Is it just me, or is iTunes Match a "scam"?

All right, so here are a few disturbing observations I've made while using the new (for the rest of us) service of iTunes Match...
1st observation:
I have some songs in my library marked by iTunes Match as "Matched" which had wrong tags on purpose... for example, take... Carlos Gardel's "Por una cabeza".
Since I didn't have this song's album name, I tagged it under the album field: "Search for album..." in order to remind me of searching the corresponding album for that particular song. Well... iTunes Match happened to match this song anyway! So I deleted it in order to download the "higher quality" version which is supposedly, already in the iTunes Store servers (I don't know why since I don't even know which album(s) have this version of the song).
2nd observation:
So I have a song named "Lambada" with no artist tag, same "Search for album..." album tag and nothing else. Well... iTunes Match managed to find my song and allowed me to download a higher quality version of it!
3rd observation:
I have a faulty song from Telepopmusik's Genetic World album, more than 8 minutes long (because of like... 3 minutes of silence this file has), when this song is supposed to have a play time of 5:05 or something. And yes... iTunes Match, found my 8 minutes version and when I deleted my file, I downloaded the higher quality version of... 8 minutes (with the added 3 mins silence song)! (which iTunes Store doesn't even have in its catalogue...)
So after thinking about this for a minute... I've reached the following conclusion...
1. iTunes Match doesn't use tags as a method for matching songs. (otherwise, my Lambada song would be impossible to match)
2. iTunes Match seems to just locally convert your songs to an AAC version (and not downloading the iTunes Store catalogue song, even though it says so), otherwise, my Telepopmusik's song would be transformed into the iTunes catalogue 5 min version of the same song...
3. If those theories are correct, then yes... we are paying for the songs we already had in the first place, with no song upgrading whatsoever (not one you could've easily achieved by just right clicking a song and choosing - CREATE AAC VERSION).
Please correct me if there is anything fallacious in my reasoning... I'm just a little disturbed about this...
Best.

People, please read before commenting! It is tiresome having to repeat things...
Mike Connelly wrote:
How are you checking to see if a song is matched or uploaded? You can right click the top headers in iTunes and get two new ones, one with cloud icons and the other with text saying Matched/Uploaded/etc.
If you're deleting and a download gets you the same file then it was probably uploaded instead of matched.
As I told roebeet on my first reply: "About your second point, yes, I do have the iCloud Status column enabled that's how I began noticing this weird things, and no... the Telepopmusik song was matched since the beginning, that's why it makes me doubt about all of this."
@KeithJenner,
Obviously Apple won't explicitly say it... that would be openly accepting that you clean music, but I sure can tell that everyone understood the implications of the service... Anyway about your point:
"As for the issues stated here about getting the old song back, it has been raised a number of times on this and other forums and every time it is discovered that it was indeed an uploaded file rather than a matched one. I'd be surprised to find that isn't the case here, but I suppose you never know."
As you can see from my quote above, my song was matched the first time I ran iTM, I THEN deleted my file, and downloaded the 256 kbps and yep, it was my own file... I mean, I don't care anymore, I've already paid for a year, so I'll hope it gets better with time, but what I can say now is that, Apple's advertisings are misleading, I took the bite and unless the service gives me a REAL benefit, I won't be renewing my subscription.
What I'm trying right now, is to make people be aware of the real "features" of the service.
Anyway, thank you everyone for your comments.
Best.

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I've just signed up to iTunes Match as I have songs on my iPhone 4 which wont sync with iTunes as they are from CDs but I can't see my music in the cloud now. Anyone had the same problem and have an easy fix?

I've just signed up to iTunes Match as I have songs on my iPhone 4 which wont sync with iTunes as they are from CDs but I can't see my music in the cloud now. Anyone had the same problem and have an easy fix?

What fixed it for me:
On your computer, open iTunes > My iPhone (or whatever name you gave your iPhone) > "Music" page
Uncheck "Sync Music"
Click "Sync" button (bottom right)
Let it run and finish
Uncheck the box for every song, playlist, etc.
Click "Sync" button (bottom right) (This step may be unnecessary, but I did it and got the result I wanted.)
Let it run and finish
Check the boxes for the music you want on your iPhone
Click "Sync" button (bottom right)
Let it run and finish
See if that doesn't work for you. I tried a lot of things that did nothing, but this seems to have fixed it, and quickly.

I have an Apple TV 3 and have just signed up to iTunes Match. However there is no toggle in the Apple TV settings (I've looked in iTunes store) to turn on iTunes Match.

I have an Apple TV 3 and have just signed up to iTunes Match. However there is no toggle in the Apple TV settings (I've looked in iTunes store) to turn on iTunes Match.

There would normally be more than 4.
If AppleTV does not 'see' the internet you get Settings and Computers alone.
I'm in UK too - there have been some reported outages of Apple services today globally.
First thing I would do here is unpower and restart AppleTV and also maybe your router.
I'll check mine to see if music is still listed.
AC

Sigh. I just don't understand iTunes Match.

Forgive me. I'm an idiot. I'll just list questions below for anyone to answer. Thank you in advance for any help.
I've got a 160gb ipod (my music device 99% of time) and an iphone (rarely use for music).
I've got a library of about 16,000+ songs, 60% ripped, 25% from emusic, 10% bootlegs, 5% from misc places like Amazon downloads.
So I understand that only songs not in Apple's library get uploaded. Pretty much all the bootlegs had to be uploaded. I think I've completed that process.
My main interest was having a cloud backup should my hard drives fail. I'm pretty sure that's what iTunes Match is. If I lost everything I could just download it from the cloud right?
What about tracks that have errors in them? I've got a couple ripped tracks that skip. Is there a way to download a clean 256kbs version from the cloud into my itunes library?
My wife has an iTunes library with approximately 2000 tracks. Is there a way to get hers backed up into the cloud?
I now have a ton of random crap in my iTunes library. Single tracks by one artist I never downloaded, misc videos, etc. No idea where those came from.
On the iPhone I notice it's showing my whole library with a cloud icon next to the song. I suppose it lets me stream the track or download it if I want but I never need to use the iphone for music so whatever.
Any thoughts? Particularly on the skipping tracks? THANK YOU.

My main interest was having a cloud backup should my hard drives fail. I'm pretty sure that's what iTunes Match is. If I lost everything I could just download it from the cloud right?
Wrong. Because what you have in the cloud is a mix of uploads (actual copies of your tracks) and "matches" (an attempt to find a copy of your song in the iTunes store), you do NOT have a true backup of your music in the cloud. Examples abound of explict tracks being matched to clean versions, long tracks being matched to short versions, mono Beatles tracks being matched to stereo (mono isn't even for sale in the store), and on and on.
Nothing takes the place of a true local backup, and with the cost of an external drive so lo, there's really no reason not to get one.
What about tracks that have errors in them? I've got a couple ripped tracks that skip. Is there a way to download a clean 256kbs version from the cloud into my itunes library?
If you have a situation where you were lucky enough to get a damaged track to match, then yes, you can download a clean copy. If it is only a few songs and you are sure they are damaged and sure they did match, the easiest way to get the Match track will be to delete the original from your library (and be sure not to delete from the cloud). ZFrom there, you should get the track name with a download icon next to it.
However, if the track was damaged and marked as ineligible, then Match just skipped it. You'll want to get a clean copy fromthe CD in that case.
My wife has an iTunes library with approximately 2000 tracks. Is there a way to get hers backed up into the cloud?
Yes. You should be able to turn on iTunes Match in her copy of iTunes. You will be asked if you want to add the computer. Say yes and use the same ID you used to sign up to iTunes Match.
I now have a ton of random crap in my iTunes library. Single tracks by one artist I never downloaded, misc videos, etc. No idea where those came from.
Chances are that at some point you or someone in your family either purchased them or got them for free through some promotion like Free Music Tuesdays. Even if they were deleted from your iTunes library, they'd still be in your purchase history.
On the iPhone I notice it's showing my whole library with a cloud icon next to the song. I suppose it lets me stream the track or download it if I want but I never need to use the iphone for music so whatever.
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Given the number of questions you have, it sounds like a little reading would help you a lot. Here's a good place to start. If you get an error, just hit the reload button.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3619849
Message was edited by: JiminMissouri

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Hi Moonage Daydreamer01,
I'm sorry to hear you are having these issues on your iPhone. If you continue to have issues with iTunes Match, you may find the information and troublehshooting steps outlined in the following article helpful:
How to troubleshoot iTunes Match - Apple Support
Regards,
- Brenden

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hi,
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http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4914
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Stuart Levine wrote:
Anyway? At least explain to me that if I hit Transfer, all it will do is allow iTunes Match to work and not effect the iCloud Apple ID setup?
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iTunes in a windows 7 virtual machine = Cannot write to server 2012 share
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iTunes in server 2012 = instant crash
I understand Apple does not support iTunes 10.7 on windows 8, but this seems strange. I would have assumed that installing iTunes on a windows 7 machine and targeting a library on a server 2012 share would work, but it crashes waiting for a network response anytime it tries to write to the library or download anything.
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Message was edited by: CWagz

Is it just me, or is iTunes Match a "scam"?

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