I created a playlist to show me all the songs where the "iCloud status" was set to "Apple Music". I had done the same in the past with two different lists. One for "uploaded" songs and one for "matched" songs. I made those to keep track of a persistent bug within "iTunes match" that sometimes matches the majority of an album but uploads one or two songs. I was surprised to find some of the albums you can see below show up in this list.
When I clicked on the album I only saw one song that had the "Apple Music" Status.
It was the same for the rest of the albums. Just one or two songs set to "Apple Music"
It was the same for the rest of the albums. Just one or two songs set to "Apple Music"
I thought it was odd since all the songs had previously been either "matched" or "uploaded". So I decided to see what would happen if I removed the download and then downloaded the song again. Perhaps this would correct the issue and the status would be set right.
This is what the file looked like prior to removing the download:
And here's the file after I re-downloaded it:
It went from m4a to m4p. Essentially locking the file. I no longer own that song. This was troublesome so I repeated the experiment with a few other songs and all of them suffered the same fate. m4a or mp3 became m4p.
I thought long and hard about what could be causing this behavior and finally came up with the culprit. I had added a couple of "Apple Music" playlists and the one thing all the infringing songs had in common was that they were songs that I had owned prior to "Apple Music" that were included in the playlists. Here's an example:
Above you can see that the song "Inertia Creeps" by Massive Attack is part of the "Waking Up Gently" playlist by Apple Music.
Below is the song "New Slang" by The Shins as part of the "Alone and Turning Off My Phone" playlist by Apple Music.
Below is the song "New Slang" by The Shins as part of the "Alone and Turning Off My Phone" playlist by Apple Music.
So, to sum it all up; If you don't want to end up with DRM files make sure to not add playlists from apple music that contain songs you already own. Since this is hard to figure out, I'm personally refraining from adding anymore Apple Music playlists. I spoke to Apple about this issue earlier today and hopefully there will be a fix soon. I was a bit taken aback by their claim that this was "expected behavior." I spoke to a senior support person who finally agreed that this couldn't possibly be "expected behavior".