How and were does apple store my iTunes MP3 music online?

[anonymousmoose]

I'm not much into music, i mainly use Amazon Prime for steaming. The music I do own, such as the old Dandy Warhols albums, I have on MP3 in my iTunes.

Well today I did an iCloud backup and restore in my iPad. I didn't use iTunes. I noticed all my music was also restored, BUT it doesn't seem to be taking up any iCloud disk space.

How does apple store my MP3 files? I thought I would have had to plug back into iTunes but somehow the music came back via iCloud backup.

I searched online but couldn't find it, perhaps I'm using the wrong terms in searching.

 

[casperes1996]

An iCloud backup is a backup. It packages up all your data; Also the stuff that isn't otherwise associated with iCloud and well, backs it up. The music files are not stored as individually accessible files, but as part of the backup bundle

 

[TonyC28]

I’m trying to cut my computer out of the equation when it comes to iPhone backups. I have some older music files that were not downloaded from iTunes as well as some ripped from CDs. Is there any way of getting iTunes versions of those songs without paying full iTunes price? I don’t want to have to sync with a computer anymore. I remember some time back I did something like iTunes Match but I thought it was different than what it is now.