NEWS: Apple Can Delete the iTunes Movies You Buy

To equate this with an old vhs tape is disingenuous. Your player may stop working mechanically but the movie or diatribution company does not lock it to stop you using your own property.
 
This cannot be legal surely!? I completely understand rentals, and streaming services like Netflix etc, but BUYING films for massively inflated price tags for them only to disappear at some point is robbery, right?

I've also seen that Apple have been downgrading films from HDR/4K to SDR. It's unbelievable all this! Now I don't want to buy anything on ATV.
 
Im not sure why anyone is surprised by this. The money you pay is for a license to access the content. The agreement says should they lose licenses your media will be unavailable to stream hence giving you the bare minimum download on desktop for stored viewing.

It sucks but it is what iot is. Content will continued to be lost to time, whether that be license revoked, physical media damage, out of production or otherwise.
 
In the article it mentions you can buy and then download the movie.

With the new Apple TV’s I thought you couldn’t download and save movies. You just streamed them?

How does this actually work then?

I’m lookong at buying an Apple TV but this isn’t exactly the best selling point that anything you buy could be just taken away.
 
What a great way to discourage piracy!

They need to sort this out, surely they can come to an arrangement where it's still available to previous purchasers but no longer for sale
 
In the article it mentions you can buy and then download the movie.

With the new Apple TV’s I thought you couldn’t download and save movies. You just streamed them?

How does this actually work then?

I’m lookong at buying an Apple TV but this isn’t exactly the best selling point that anything you buy could be just taken away.

You can download films you buy using iTunes on a PC or a Mac, but you'd be limited to no more than the HD version of that film. You cannot download UHD 4K content from Apple and you've only ever the option of streaming the UHD version of films you've bought from them.
 
Shit like this makes good old disks hard to beat...
 
Im not sure why anyone is surprised by this.
Because it's not widely advertised. Apple makes a big thing of buying content.

It could disappear is buried in the T&Cs.

Hopefully this will make it widely known.
 
Content will continued to be lost to time, whether that be license revoked, physical media damage, out of production or otherwise.
Physical media largely lasts a lifetime. My first CDs and DVDs still work.

Films can disappear tomorrow down to a changing of the contract with the film company and Apple.
 
You can download films you buy using iTunes on a PC or a Mac, but you'd be limited to no more than the HD version of that film. You cannot download UHD 4K content from Apple and you've only ever the option of streaming the UHD version of films you've bought from them.
What was the format of the movie deleted, probably SD or HD ! Hence if he really cared he would have taken copies to hard drive. If I lost my dvd of Jurassic Park, probably not bothered as would have bought 3 new formats by then.

Great thing that outweighs this issue is that you get free updates to 4K and Atmos versions. Disks you have to buy new ones all the time. How many of us have bought multiple versions!

By time they start deleting 4K versions we will be on iOS with 4K downloads I suspect.

What they should do is advise this will be deleted in x months you might like to download.

Kevin
 
I love physical media and I buy most of my discs in collectors editions i.e film arena , blu fans etc.
Love to have something nice to admire not just a file on a drive.
As the digital bits website says buy your media it is lovely to have a nice collection to browse.
 
Was thinking of buying a Atv 4k for 4k content. However, this article has changed my mind. Thanks Avforums
 
I noticed this happen to me with "Alien: Covenant". I bought it on offer a couple of weeks back at £3.99, solely for the 4K HDR version it was advertised as being. Came to watch it earlier this week and found I only had the HD version. Looked on the iTunes store and sure enough, only HD/SD version available. Quick email to Apple, who replied that the film was only available as HD/SD. They refunded my purchase price and removed the film from my library. Fair enough, I thought. Until out of curiosity, I looked at the iTunes store last night and miraculously 'Alien: Covenant" is back to 4K HDR. But now it's £7.99, double what I originally paid. I know we're only talking £8, but it's the principle.
 
Films have been going backwards to HD then back to 4K as part of the Atmos /tvos12 updates, See the thread on movies turning. This will probably stabilise from Monday!

Would suggest you contact Apple and reverse cancel, although was only £3.99.

Btw how much is the uhd Blu-ray for this movie?

Kevin
 
What was the format of the movie deleted, probably SD or HD ! Hence if he really cared he would have taken copies to hard drive. If I lost my dvd of Jurassic Park, probably not bothered as would have bought 3 new formats by then.

Great thing that outweighs this issue is that you get free updates to 4K and Atmos versions. Disks you have to buy new ones all the time. How many of us have bought multiple versions!

By time they start deleting 4K versions we will be on iOS with 4K downloads I suspect.

What they should do is advise this will be deleted in x months you might like to download.

Kevin

Apple have already started removing the 4K versions of some of the films they sell. The UHD versions have been removed leaving just the HD version. As said, you cannot download the UHD version.
 
Was thinking of buying a Atv 4k for 4k content. However, this article has changed my mind. Thanks Avforums
In the same boat and found about this the other day. Glad avforums is making it more widely known, too. Still possibly interested in the ATV4K for rentals but I have a feeling that the distribution licensing wars are just heating up so f***ery like this will become more prevalent. Imagine Amazon or Netflix pulling their apps from one TV / STB platform, and another company pulling theirs from the other, one studio pulling their movies from one platform, etc. It could get really messy.

I'm starting to wonder whether HTPC's will become viable again once you can do DV on Windows, at least you'd have one box that could play anything.
 
Great thing that outweighs this issue is that you get free updates to 4K and Atmos versions. Disks you have to buy new ones all the time. How many of us have bought multiple versions!
Note, the 4K versions can also drop back to HD.

Apple did not just kill 4k Blu-ray with the 4K TV box

And needing a hard drive is an extra cost.

Buy a 4K disk and it will always be a 4K disk and won't magically disappear.

Aside from it being higher quality and having a bluray and extra features as well.
 
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Im not sure why anyone is surprised by this. The money you pay is for a license to access the content.
I'm glad you knew about this because the rest of us didn't.

I was always under the impression when 'buying' it, I would forever hold the title of the said purchase. I usually delete films when I run out of hard disk space and re-download in the future. This now means I may potentially lose purchased films and may not know about it until the time comes to re-download them.
 
I'm glad you knew about this because the rest of us didn't.

I was always under the impression when 'buying' it, I would forever hold the title of the said purchase. I usually delete films when I run out of hard disk space and re-download in the future. This now means I may potentially lose purchased films and may not know about it until the time comes to re-download them.
If it's not in your possession, you don't own it!

It still surprises me that people these days still don't know this or even work this out.
 
Films have been going backwards to HD then back to 4K as part of the Atmos /tvos12 updates, See the thread on movies turning. This will probably stabilise from Monday!

Would suggest you contact Apple and reverse cancel, although was only £3.99.

Btw how much is the uhd Blu-ray for this movie?

Kevin
Already asked them. Computer says no.
 
If it's not in your possession, you don't own it!

It still surprises me that people these days still don't know this or even work this out.
I don't think it's quite that simple. People wouldn't expect Google to delete their email on a whim, and they don't even pay to have it stored on their servers. People have gotten used to the convenience of cloud services and the stability brought by vendors has made people feel that their data or purchases are safe. Eg. PC gamers have been buying games on Steam for almost 15 years and you'd be hard pushed to find a PC gamer who still buys physical copies of games. I think people have similar expectations of these movie streaming services.
 
Eg. PC gamers have been buying games on Steam for almost 15 years and you'd be hard pushed to find a PC gamer who still buys physical copies of games. I think people have similar expectations of these movie streaming services.
I get what you are saying but Steam is different because you still have the game downloaded on your hard drive and Steam also have facilities to back up the game. But you are right in that people made assumptions about availability which simply don't hold up if you have any knowledge of how the Internet "actually" works. But I suppose that is easy for me to say.
 

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