Why is Coldplay Live 2012 no longer available in the iTune store, and did my previous purchase of that content vanish from my iCloud ? library

same issue...bizzare that its just gone. What about our $19.99 spent also? I'd rather have the concert than money, but still..

The content owners can remove their content at any time without warning. It would seem that they have done so in this case. Sometimes they have an item licensed only for a limited time, or they strike an exclusive deal with some other outlet. We have no way of knowing.

In any case, it indeed does appear to have been removed from the iTunes Store, so if you don't have a backup copy, it's gone. This is why even Apple strongly recommends that you make backups of anything you purchase from the iTunes Store, since there is (and can be) no guarantee that any item will perpetually available for redownload.

Regards.

I did notice that Amazon is "selling" this video through their service. Would be pretty sneaky to sell albums on itunes, pull the content, and move to another source. Isn't something "purchased" considered owned forever? All of this appears to be shady business..

this also appears to be a crack in the "Cloud" business model. At least physically lost items are on you.

Once purchased, then yes, it's purchased forever. Your local copy will remain and continue to work. But that doesn't guarantee that you'll forever be able to redownload it if you didn't download it intially or deleted your local copy. If an item is removed for the iTunes Store, then it's removed for any purpose, new purchase or redownload.

As to being "sneaky", content providers do that all the time. They sign exclusive deals with Amazon, or cable channels, or even the iTunes Store (though with the exception of iTunes Exclusives I've not heard of that happenign), and pull the content from any other provider.

Regards.

Yep. If you don't download a local copy, then you're totally at the mercy of the service and the content provider.

Well it looks like the movie is back in the iTunes store, but it's not in my purchased items list. I contacted support and was told:

"it appears that the movie probably got modified. When an item is modified in the iTunes Store, or removed entirely, we no longer have access to the original one that you ordered. If you wish to watch this again, you will need to purchase it."

It's the same movie. Nothing got "modified." I think I'm just going to buy my movies the "old fashioned way" on DVD/blu ray. I don't think Best Buy can come in to my house and remove the discs from my shelves whenever they want.

Thomas Costello wrote:

It's the same movie. Nothing got "modified." I think I'm just going to buy my movies the "old fashioned way" on DVD/blu ray. I don't think Best Buy can come in to my house and remove the discs from my shelves whenever they want.

The content owners may not consider it to be the same movie.

In any case, Apple can't remove content from your computer or backups either. But the content owners can, and do, remove your access to re-download previously purchased material. If you failed to keep a local copy, then as I said previously, you're at the mercy of the content owners. Obviously with a physical disk that's not a problem, but access to online material from such disks can be modified or removed, so the problem isn't completely eliminated by purchasing a disk.

Regards.

I did not fail to keep a local copy. Fortunately, I have an iMac and I downloaded the movie when it was still in my purchased items list. I would imagine, however, that there are many people who only own an iPad/iPhone and/or an Apple TV and don't own a computer and therefore lost the ability to stream this item from iTunes. This, after all, was the promise of the "Post-PC world" that Apple was "ushering in" (and yes, I recognize that the person who said this at the 2011 WWDC keynote - the SVP of iOS Software - is no longer employed by Apple).

And I do understand that content creators can remove items from the store, or modify "something" in the original (perhaps that even applies to "modified" artwork) and require people to re-purchase the item. In fact, I hope it occurs more often with movies, and perhaps even TV shows and music and books (sorry, you have to re-purchase the book because we replaced the original with one containing a new forward). Maybe then people will see that they are not actually "purchasing" the items at all, and that the whole "iTunes in the Cloud" is, at best, nothing more than a marketing gimmick.

There was never any promise that all content would be available forever.

It has always been very basic to always maintain a backup copy of your computer and its content.

There was never any promise that all content would be available forever.

It has always been very basic to always maintain a backup copy of your computer and its content.

I understand that. In fact, I explicitly stated that I understood that. I have an iMac with 4TB of redundant backup, which includes all of my iTunes content. You know that I should back up to a computer. I know that I should back up to a computer. I am just saying that there is a disconnect between the "promise" of iTunes in the Cloud for those who bought into Apple's "Post-PC world" where people have an iOS device as their only device and the reality that the content will disappear and not be available. I don't know why I am so concerned about the non-tech savvy people who buy an iPhone or iPad as their only device and then "purchase" the content only to have it disappear. So, I'm sorry about my rant.

I have had several music albums disappear and re-appear - they appear identical as far as i can tell, but are no longer in the cloud.

I have always kept multiple backups for streaming to AppleTV but the potentially transient nature of cloud material I believe will catch many people out when they don't read the small print.

A slightly worrying development is the new iTunes Extras being available from the cloud only on AppleTV/iTunes - you can no longer download itunes Extras for new titles, and I hope the media companies and Apple are not planning on a future streaming only model for new purchases - largely because many of us don't have blazing fast internet but also because of the possibility of content being pulled.