No, you first have to pay to upgrade those tracks to Itunes Plus. That has not changed.
i believe that's incorrect. I mean... on the site it says
And all the music iTunes matches plays back at 256-Kbps iTunes Plus quality — even if your original copy was of lower quality.
but my original question was this - will iTunes match downloaded songs award artists royalties? I mean, if it didn't come up in the purchase history, and it's a track that was 'obtained somewhere else.'
curious because I read a blog that was talking as though artists were getting some kind of compensation for the match program but... I can't figure out how that's possible.
[edit] - answer on tunecore - "How Do TuneCore Artists Get Paid?
As long as your music is available to buy in iTunes, you get paid each time a subscriber re-downloads or streams your music via iTunes Match.
The amount TuneCore Artists get paid is based on a revenue share model similar to other stores we work with.
Each time your music is accessed via iTunes Match, TuneCore will pay you a proportionate share of the total subscription revenue generated by the iTunes Match service. This means you are paid each time a subscriber re-downloads and streams your music. The pay-out rates can fluctuate each month, depending on how much subscription revenue was generated and how often your music was re-downloaded and/or streamed. As always, TuneCore will pay out 100% of the revenue it receives for your music."
pretty awesome by my standards