iTunes Store Purchases and DRM's, Fairplay

Okay well when I say 'fully own' what I mean is in the same capacity that purchasing a CD or a Vinyl confers ownership. I understand that owning a copy of content does not provide legal rights to do whatever you want with the content creators work. Legal notices on DVD's, VHS' and Blu-Ray discs have made that very clear over the past 20 years.

However, I want to be able to play my content without an internet connection, and not necessarily from an Apple device -- for instance, from a thumb drive plugged into an AVR. Or from a local harddrive broadcast over a local area network.

Most of all, I want offline playback of my purchased downloaded content. So I will not be buying any shows or movies from iTunes if it means I cannot play the files from a offline computer, Smart TV (via thumb drive or internal storage) or other settop box like a playstation or media-player PC. I care about this because I'd rather not pay for continued internet access after the downloading of my purchased content. I prefer to pay for cellular data and go offline for the rest of my network, with a (mostly ethernet) local area network for home automation and management using various sensors and appliances over the local area network. Part of the appeal of Apple products for me is the large support for offline smart home technology. HomeKit, AirPrint and AirPlay all work offline over LAN. It's too bad iTunes Movie files will not play offline because of authentication requirements.

I have a large collection of physical disks, most of which are blu-rays. But I would like to switch over to a digital collection in the future for various reasons (ease of portability and storage, more playback support. Less moving parts, ability to back up collection with redundancy and so forth).

I do not understand why streaming would be outside my rights. If I wanted to stream a file via AirPlay that seems like a perfectly legal thing to do. I'm assuming you mean file sharing via peer-to-peer connections. It is my understanding that I am allowed to legally make copies of content to give away to friends and family as gifts free of charge.

I understand that making copies to sell for profit is not within my legal rights. But last I checked I am allowed to freely duplicate my own files for back ups.

Okay well that's helpful to know. I was doing some research on digital copyright law and it appears that for physical mediums like disks, first sale rights apply.

But it looks like first sale rights don't necessarily apply to digital purchases, especially when they aren't purchased directly from the copyright holder (the record label, or artist directly).

I have some legal questions for Apple now, because I believe Apple has included transfer of license rights in the iTunes Store terms of service to enable resale of purchased titles. I wonder now about the legality of that funtion. I also wonder now about the legality of Apple's Mastered for iTunes program which basically thwarts the original product that is copyrighted (the master recording). It seems to confer Apple as the sole copyright holder of the new altered Mastered for iTunes Master File, which would in my mind make Apple the sole distributor of that property (and not the record label or artist). In that case, it would seem to me to be legal for first sale rights to apply specifically to Mastered for iTunes distributions.

Also, can iTunes movie and tv show purchases be played offline without an internet connection?

As I said before, I do not intend on keeping an running home internet connection. Mobile data is more than enough for my needs. However, I am an art enthusiast and I appreciate cinematography and music a lot. I know Apple codecs are some of the best in the world, and I trust the quality of the Apple file. I shouldn't require an internet connection to play a movie that I purchased from a store. I have the same expectation for movies and shows I purchase from the iTunes Store, with the bonus that digital files are easier to store in small spaces and have no physical weight to move (This becomes a big problem when moving and packing up possessions; same deal for e-books and physical books. Boxes of tiny books are incredibly heavy -- I know because I have a personal library I had to move and it was very unpleasant).