Some restrictions apply to Apple Music song matches

Rob Pegoraro | Special for USA TODAY

Q. When I use Apple Music to make my music available across other devices, I get “.m4p” files that don’t work outside of Apple’s software. What happened?

A. That file-name extension--denoting a “protected” music file locked with Apple’s FairPlay software--went out of style eight years ago when Apple stopped selling music with “digital rights management” restrictions. But it’s making a comeback in Apple Music.

You can hit this problem if you use that somewhat complicated service’s option to add music from your computer to your Apple Music library. That puts copies of those songs on Apple’s iCloud service, from where you can download them to Apple’s music apps.

Universal access to your music is a good thing. But Apple’s tech-support document doesn’t say that these matched songs land on your Mac, PC, iPhone, iPad and (in a few months) Android device with FairPlay DRM attached.

And there’s no heads-up during the matching process; your only notice is the changed file-name extension, which you can’t see in iTunes unless you bring up the song’s file-info window.

Most of FairPlay’s restrictions weren’t terribly burdensome beyond its limit of five authorized computers at a time, but that system did lock you into Apple’s software. There’s a reason nobody misses Apple’s DRM.

In Apple Music, however, FairPlay brings an extra level of pain: If you cancel your Apple Music subscription--$9.99/month individually, $14.99/month for a family membership--you can’t play those songs anymore. That makes sense for songs from Apple Music’s master library of more than 30 million songs, but it’s less than fair with your own, paid-for music.

Before you pick up a torch and a pitchfork, remember that this back-door DRM doesn’t change your original files. As long as you don’t delete them or at least keep a backup of them, you’re safe.

But a lot of people are terrible at backing up their data. And getting stuck with a locked, incompatible, perpetual-rental-required version of a song you own is not a good thing.

You don’t run into this issue with Apple’s iTunes Match, an earlier $24.99/year service. But here, too, Apple doesn’t explain things--its pitch for Apple Music membership only says that “Apple Music and iTunes Match are independent but complementary.”

Worse yet, some iTunes Match users are seeing downloads of matched songs arrive with Apple Music DRM. Longtime Mac journalist Kirk McElhearn, an iTunes Match subscriber, documented that in a post on his own blog.

I subscribe to iTunes Match too but could not duplicate this issue when I used iTunes to match an MP3 bought at Amazon Friday. The version that a second Mac’s copy of iTunes downloaded was a DRM-free AAC file, exactly what iTunes Match should deliver. One possible factor: I haven’t upgraded the first Mac to iTunes 12.2, because I’m leery of the new version after reading multiplereports of it scrambling music libraries.

This particular malfunction McElhearn identified is almost certainly a bug, although Apple PR did not answer an e-mail asking about that Friday morning. But Apple’s failing to document a serious restriction of Apple Music’s song matching fits into a history of the company communicating poorly or not at all with its customers--a deliberate opacity that Apple apparently sees not as a bug, but as a feature.

Tip: Turn off auto-renewal of an Apple Music trial account

Apple has been pretty direct about encouraging everybody who uses iTunes or the iOS Music app to sign up for its three-month trial of Apple Music’s paid membership service ($9.99/month individually, $14.99 for a family plan). That trial automatically converts to a paid subscription, but you can opt out of that ahead of time with a few taps in the iOS app.

When you’re logged in, tap the account icon in the top left corner, then “View Apple ID.” Tap the “Manage” button under the “Subscriptions” heading, and you should see an entry for your Apple Music membership next. Tap that, then tap the slider to the right of “Automatic Renewal.” (My thanks to MacRumors for pointing this out Wednesday.)

The weird thing is that the OS X version of iTunes doesn’t offer this control. It does let you turn off iTunes Match’s auto-renewal feature from its Account Info screen, which itself may be worth doing. The iOS app, for its part, lets you disable iTunes Match auto-renew as well, but in that app it’s listed on the main Account Settings view instead of the manage-subscriptions list.

Rob Pegoraro is a tech writer based out of Washington, D.C. To submit a tech question, e-mail Rob at rob@robpegoraro.com. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/robpegoraro.