{"id":22758,"date":"2018-09-13T16:11:17","date_gmt":"2018-09-13T20:11:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=22758"},"modified":"2018-09-20T15:16:04","modified_gmt":"2018-09-20T19:16:04","slug":"apple-can-delete-purchased-movies-from-your-library-without-telling-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2018\/09\/13\/apple-can-delete-purchased-movies-from-your-library-without-telling-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Apple Can Delete Purchased Movies From Your Library Without Telling You"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anders G da Silva<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Hey Apple, three movies I bought disappeared from my iTunes library.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Casey Johnston<\/a> (Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n

\n

When da Silva wrote to Apple to complain about the missing movies, Apple wrote back to him that “the content provider has removed these movies from the Canadian Store. Hence, these movies are not available in the Canada iTunes Store at this time.” For his trouble in notifying Apple that it had disappeared three of his ostensible belongings for incredibly dubious legal reasons, Apple offered da Silva not even a refund, but two credits for renting a movie on the iTunes Store “priced up to $5.99 USD.”<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

“You may be able to redownload previously acquired Content (‘Redownload’) to your devices that are signed in with the same Apple ID (‘Associated Devices’),” says the TOS, but also, “Content may not be available for Redownload if that Content is no longer offered on our Services.” For reasons that are easy to guess, Apple has never widely advertised that, by deleting locally stored content, users are actually rolling the dice as to whether they will ever be able to get it back.<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

As da Silva and others have pointed out before, the “Buy” button in digital stores is, at best, mislabeled.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Because of DRM, even if you keep a local copy of the movie you won’t be able to play it when you inevitably replace your device.<\/p>\n\n

The Macalope<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

This guy should get his money back in full.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Ken Kandel<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Happened to me too. Got three rentals in place of 30 episodes of the original Star Trek. Taught me to download everything and keep a backup of it. It truly pissed me off,<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Scott Perry<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

This has happened to me with music as well. If something doesn’t live DRM-free on your own storage, you don’t actually own it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

John Archer<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

I have even been contacted just today by an iTunes user who tells me that dozens of films he owns in iTunes—many of which were actually bought in iTunes—have stepped back on his Apple TV 4K to HD, having previously being available in 4K.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Rene Ritchie<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

Movies appearing and disappearing in iTunes (or any service) as the studio agreements dictate has been happening for years. Totally customer hostile and studio agreements should prevent it but it’s not new.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Previously: Outlawed by Amazon DRM<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

Update (2018-09-14): Bob Burrough<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

The problem appears to be a mismatch between legal reality and customer expectation. Customers are broadly under the impression that if they have purchased content, they will be able to download that content indefinitely.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

Problems:<\/p>\n

  1. Legal reality is not what customers want.<\/li>\n
  2. Apple doesn’t try very hard to communicate the actual reality.<\/li>\n
  3. Customer not notified when content removed.<\/li>\n
  4. Apple (and, I guess, the content provider, too) keeps the money after removing the content.<\/li><\/ol>\n\n

    Winmaciek<\/a>:<\/p>\n

    \n

    Also, even if you have a local copy, [local desktop copies] won’t be in full 4K resolution (iTunes only supports up to 1080p). So it’s not really a solution, unless you accept downgraded quality.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

    \n

    There’s also a similar case with purchased music. I’ve purchased The Wall (Deluxe Edition) with iTunes LP. Item has since become unavailable - I can only get songs but not LP. Apple’s solution? 5 song credits. Thankfully, I had the LP stored on my old PC.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

    Ashley Bischoff<\/a> clarifies that iPads can cache 4K video locally, though I don’t think the cache survives restoring from backup.<\/p>\n\n

    Update (2018-09-20): Sean Hollister<\/a> (Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n

    When we reached out to da Silva, he clarified the disparity: He moved to Canada, roughly nine months ago, after<\/em> purchasing the films in Australia. Not only is that two separate countries, it’s two separate iTunes Store regions. Perhaps Canada doesn’t offer those films anymore, and that left him unable to access them in his new location?<\/p>

    The thing is, those three titles -- Cars, Cars 2 and The Grand Budapest Hotel, according to da Silva -- are still available to purchase<\/em> in both Australia and Canada, CNET confirmed. He could buy new “Canada” copies right now. So why are his “Australia” copies gone?<\/p>

    […]<\/p>

    Indeed, those movies may still be stored in da Silva’s Australian account -- but he can’t easily switch back to the Australian region to download them again.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

    So Apple Support was mistaken when they told him that the content provider had removed the movies.<\/p>\n\n

    Author<\/a>:<\/p>\n

    \n

    The big takeaway here is that media licensing is a hot mess. Region locking was a big headache when DVDs were the big thing, and now we’re seeing a version of that with digital movie purchases.<\/p>\n

    Downloading a digital purchase means you have the movie and it won’t disappear from your library. If iTunes checks the license when you play it, however, you may still be locked out from watching.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

    Dominik Wagner<\/a>:<\/p>\n

    \n

    If you switch countries of your apple account, content might disappear. So nothing new really, just something to keep in mind. As a german with both an American and a German account im intricately aware of this sadness.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n

    Kirk McElhearn<\/a>:<\/p>\n

    \n

    But Apple does remove content from the iTunes Store from time to time. They don’t do it on their own; it’s the rights holders who pull it. I’ve found several albums I had purchased in the early days of the iTunes Store are no longer available for redownload.<\/p>\n

    And this is much more common with music on Apple Music. I have a playlist of music that iTunes shows as “No Longer Available,” which currently contains 674 items. In some cases, albums have been replaced by updated versions, so I could find some of that music again. But I’ve found this to be quite frequent, even with the eclectic music I listen to.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Anders G da Silva: Hey Apple, three movies I bought disappeared from my iTunes library. Casey Johnston (Hacker News): When da Silva wrote to Apple to complain about the missing movies, Apple wrote back to him that “the content provider has removed these movies from the Canadian Store. Hence, these movies are not available in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2018-09-13T20:11:19Z","apple_news_api_id":"7272baf1-dc5f-4e15-b704-bbaaaec5b30a","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2018-09-20T19:16:09Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABQ==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AcnK68dxfThW3BLuqrsWzCg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[615,182,617,31,189,30,97],"class_list":["post-22758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-apple-tv","tag-drm","tag-fairplay","tag-ios","tag-itunesstore","tag-mac","tag-video"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22758"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22815,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22758\/revisions\/22815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}