Why Is the Movie I Bought on Itunes Not Showing Up and Wants Me to Buy It Again
Perhaps you've heard a story that goes like this:
"Apple'south 'buy' button is a sham, because Apple has the right to remove movies from your iTunes library after you've bought them. If Disney decides it no longer wants to offer a particular moving picture in your country, your 'purchase' is no better than an extended rental. Just Blu-rays and DVDs are rubber."
Here'southward the thing: Some of that may be true. But the story about disappearing digital copies isn't. Or, at the very least, information technology's a lot more complicated than that.
Though his tweets went viral, and though he did chat with Apple tree Support, the company didn't delete or actively "remove" the movies that disappeared from Anders Gonçalves da Silva's iTunes library and his devices. Information technology seems to have been a more than complicated mix-up, based on the fact that da Silva moved his residence from one country to some other.
Near importantly: Apple tree tells CNET that it won't delete your movies, either. At least, non ones you've downloaded.
The tweet that started it all
It's not too surprising that the original tweetstorm caught fire:
Me: Hey Apple, three movies I bought disappeared from my iTunes library.
— Anders G da Silva (@drandersgs) September 10, 2018
Apple: Oh yes, those are not available anymore. Thank you for buying them. Here are two picture rentals on united states!
Me: Wait... WHAT?? @tim_cook when did this become acceptable? motion-picture show.twitter.com/dHJ0wMSQH9
It's tough not to be outraged past a seemingly tone-deafened letter like the one in a higher place. "A customer bought these movies, they're gone, and he's just getting a couple rentals in return?"
Indeed, dig deeper into Apple tree's Terms of Service, and you'll come across that it quietly warns that you lot may not be able to redownload content if it's "no longer offered on our Services." It'south not difficult to encounter why headlines similar "Apple can delete the movies yous purchased without telling yous" started spreading effectually the spider web.
But accept a closer look at da Silva'due south tweet, and in that location's something interesting going on. Apple Back up thinks he'south in Canada, while da Silva'southward Twitter profile and LinkedIn show he's from Commonwealth of australia. That'due south a rather large geographical difference.
When we reached out to da Silva, he clarified the disparity: He moved to Canada, roughly nine months ago,later on purchasing the films in Australia. Not just is that two carve up countries, it's ii carve up iTunes Store regions. Perhaps Canada doesn't offer those films anymore, and that left him unable to admission them in his new location?
"Content may non exist bachelor for Redownload if that Content is no longer offered on our Services."
Screenshot by Sean Hollister/CNETThe matter is, those iii titles -- Cars, Cars 2 and The Grand Budapest Hotel, according to da Silva -- are nonetheless available to purchase in both Australia and Canada, CNET confirmed. He could buy new "Canada" copies correct now. So why are his "Australia" copies gone?
And it doesn't seem to be a matter of Australian purchases non working in Canada, either. "I take other purchases made while in Australia, and using the same Australian iTunes account, that are working perfectly fine," da Silva told CNET.
Generally, you can have iTunes purchases with y'all when yous travel, though Apple's fine impress does include a caveat in instance they disappear:
The word "might" might be of import hither.
Screenshot by Sean Hollister/CNETSimply at that place's another possibility: Perhaps da Silva still has access to the Australian versions of these movies, but non the Canadian ones?
Apple's statement
That's certainly what Apple seemed to be hinting when we asked the company virtually it this weekend. Apple tree said:
"Whatever movies you've already downloaded can be enjoyed at any time and will not exist deleted unless you've chosen to exercise so. If you lot change your country setting, some movies may non be available to redownload from the movie store if the version you lot purchased isn't besides bachelor in the new country. If needed, yous can modify your country setting back to your prior country to redownload those movies."
Sure, Apple's argument doesn't say exactly what happened to da Silva's movies, or acknowledge that Apple Support may take made a mistake when parsing the original response. But it clearly states that the visitor doesn't delete movies without your permission -- and that you lot should even be able to redownload movies from your "prior country" if they're not available in the new one.
Two possible culprits
More likely, the phrase "if the version y'all purchased isn't also available" speaks volumes about what actually happened here. Few films have a unmarried version sold throughout the world. For a variety of reasons, a motion-picture show may go trimmed in one state to get a more approachable rating (say, PG-13 in the US), or to cut politically or culturally sensitive content. And that's not even counting directors' cuts, in which multiple versions of the same film may be sold in the same region.
The other issue is that "region hopping," a mutual tactic among film lovers worldwide to go before or different versions of movies, is becoming harder and harder. So, even when someone has legitimately moved from i region to another, as da Silva has, he may be penalized by the digital walls that sellers like Apple, Amazon are continuing to enhance to close cross-region loopholes. (Amazon, Vudu and any other retailers of digital content have the same sort of contracts with the studios that Apple does.)
Indeed, those movies may even so be stored in da Silva's Australian account -- but he tin't easily switch back to the Australian region to download them again.
When we asked him to try, he sent u.s.a. this photograph:
Apple by and large requires customers to have a local credit bill of fare or PayPal account on file, which generally means he'd demand a local billing address too. Since he at present lives in Canada, not Commonwealth of australia, that's a little hard -- though da Silva says Apple Support is promising to ship him a workaround.
But fifty-fifty the workaround isn't peculiarly user-friendly. To become back into the Australian store, da Silva will have to forfeit his Canadian store subscriptions and store credits, he says. (Apple's support page suggests the same.) And if he wants to go dorsum to the Canadian store, he'll need to download them to a Mac or iOS device, and use them equally a local server, in order to stream them to his Apple Telly.
What nosotros however don't know
The reason da Silva's missing movies got then much attention: they seemingly revealed Apple tree wouldn't stand by its customers if the studios tried to pull their films. Nosotros now know it's premature to say anything like that.
To be clear, the ability to buy or hire movies on services like iTunes and Amazon already fluctuates according to studio "windowing" calendars. But even if a film you could purchase on iTunes becomes unavailable to purchase for a few weeks -- or months -- it remains attainable in the cloud to those customers who bought information technology when it was existence sold.
At least, that'due south how it's worked so far. We tin can't be sure what volition volition happen if Disney -- or any other content provider -- "recalls" a digital purchase, as a publisher did with an ebook of George Orwell'due south 1984 on Amazon back in 2009. It sounds like your "already downloaded" movies are rubber, but what about cloud-based movies you've but ever streamed? Apple doesn't say.
Nosotros may accept to cantankerous that span when we come to it. Every bit for da Silva, he at present admits that his situation was a bit of an border case:
"I cruel into a licensing crack, it seems."
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Source: https://www.cnet.com/news/no-apple-didnt-delete-that-guys-movies-heres-what-really-happened/
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