Many Purchased Movies Missing from Library

I found my movies in my Apple iTunes receipts. There are many movies I purchased which have been removed and then refreshed under new product numbers. The Batman series is the most egregious, since I owned all of them, and just recently purchased 3 of the movies. Glad I wasted that $50 when I was misled into believing I was "Purchasing" them.

I really hope Apple support is not trying to gloss over this issue. The iTunes interface gives no indication that you are either about to, or have, "lost" purchases due to catalog changes. As a major movie collector, I find this offensive, and have already ordered backup hardware to compensate for Apple's dishonesty.

That's great, unless you are an Apple TV user, in which case that notification is not provided. In fact, the purchases you've made are simply removed from your lists. So far, we've cataloged 41 titles lost this way and that's just getting started. What's infuriating are the number of titles that are precise duplicates. Here are some samples:

- The entire LOTR saga

- The entire Batman saga (old, mid, and new)

- Numerous James Bond films

- etc.

Frankly, "removing a title and replacing it with an identical copy that you no longer have access to" is fraud. You can attempt to explain it away with the TOS but those are obviously up for interpretation. The identical content IS available, they've simply changed the product number. This practice is deceptive. Period.

I just found the same thing this morning. Seven titles I previously had have disappeared from my list and five of them are still available for purchase from the Apple store.

I checked my account to see if they are hidden, but they aren’t.

I’ve close on to 500 movies in my library so it is hard to keep a tab on all the titles. To be honest this really isn’t good enough when you are paying premium prices for titles.

So Gail, how do we backup our 4K movie purchases? You know, because the EULA states that we responsible for backing up our purchases because the content may be removed at any time (hint: you can't!)? *****

<Edited by Host>

What do you mean? When you purchase anything from the iTunes Store, you should download it to your iTunes Library on your computer. Then, if you need to free up space, you should back that library up somewhere, and then delete them from your computer, and start downloading your purchases as you make them again.

Not sure I'm understanding the confusion?

GB

Yeah, great boilerplate there. Except you can't download anything to an Apple TV. Even the ver. 4 ones with sufficient on-board memory to actually do it, Apple simply doesn't let you. So there seems to be a disconnect somewhere between what Apple says you should do and what they're actually willing to help/let you do.

It's a sketchy practice at best, and -- as someone else so aptly suggested -- is pretty close to outright fraud. It's not defensible from a customer service standpoint, regardless of what chunk of the TOS you care to glibly throw at it. Even the staunchest Apple defender would probably admit that -- at the very least -- it's not a good look for Apple to allow their customers to have content purchased in good faith to be purloined back from them, right out from under their noses -- certainly not if it's a business model Apple would expect customers to trust and continue to spend their money on.

I have to say this is a common problem.

My understanding is that when you purchase the movie, it is your responsibility to then go out but an Apple Mac for £1500 in order to download it locally. In one response I got, they suggested I downloaded it onto my iPhone in case they stopped it from being available on the iTunes store – which is utter nonsense!

When you buy a DVD/Blu-ray, the shop doesn’t come to your house a few weeks later and say “I’m afraid that version isn’t available anymore, you need to buy another one!” - I am sorry Apple, if you are going to insist that we have to download from your store, and pay 3 times more than it costs to buy a DVD (sometimes 10 x more if you are willing to purchase second hand) you need to be able provide some kind of stability for our purchases.

The problem is, once you have put everything into Apple, it becomes costly to then get out and move to Google (for example). I agree though with what others are saying – if they are advertising a streaming device to purchase all your films and view them, I think they need to be able to back this up with hard evidence.

The problem I have since had, is that I can no longer stream from my phone to Apple TV – I am guessing a recent update has now stopped another feature.

Not everyone has an apple laptop (expensive) I buy my movies on my IPad and watch them on there. I only downloaded movies if I wanted to watch them on the go.

I guess my question is where would you suggest backing up 1TB of movies? Which is currently what I own, now. This will become more of a problem the more movies people start to 'own'. While I understand it's in the T&Cs, from a customer service point of view it is poor and defeats the object surely.

The point is that you bought it and you should be able to access it anytime via streaming or download. What ever the reason the supplier removed it from sale shouldn't affect your ability to watch what you paid for. Removing content for sale is different to removing previously purchased content, it would be good if that could be separated - it's not really fair on the consumer.

Precisely this. It's quite strange Apple doesn't let you backup movies to iCloud. I suppose I could just download them, convert them, and re-upload them, but the iCloud costs would be ludicrous for me (~4TB). I've opted to simply setup a Plex server and plug in some redundant 8TB HDs. Now I find out I can't backup my 4K HDR movies? What's the point of "ownership"? I thought Apple wanted to kill off the physical media market but short-sighted policies like this are just breathing life into it.

Well, I'm still not convinced that you were able to speak to someone who actually knows what can or cannot be done. Not even sure there is any such person at this point since it is relatively new technology.

Doesn't seem to me to be relevant whether you can actually play the item on anything but your Apple TV, since the point here was to have a permanent copy safe somewhere for future use.

I can purchase a 3d version of a movie that I cannot play on my 3d TV, but if I ever get one, I would be able to play it.

If I were trying to find out a definitive answer that I felt that I could absolutely rely on, I would escalate my question until I got to someone beyond the entry-level person, if you know what I mean 🙂

Best of luck,

GB

Here's my problem... Not only do I have missing movies, but when I go to check my purchase history to get the purchase numbers iTunes asks me to re sign into my account every 8 seconds. As soon as I want to look at my history farther back than 90 days it starts "glitching." When I look at anything else within my account no problem - I am not asked to resign in. Want to search my history? Suddenly, there is this "glitch."

Over the last 8+ years I have purchased for our family:

SIX MacBooks, (4 Pros, 2 Airs,)

ONE Mac mini,

SIX Apple Watches

SIX iPhones

FIVE Apples TVs (2 are 4's,)

TWO 3TB Time Capsules (one useless except as an external hard drive)

I have also bought 340+ movies and just show 310.

If they can't value and protect the over the top apple consumer like me, they certainly won't protect the one Apple product owner and their purchases. I am about ready to launch a serious social media campaign on this and change how I get our movies.

I am sick of feeling like I should be grateful for Apple allowing me to purchase their stuff. I want them to act GRATEFUL that I BUY IT!!!

I've had the same issue happening on two separate 4th gen Apple TVs. No clue what happens but have 500+ titles in our library and for some reason, sometimes it only shows a portion of them (387 if memory serves). Once I restart the Apple TV they all re-appear but no clue why they just randomly disappear sometimes. I've tried signing out and signing back in to my account but this keeps happening. Feels like a software issue to me but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Like yourself I have been finding this issue a bit of a frustration. My guess is that the argument may be that you are actually purchasing a HD copy but Apple lets you watch 4K version of the movie through ATV4K.

That being said, I’ve noticed that there are now HD and 4K versions of some movies for sale in iTunes Store through ATV4K. I was under the impression that once iTunes obtained 4K version of a movie you ’owned’ that you would be upgraded but I noticed that two of my movies (‘Captain Phillips’ and ‘Lone Survivor’) still only give me access to HD version despite a 4K version being available. I can get 4K version if I purchase the movie again.

System still finding its feet it would seem. 🏻♂

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Cheers,

GB

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Cheers,

GB