iTunes Movies Removed From Library, Can't Re-download! (1 Viewer)

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I decided not too long ago that I am going to wait for a download to own format before I make any more purchases via UV. Im wanting a "to own" format and i Dont care if its UV or Vidity or whatever. IF it doesn't show up I will stick with my physical media purchases, itunes downloads and my Plex Software and server for my media. I do believe eventually, after losing money and customers hollywood will finally get it right but the question is when?

There was lot's of talk about downloading early on with UV. When UV started all there really was, was itunes downloads, that's what everybody doing digital at that time were use too. But just reading between the lines a little I think they (UV) were even a little surprised to find out most people had no interest in downloading. At least not downloading everything, maybe just a couple for a trip or whatever. I'm guessing people trying to download everything are going to be a very small percentage of people. I really have no interest in downloading. At one time I had a 2 terabyte hard drive die...full of movies, so I'd prefer to let somebody else be responsible for keeping them in the cloud for me. I would like to see a way to download, even if temporarily, 4K movies since they need more bandwidth, but that's it....imo

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Canadian user has three movies removed from iTunes library after content provider removed them from the Canadian iTunes store, no refund offered

 

[Rodney]

"I purchased a movie from iTunes."
"I do not think that word means what you think it means."

 

[Cranston37+]

If everybody who has never lost a movie from any of these services were to post, this would be a much longer thread.

I have never lost a single movie. I can actually think of 8 right now that are no longer available for purchase that I still have in my account. If you search for “True Lies” on Vudu, nothing comes up, yet mine is still watchable. I even had Disney movies when they were put back in the vault.

Is it something to be aware of before spending your money? Sure. But in reality it’s an overblown problem.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to watch the Bela Lugosi classic “White Zombie,” which I have in my library, despite it not currently being even searchable...

 

[tempest21]

If the movie has been already downloaded, there's a pretty good chance that the content was only removed from your iTunes library and not your hard drive. If you know where your download directory is for iTunes, search that. If it's not there, by doing a comprehensive search of your hard drive (in Windows, you can do this from File Manager). Just open up Windows Explorer, select the drive by clicking on it, and allow Windows search to do a comprehensive search for the file. Sometimes, you can just do a search by file extension.

Whenever I download something, I don't let it remain on the core drive. I just cut and paste and music or movie/video to my backup hard drive, so I know where is is all the time. What you'll find, most of the time, the item has just been removed from iTunes itself, and not the physical location on your hard drive. If iTunes is deliberately deleting content on its own, then you have a very serious problem and I would conduct a rollback (in Windows, just just System Restore).

This is a good reason why it's not safe to delete your content within iTunes, especially when you're in a hurry and trying to delete as many items as you can. That's how mistakes happen. I would first try checking your Recycle Bin, before you try any of the methods I mentioned in this post.

One final thing. Been awhile since I bought anything on iTunes, I don't anymore because of their idiotic DRM but I think iTunes only allows you to download one copy.

 

[tempest21]

Looks like this whole re-download problem is a real issue. Slashfilm just reported on it and that customers of Apple might not have unlimited download rights to their previously purchased content:

https://www.slashfilm.com/you-still-own-movies-on-apple-even-if-they-disappear-from-your-library/

 

[Sam Posten]

It’s really not that big a deal to fix. The services have the right and legal responsibility to remove those films if the IP rights run out.

The markets need to be forced to alert you each and every time this happens, and to give a full refund

 

[Brian L]

There is more to the story than what was originally reported.

https://www.cnet.com/news/no-apple-...res-what-really-happened/#ftag=CAD-09-10aai5b

 

[DaveF]

Quoting the summary from the CNET article.

“It seems to have been a more complicated mix-up, based on the fact that da Silva moved his residence from one country to another. ”

https://www.cnet.com/news/no-apple-didnt-delete-that-guys-movies-heres-what-really-happened/

 

[Cranston37+]

So the keyboard warriors came out with the pitchforks and torches too quickly again?

I am shocked!

"But even if a movie you could buy on iTunes becomes unavailable to purchase for a few weeks -- or months -- it remains accessible in the cloud to those customers who bought it when it was being sold. "

 

[Robert Crawford]

So the keyboard warriors came out with the pitchforks and torches too quickly again?

I am shocked!

"But even if a movie you could buy on iTunes becomes unavailable to purchase for a few weeks -- or months -- it remains accessible in the cloud to those customers who bought it when it was being sold. "

They’re scared due to the fear of physical media being available to them on a lesser basis.

 

[DaveF]

They’re scared due to the fear of physical media being available to them on a lesser basis.

Not if, but when.

Cloud streaming is the future. It's just a question of the timescale when physical media goes away.

Maybe there will be a resurgence and the nostalgic oldsters and youthful hipsters will be able to buy artisanal, vinyl pressings of the latest MCU smash hit in UUHD. But I'll bet that will be a smaller selection of higher priced discs.

I don't know if this is good or bad. But, like electric vehicles replacing internal combustion vehicles, it's going to happen.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

It'll be interesting. They said the same thing about print books, but after a while the market share of ebooks stabilized.

I don't see the market for physical media going away completely until gigabit internet access is available universally.

 

[John Dirk]

Not if, but when.

Cloud streaming is the future. It's just a question of the timescale when physical media goes away.

Maybe there will be a resurgence and the nostalgic oldsters and youthful hipsters will be able to buy artisanal, vinyl pressings of the latest MCU smash hit in UUHD. But I'll bet that will be a smaller selection of higher priced discs.

I don't know if this is good or bad. But, like electric vehicles replacing internal combustion vehicles, it's going to happen.

I don't know, @DaveF . The thing about streaming, especially in high quality formats, is it requires a pretty decent Internet connection. Over 15 million Americans are estimated to have no access to broadband due to lack of infrastructure in rural areas, etc. Why would any industry intentionally alienate that many potential customers? I'm hoping physical media never goes away completely although I do accept that streaming is here to stay.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I’m not sure that it’ll go away completely but I could also imagine a point in time where they stop improving it.

Right now, if you want the best possible quality for a new film, that’s going to be a physical purchase of a UHD disc.

But I could imagine UHD being the last new physical format, while digital and theatrical standards still continue to evolve. So maybe in 5 or 10 years, some movies will be made in 8K, and there will be an 8K version to purchase digitally, but the only disc will be UHD. Something like that.

That’s kinda happening with many TV shows already. They broadcast in HD, and can be rented or purchased digitally in HD, but are only available on disc in standard definition DVD. So if you want the best version of that content, digital is your only option.

 

[Cranston37+]

I’ve been on HTF from near the beginning at one point had about 2,000 discs I was darn proud of.

I currently own not a single disc nor a player to play one on. I don’t even have a CD player in my car.

The funny thing is I’m now enjoying more movies than I ever have. Back in the day if I wanted to watch a movie I had to save up about $20 to buy it (and let’s not talk about laserdiscs). Now, though subscription services, I can watch as much as I want for a low price. Heck, through FilmStruck I watch a Criterion a day with extras for a yearly cost that I used to spend on 3-4 Criterion discs.

I see streaming as a boon for movie fans, not a sad time in the least.

 

[tempest21]

Thing is, the home video industry has been trying to limit what we can or can't do about the movies and television shows and music that we purchase. They've even gone so far as to sue the "used" retail market for when consumers sell those games, DVD's and Blu-rays they no longer want. It's not surprising that the entertainment industry has been trying to get out of the physical media because they don't make money from the used marketplace sellers.

But, I have serious doubts that the physical media format will truly ever go away. I just look at that idea as nothing more than "wish fulfillment" from the entertainment industry. Even Sony's proclamations that Blu-ray is the final format is unlikely, when they'll replace it with another physical media somewhere down the line.

 

[DaveF]

I don't know, @DaveF . The thing about streaming, especially in high quality formats, is it requires a pretty decent Internet connection. Over 15 million Americans are estimated to have no access to broadband due to lack of infrastructure in rural areas, etc. Why would any industry intentionally alienate that many potential customers? I'm hoping physical media never goes away completely although I do accept that streaming is here to stay.

Yep. US broadband is the main problem that could hinder streaming. But speeds will increase. The past ten years we’ve seen a 10x increase in baseline speed (5 to 50) in many places, with Gb affordable. And even in smaller markets, 5-15 Mb speeds are normal, which are fine for HD.

But we’re going to see 5G rollout. And is starting in mid-size big cities, like Indianapolis, offering Gb speeds. From what I’ve read, the best markets for this may be the smaller cities to start, not the Coastal metropolitan mega cities.

Ultimately, streaming will take over. It’s just a matter of time. It might not be three years, it might be ten or more. But I think it’s the future.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Ultimately, I don't think physical will go away because of some nefarious studio plan, or a desire by a studio to limit ownership. Physical is going away because the demand for physical is going away. Major studios are licensing out titles to smaller labels right now because there's not a big enough market for those titles for the studios to justify the time, effort and expense to put out those physical releases themselves. None of the studios that currently license out titles would do so if they could make a fortune selling those titles themselves.

The way average viewers wish to consume media, and the price they're willing to pay for the media they consume, is changing drastically due to consumer preference. The average viewer is being trained that media has very little intrinsic value, which significantly decreases how much they're willing to spend on it. And there's simply very little incentive for a studio to produce a product which is not in demand and which will have difficulty turning a profit.

In the end, we're going to be moving into a mostly (if not exclusively) streaming world because that is where the viewer is already moving. Those of us who post on forums like this one, who collect physical media, who collect movies in any format, and who have strong preferences for watching specific movies at specific times, are very much in the minority of all movie watchers. Most people are happy to simply watch "a movie", preferably one they haven't seen, but one that falls within their comfort zone, and wish to do so at a decent level of quality that doesn't cost a lot of money or require any kind of hassle. Streaming checks off all of those boxes, so streaming has become the preference for a great many people. People didn't jump to streaming because someone took their discs away first; people jumped to streaming because it was cheaper and easier than discs at levels of quality similar or indistinguishable or better to them.

 

[Cranston37+]

Thing is, the home video industry has been trying to limit what we can or can't do about the movies and television shows and music that we purchase.

Ultimately, I don't think physical will go away because of some nefarious studio plan, or a desire by a studio to limit ownership.

The biggest problem with these arguments though is the “purchase” and “ownership” angle.

Consumers have moved to subscribing to media. A subscription for all the music you want (Apple, Google, Spotify, etc), a subscription for books (Kindle Unlimited), magazines (Texture - recently purchased by Apple), Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime.

And regarding internet speeds - Verizon just this week announced the rollout of home 5G service (1Gb speed) with no caps, throttles, or deprioritization for only $50/month. Internet will not be an impediment to anything.