Apple Music replacing my private music with downloads from iTunes store

I have years and years worth of tracks on my phone, and they are being replaced with versions that I don't like. If I update my personal library with apple ones, I'll lose them when I cancel subscription. I think this may be a nail in the coffin for my long term choice of apple as preferred tech. It is too controlling and faceless

I am confused as to why anybody would delete or "replace" their originals with DRM copies after integrating with iCloud Music Library/Apple Music.

Your personal offline library is your personal offline library...

I'll say that these services are confusing though, but I would never compromise my originals. Is iCloud Music Library or iTunes somehow forcing this on users?

I have read a lot of horror stories and fear spreading posts in various forums over a number of years going back to iTunes Match (which may or may not still exist as a separate service not even sure *confusing, yes*).

I have just started my Apple Music trial and put my 22,400+ track library at risk here. Painstakingly overcame all the duplicates, errors, and incompatible files so that everything in iTunes reads Matched or Uploaded. I realize when I enable this feature on my iPhone, there will very likely be many mismatched songs. We shall see. I can live with this provided my local files in my iTunes Library are not revised in any way by ID tags or album art. So far that seems to be the case and I would never knowingly delete the originals becasue they are now "in the cloud." If anything, I would make extra backup(s) of my iTunes folder to a separate drive. Am I missing something?

I did this as well and had the same results HOWEVER:

I subscribed to Apple Music as a replacement to Spotify Premium - where I was able to offline download content. I hoped to recreate the music library I had downloaded from Spotify on Apple Music but turning on this requires turning on the iCloud Music Library.

THAT is where everything goes awry. iCloud Music Library employs what used to be called iTunes Match wherein it sifts through your entire library and "matches" any track/artist combination with a track/artist from iTunes/Apple Music.

I have tons of albums that are the same track title and artist as an album available on iTunes however my live ones will say "Live" or a date/location in the album title which is evidently not strong enough a differentiator to not be matched and replaced for streaming purposes across your devices.

The main reason is the Apple Music versions are almost always better quality than my versions. The levels are even song-to-song and the encoding is lossless. Many of my tracks are ripped from scratched CDs so they skip. And the final reason is the cover art is consistent, whereas half of my album that matches could get different cover art.

It’s not like I don’t still own the songs, I have them, they just aren’t linked to iTunes anymore.

So for me, aside from my live music and the albums, I prefer if everything Matches. So I’m stuck manually hunting down partially Matched albums, deleting them and downloading them from Apple Music.

Is there a better way?

What do you mean they aren't linked to iTunes anymore? Aren't they the foundation of your PERSONAL iTunes library?

I am digging deeper now and I too have many albums where half is "matched" and half is "uploaded." I'm even seeing this on studio albums. I am thinking this is becasue I have probably standardized song names for featured artists as well as the Artist tag to suit my own preferences. Do not know how I can change that as I would like to have those albums 'matched' that should be so I can listen to higher quality copies.

Much of my music collection is also lower bitrate encodings and I would like to have better quality PERSONAL tracks for those that are. Am I missing something about Apple Music with iCloud Music Library? Does it work like iTunes Match did for the "matched" tracks and enable you to replace them with DRM free high-quality AAC versions?

For those that are 'matched' I am under the impression that you will get a higher quality version on other devices such as iPhone. I thought those were the DRM protected copies and if you cancel they go away (leaving you only with your lower quality originals).

I am more questioning those that are saying that Apple Music and iCloud Music Library have modified tags and album art on their ORIGINAL FILES. I cannot understand how the system could possibly do that as designed if my above understandings are all correct.

I could not have this all straight as I said earlier, it is awfully confusing!

I had an older backup to my internal backup HDD that I have updated so hopefully no original files have been compromised just in case.

However, I do not understand how this "silent replacement" could happen within the local library though. I understand that IF you have deleted the file from your local library in order to save space and eventually you redownload it, the resulting 256kbps AAC file may very well not be what you expect if it had been mismatched. The user in this example would have lost their original music. I also understand that streaming or downloading the song file to another device such as an iPhone would represent the incorrectly matched track (but that is not what we are discussing here as it has zero bearing on the local "owned" offline copy).

I have a feeling this is where end users are running into problems. They delete their original files to either save space on their Mac or PC and/or so they can get "upgraded quality tracks" at 256kbps AAC.

I simply do not see how the service itself could simply overwrite your existing file. If this is what was happening, it stands to reason it would be more public of an issue than one you need to dig around links on a web search to find instances of. If this is truly what is happening, it is disastrous indeed. Logically, that just does not make sense though.

I appreciate the dialogue.

I am currently playing my music in iTunes and it is most definitely playing MY LOCAL COPY, even if matched. It is not playing Apple Music's version. I see zero evidence of it automatically replacing the original files. Perhaps this used to happen but no longer does?

Also, your statement "The idea of Apple Match is that you no longer need to keep music files on your Mac" does not make sense when it is followed by “I does get downloaded to your Mac (or iPhone) first. But then your original copy gets replaced by Apple's version.” The idea is so that you no longer need to store files locally, so you can then store Apple Music’s files locally?

You even say “Why keep my own copies of audio tracks when they exist elsewhere (in Apple's library) ?” This to me is a major indication that you intentionally or otherwise purged some of your orignally matched titles.

It stands to reason that in this case, the local files have been purged by the user most likely to save storage space since they are now “in the cloud” (as I previously alluded), only to be redownloaded from iCloud Music Library at some later point with an incorrectly matched version.

I am not trying to be an apologist for Apple as I most certainly am not, nor am I trying to be argumentative. I’m merely trying to sift through the years of confusing online discussions on this topic and come up to some conclusion as to how the services function in December 2018.

I will second you on this. As I stated previously, for several reasons I'm actually going a step further and removing my local copies of albums from my iCloud Library and replacing it with the Apple Music version. Yet when I go to my hard drive (I'm running Windows 10 with the latest iTunes) all of my original mp3s are there and in tact.

The downloaded files are showing up under iTunes > {my library} > iTunes Media > Apple Music as .m4p's. I assume these are DRM tracks. The bit rates are not listed, but "Sting Me" by the Black Crowes is 10.5 MB vs my 6.8MB VBR mp3.

So in my case, iTunes is not reaching into my hard drive and replacing files. I do not know if it is relevant, but I do not have the "Keep iTunes Media folder organized" box checked in iTunes preferences.

This most likely does have to do with that setting. If you had that checked, when you remove the downloads the file would be purged from your system (to recycle bin) while keeping the track itself in your library.

It is my understanding that if the track is "Matched" the resulting AAC (.m4p) files will be DRM free as it used to be with iTunes Match from what I have read. It should only be songs you do not own (not Matched or Uploaded) that you have downloaded from Apple Music that are DRM protected.

I am noticing that the iCloud Music Library process did in fact alter the "Modified Date" of most, if not all of my .mp3 files as they are all needing to be reuploaded to my other cloud backup provider. The files themselves remain unchanged as far as I can tell. If it was a 128kbps or 192 kbps .mp3 file, it is the same for example. I will have to look more closely to see if any tags have been altered.

What is most definitely NOT occurring is them magically changing over to 256kbps AAC files, some other song, or swapping out my manually placed album arts. For it to swap to the 256kbps AAC files, you would need to "remove download" for all Matched tracks (not Uploaded as those are not found in Apple Music) and then redownload all of them. Not sure if this can be done in batch or if it must be done one at a time. I do believe this is where other users are running into issues because there is no guarantee Apple Music has properly Matched each Matched track without a listen to each track before taking this step. Now that user may own a DRM free 256kbps AAC file of the incorrect version or a different song altogether!

PS Glad you still have the originals! Getting each to properly Match or verify whether or not they are seems to be a bear I am still trying to wrap my mind around. My suggestion for now is simply backup those originals to a separate location that is secure and outside the grasp of iTunes. Clear out your library of matched songs (Remove Download). Download all the AAC versions of your Matched songs and use as normal until you find incorrect ones. Then you can always delete the incorrect song and use a copy of your original file to readd it to iTunes and then not remove the "download" again.

Of course this all seems like an unreasonably tedious process just to have a seamless collection and upgrade the quality of as many poorly ripped songs as possible along the way...

Hi,

Apple music like iTunes Match doesn't change or alter your original file:

iCloud Music Library: Understanding differences between Apple Music and iTunes Match - Apple Support

Extract:

"When Apple Music adds these matched songs to your iCloud Music Library, Apple Music doesn’t change or alter your original music files that reside in iTunes for Mac or PC or on your iOS devices from which they were added. We make these matched songs available to your other computers or devices in high quality 256 Kbps AAC, and they can be played on them only while your Apple Music membership is active."

When you subscribe to match, you can delete and replace the original file with the matched version. If you plan to only stream, you will be able to download prior to expiry. You will keep upgraded/ downloaded tracks after your annual subscription expires.

When you subscribe to Apple Music, you can delete and replace the original file with the matched version but this will have DRM. If you plan to only stream, you will not be able to download after expiry of Apple subscription. It would seem that DRM is applied to uploaded tracks as well.

What happened to your original library on your computer? Do you have a back up?

Jim

I'm having the same problem. Did you find a fix?