My understanding WRT buying a movie on iTunes was:
1. If you download the movie, you will always have the ability to play the movie you downloaded.
2. As long as Apple has the rights to distribute the movie, you will be able to re-download it again
3. If Apple loses the rights, and you don't have your own backed up copy, it's lost.
It's the same for Audible books; which is why I always d/l and backup any movie or book I buy electronically.
Buying a physical DVD is only #1. If you buy a physical DVD at Walmart or whatever, and then lose it, you can't go back to Walmart and ask for a second DVD; that's a perk of buying an electronic copy.
Compare this to buying a piece of software off a website for $30. You download the installer, install it, and use it. Six months later, the company goes out of business and the website does down. You can still use the software as long as you still have the installed version and/or the installer; but if you lose the installer, you lose access.
I guess the difference is that Apple is purposely blurring the line between "storing stuff in the cloud" and "redownloading" movies. What should really happen is that three months before Apple loses the distribution rights, they should send an email to everyone who's bought the move, telling them to either 1) Download it to their own local hard drive 2) Buy an iCloud subscription and click this button, and Apple will automatically "download" it from iTunes to your iCloud folder on your behalf. (EDIT: Which due to [1], will probably require actually shipping bits over some internal network for each individual user.)
Luckily this has been true for Apple so far. But there is still the chance in the future that they stop supporting the DRM (either voluntarily or involuntarily).
Just look what happened to Microsoft's ironically named "PlaysForSure" DRM. They shut down the DRM servers in 2008 and made everyone's "purchased" content unplayable.
edit: I double-checked how Apple FairPlay DRM works to make sure I wasn't mistaken. But no, to play FairPlay DRMed content, you need to log in with iTunes which downloads your user decryption key. So if you got banned from Apple's services (credit card chargebacks, etc) then you can no longer log in to play your content, even if you have the media files. So you are only licensing it for as long as you agree to the terms of service, not buying it.
Right, so THIS aspect I totally agree with: If someone says "Buy", it must be possible for you to hand down a copy of that to play to your great-great-grandkids. That means it can't be turned off or lost because your account is cancelled; and shutting down DRM servers should require unlocking all DRM'd content first. Otherwise "Buy" really was a lie.
This is true, but movies purchased on iTunes can only be downloaded at 720p or 1080p. To play back in 4k/HDR it must be streamed. It sucks because I don't own a 4K blu-ray player but wanted a few movies to try out my OLED and bought some movies on iTunes. They look great, and comparisons online put them within close distance to 4k blu-rays in quality, but I can never "own" them in full resolution.
The files will show up under “Movies” and “TV Shows” within your iTunes media folder. If you have a NAS or external HDD (that mounts prior to the media server service starting!) you can change your media folder to point to it. It still has DRM tho.
The best of both worlds is movies that come with a digital code (usually moviesanywhere.com codes now) so you have both the physical media and the ability to enjoy the digital title on a digital library.
1. If you download the movie, you will always have the ability to play the movie you downloaded.
2. As long as Apple has the rights to distribute the movie, you will be able to re-download it again
3. If Apple loses the rights, and you don't have your own backed up copy, it's lost.
It's the same for Audible books; which is why I always d/l and backup any movie or book I buy electronically.
Buying a physical DVD is only #1. If you buy a physical DVD at Walmart or whatever, and then lose it, you can't go back to Walmart and ask for a second DVD; that's a perk of buying an electronic copy.
Compare this to buying a piece of software off a website for $30. You download the installer, install it, and use it. Six months later, the company goes out of business and the website does down. You can still use the software as long as you still have the installed version and/or the installer; but if you lose the installer, you lose access.
I guess the difference is that Apple is purposely blurring the line between "storing stuff in the cloud" and "redownloading" movies. What should really happen is that three months before Apple loses the distribution rights, they should send an email to everyone who's bought the move, telling them to either 1) Download it to their own local hard drive 2) Buy an iCloud subscription and click this button, and Apple will automatically "download" it from iTunes to your iCloud folder on your behalf. (EDIT: Which due to [1], will probably require actually shipping bits over some internal network for each individual user.)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UMG_Recordings,_Inc._v._MP3.co....