iTunes Match now live in UK – Store Your iTunes Library in the Cloud and Stream Anywhere

iTunes Match, the Apple cloud storage service for your music collection has finally gone live in the UK.

iTunes Match is quite a clever service as it scans your iTunes library, including songs you’ve acquired from other MP3 download sites (legally, of course) or that you’ve ripped from CDs. iTunes Match will then allow you to register up to 25,000 songs.

You can then stream your music collection to a host of devices, including Macs, PCs and of course anything runnung iOS from iPhones to Apple TV.

The great thing about Match is that you only need to actually upload tracks that aren’t already contained in Apple’s iTunes catalogue. The reason for this is that if iTunes recognises tracks from your collection is in its library, it’ll just let you stream the track it already has archived instead.

If you are one of those strange people that has low-quality rips in your collection then the news gets even better for you as all the tracks are played back at 256kbps, even if your original file was of a lower quality.

One of the service’s main stumbling blocks is that it will obviously allow tracks to be uploaded that may have been acquired through illegal file sharing.

iTunes Match seemingly went live prematurely on December 16th with problems with its sign-up system. Apple is refunding all those who signed up to the service before it was working properly after its forums were inundated by angry typers.

iTunes Match costs £22 per year.