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Do i have to worry about buying movies/shows and leaving them in the cloud?

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Soulweaponry

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 13, 2010
394
1
When i started buying movies on itunes, people told me it was a bad idea. That i "better keep the hard copy downloaded because apple could take the movie down at any time if licensing agreements change". Is this true?

Seems to me like apple may take down the "for sale" version of a movie if an agreement change, but not the "icloud backup" type version that plays on our appletvs for people that already bought it. I know alot of people with appletvs that buy movies and shows and never even use iTunes. They just click "buy" on their atvs and expect it to always be there. What do you guys think?
 
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musicpenguy

macrumors 68000
Oct 29, 2006
1,824
734
I think the people here will give you an over reaction answer and tell you to download everything. I trust icloud and don't have room to keep a local copy. I may at some point invest in hard drives for it.

In most cases even if a movie is pulled from the store it is still in your icloud library. There is the very rare instances where that is not the case but I wouldn't worry too much about it.
 
From A Buick 8

From A Buick 8

macrumors 68040
Sep 16, 2010
3,114
127
Ky Close to CinCinnati
Soulweaponry said:
When i started buying movies on itunes, people told me it was a bad idea. That i "better keep the hard copy downloaded because apple could take the movie down at any time if licensing agreements change". Is this true?

Seems to me like apple may take down the "for sale" version of a movie if an agreement change, but not the "icloud backup" type version that plays on our appletvs for people that already bought it. I know alot of people with appletvs that buy movies and shows and never even use iTunes. They just click "buy" on their atvs and expect it to always be there. What do you guys think?
Click to expand...

It is a risk, just like keeping movies on a hard drive without the proper backup is a risk.

You just have to accept the risk live with it or find a way to mitigate it.
 
HobeSoundDarryl

HobeSoundDarryl

macrumors G5
Feb 8, 2004
12,199
15,488
Hobe Sound, FL (20 miles north of Palm Beach)
musicpenguy said:
In most cases even if a movie is pulled from the store it is still in your icloud library. There is the very rare instances where that is not the case but I wouldn't worry too much about it.
Click to expand...

Are you speculating here or do you know these are statements of fact? I've seen much to the contrary. As I understand it, the Studios can pull any video media at any time- and do- and that would mean it will NOT still be available in iCloud for those who purchased it. iTunes media is not owned media; instead, it's "lifetime license" with lots of restrictions.

Whichever understanding is actually true, the only real ("I don't want to buy physical media and rip it myself") solution that will work is to download a local copy (and, ideally, back it up at least once to a second drive). Big hard drives that can hold a LOT of iTunes movies are cheap. Spend the money on two and download anything you value so that you are not reliant solely on iCloud.
 
TweakOnline

TweakOnline

macrumors regular
Dec 17, 2012
206
1
Europe
Does someone know how much I can trust iTunes Match?

I got my whole music library on it, without having a backup of it on my MacBook. (Because I don't have enough space left.) Will I am be okay with this?
 
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ScholarsInk

macrumors 6502
Apr 3, 2010
365
424
I don't know why Apple doesn't renegotiate the license towards something like Valve's. (If software is pulled from the Steam store, it can still be redownloaded by people who purchased it.)
 
HobeSoundDarryl

HobeSoundDarryl

macrumors G5
Feb 8, 2004
12,199
15,488
Hobe Sound, FL (20 miles north of Palm Beach)
TweakOnline said:
Does someone know how much I can trust iTunes Match? I got my whole music library on it, without having a backup of it on my MacBook. (Because I don't have enough space left.) Will I am be okay with this?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure you'll get a definitive answer. Conceptually, you should be fine. Pragmatically, you are basically trusting one of the biggest companies in the world to take care of your data. Solution: buy 2 hard drives for local backup. Then, you don't have any dependency on iCloud but you can enjoy the convenience of it to the fullest. Hard drives are cheap. Back it up locally and you can near a "no worry" (in any scenario) situation.

In my opinion, this "trust the cloud" mentality is begging for trouble. Look back to when banks were not backed by the U.S. Government. People trusted individual companies to protect their hard-earned cash and had an assumption that these banks would always be there. Lots of money was lost when banks collapsed back then. Now you have the U.S. Government backing several hundred thousand dollars in deposits if a bank fails. There is no equivalent backing your value stored in iCloud.

Could Apple/iCloud fail in the near future? Unlikely. But still, it's trusting a single company to safeguard your media if you don't spend $50, $100, $200 to buy enough (local) hard drive storage to be your own backup. There's a reason that people went to stashing money in their mattresses in the old days.
 
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mic j

macrumors 68030
Mar 15, 2012
2,663
156
HobeSoundDarryl said:
I'm not sure you'll get a definitive answer. Conceptually, you should be fine. Pragmatically, you are basically trusting one of the biggest companies in the world to take care of your data. Solution: buy 2 hard drives for local backup. Then, you don't have any dependency on iCloud but you can enjoy the convenience of it to the fullest. Hard drives are cheap. Back it up locally and you can near a "no worry" (in any scenario) situation.

In my opinion, this "trust the cloud" mentality is begging for trouble. Look back to when banks were not backed by the U.S. Government. People trusted individual companies to protect their hard-earned cash and had an assumption that these banks would always be there. Lots of money was lost when banks collapsed back then. Now you have the U.S. Government backing several hundred thousand dollars in deposits if a bank fails. There is no equivalent backing your value stored in iCloud.

Could Apple/iCloud fail in the near future? Unlikely. But still, it's trusting a single company to safeguard your media if you don't spend $50, $100, $200 to buy enough (local) hard drive storage to be your own backup. There's a reason that people went to stashing money in their mattresses in the old days.
Click to expand...
You forgot to add that the rest of the world is now backing the U.S. government. So....who backs up the rest of the world? :eek:
 
TweakOnline

TweakOnline

macrumors regular
Dec 17, 2012
206
1
Europe
HobeSoundDarryl said:
I'm not sure you'll get a definitive answer. Conceptually, you should be fine. Pragmatically, you are basically trusting one of the biggest companies in the world to take care of your data. Solution: buy 2 hard drives for local backup. Then, you don't have any dependency on iCloud but you can enjoy the convenience of it to the fullest. Hard drives are cheap. Back it up locally and you can near a "no worry" (in any scenario) situation.

In my opinion, this "trust the cloud" mentality is begging for trouble. Look back to when banks were not backed by the U.S. Government. People trusted individual companies to protect their hard-earned cash and had an assumption that these banks would always be there. Lots of money was lost when banks collapsed back then. Now you have the U.S. Government backing several hundred thousand dollars in deposits if a bank fails. There is no equivalent backing your value stored in iCloud.

Could Apple/iCloud fail in the near future? Unlikely. But still, it's trusting a single company to safeguard your media if you don't spend $50, $100, $200 to buy enough (local) hard drive storage to be your own backup. There's a reason that people went to stashing money in their mattresses in the old days.
Click to expand...

Another reason I want to have an Apple 2TB Time Capsule. :)
Thanks for your answer!
 
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musicpenguy

macrumors 68000
Oct 29, 2006
1,824
734
I use iTunes Match to do exactly what you do - to have all my music stored there and delete the local copies - I trust Apple to have hard drives that don't crash unlike mine.
 
TweakOnline

TweakOnline

macrumors regular
Dec 17, 2012
206
1
Europe
musicpenguy said:
I use iTunes Match to do exactly what you do - to have all my music stored there and delete the local copies - I trust Apple to have hard drives that don't crash unlike mine.
Click to expand...

Haha, I feel the same bro.

But at the other side it is good to have a backup placed on your (or mine) Time Capsule. Unfortunately those routers aren't cheap at all...
 
roidy

roidy

macrumors 65816
Dec 30, 2008
1,027
22
Nottingham, UK
musicpenguy said:
I trust Apple to have hard drives that don't crash unlike mine.
Click to expand...

It isn't about trusting Apple to have hard drives that don't crash. What will you do if, however unlikely, in years to come Apple discontinue the service, with no copy of your own stored locally you've just lost all your music.
 
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brentsg

macrumors 68040
Oct 15, 2008
3,578
936
What if they just have a problem with the service? No worry, all iTunes needs to do is rescan your library. Oops..
 
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musicpenguy

macrumors 68000
Oct 29, 2006
1,824
734
Yea my eventual game plan is to have local copies - I have an almost empty DroboPro that I want to fill up with hard drives and iTunes Media.

For now I trust Apple and the company is stable enough with a good enough track record behind it. They gave MobileMe members a full year warning before discontinuing service. If things like iTunes in the Cloud go away I'm confident we will have a good warning ahead of time.
 
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mpress03

macrumors member
Feb 24, 2012
40
0
If a studio decides not to let you stream from the cloud I don't see why Apple wouldn't let you download another local copy.

If a studio pulls something from iTunes, I doubt it would work even with a local copy. They are protected by DRM and Apple could decide to no longer play that file, whether local or not. This happened to me with a digital copy of a book on B&N. They gave me a refund, but I still was not able to use the local copy because of the DRM. Just a thought.
 
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babens

macrumors member
Mar 11, 2012
72
22
If the studio pulls the title from iTunes it will not be available in the cloud. I can speak from firsthand experience. At one point Anchorman was briefly available on iTunes. I bought it at that pint but it has since been pulled again. It does not show up as an available download in my purchased section and is not available to stream to my Apple TV. Luckily I do keep local copies of everything I buy off of iTunes so I still have it on my MacBook Pro.
 
P

pavelbure

macrumors 6502a
Feb 22, 2007
779
562
babens said:
If the studio pulls the title from iTunes it will not be available in the cloud. I can speak from firsthand experience. At one point Anchorman was briefly available on iTunes. I bought it at that pint but it has since been pulled again. It does not show up as an available download in my purchased section and is not available to stream to my Apple TV. Luckily I do keep local copies of everything I buy off of iTunes so I still have it on my MacBook Pro.
Click to expand...

Same thing happened with me on other movies. I never trust the cloud. It isn't apples fault, it's these damn studios.
 
jeremiah256

jeremiah256

macrumors 65816
Aug 2, 2008
1,444
1,169
Southern California
Invest In An External Hard Drive

As has already been stated, when the studios pull the movie, there's not much Apple can do. I think I went through this with The Incredible Hulk movie. For a time, I was unable to access it via iCloud but luckily had the original DVD. Later, it again became available online. Lesson learned, now I download all my video media. Haven't experienced this with music but that also might be what happens. What I have experienced with music is the iCloud version over-writing my uploaded or bought version. Normally not an issue but I've had several songs that originally used explicit language, converted to the clean version. Not good.

Buy an external hard drive. You can Google or probably search here on Mac Rumors on how to maintain two libraries, one that is almost empty for your computer and another library on your external hard drive with everything. It's also good practice to have more than one copy of all your digital objects. iCloud will be your backup in case of a local disaster.
 
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