days or do any kind of downloading from another for 90 days.


........


Unless your a Mac user and have parrelles then you can do it, but it is a little more complicated.


I wasn't aware of this, although I think I saw at least one other post about the same - thanks for the clarification. So, in the case of the OP, if he shares the same computer with the family and they get multiple iTM subscriptions, then this actually won't work? I wonder if it takes Windows / MacOS logon ID's into account? I can understand if it's the same OS logon ID and multiple Apple ID's, but there could be a situation where a family shares a one computer.


I'm the only one with iTM in my family so there's no way for me to test that. As for Parallels, I assume you mean running a VM. Windows and Linux users could do the same with tools like Virtualbox.


EDIT: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4627 It seems to read that it's going by the actual computer and not just an OS logon ID, if I'm reading this right. So your comment nailed it. Too bad for families who share a computer (I happen to fall into that category, to a certain extent - but the kids general use their iPods for direct app downloads, at least so far).

Jan 15, 2012 8:15 PM in response to Community User

I'm sure that you can work this around with any virtual machine. Because the virtual machine is read as a different computer than the one your using. I'm fixing to try and see if I can do another virual machine and run snow leopard, windows and lion and see if I can do it that way too. But if you don't run a virtual machine then there is no way to get more than one itunes match account on a computer.

Jan 30, 2012 9:17 AM in response to carltonfrombedford

Bad! Bad! Complicated! Not simple! One computer, several accounts, several Apple ids, only one iTunes match per computer. I just throw 25 euros through the window by buying a new iTunes match service for my partner who use a different account on the same computer, and blocked my iTunes match account for 90 days. Thank you Apple, I'm blown away...

Mar 19, 2012 10:58 PM in response to Julien Roullier

This just happened to me...


Set up my wife as a separate user on my iMac (which we now share). We associated her Apple ID, but now all of a sudden MY iMatch won't work. I tried to "Add This Computer" to start running iMatch again on my user/Apple ID/music library and i get a dialog telling me i can't associate the computer with a new Apple ID for 90 days. She doesn't even subscribe or want to subscribe to iTunes Match, but it now seems like I'm locked out of it just becase we associated her Apple ID with her user and her iTunes library.


This really burns me. Why can't i just unauthorize her Apple ID on the computer and reauthorize mine so I can carry on using iTunes Match which I paid for?!? VERY FRUSTRATING!!!

May 3, 2016 10:43 PM in response to Mattser42

We use separate id's for the store so you can have your own playlist preferences, but mostly because I've had my one AppleID for *all* Apple services for many many years, so separating the store out using a new AppleID seems silly. What does that mean for all the music I've bought under my current ID?


In any case my wife should not have to work off that same AppleID too.


Note that her AppleID is tied to mine as a family member *and* her AppleID is connected to my creditcard. Hence: I pay for what she buys, but still I do not get to sync what she buys nor the other way around. That's not right.

Family iTunes match

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