Apple Pulls Some Disney and Pixar Titles From iTunes Store and iTunes in the Cloud [Updated]

[fa8362]

Apparently, a lot of you didn't know that you weren't buying the movies when you gave Apple your money. You should have read the user agreement.

This type of situation is one of the reasons I've never bought anything from iTunes and never will.

Also, a class action suit will fail because people agreed to Apple's terms which are clearly spelled out in the user agreement.

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YES IT IS

1. Did they buy the movie to own? YES
2. If you own a movie can you play it anytime you want? YES
3. If they remove it from you watching it, have they deleted it? YES[

They don't own the movie. They never read the user agreement where it clearly states that they don't own anything.

 

[Bishope1999]

i think people are confused. When you buy a movie on iTunes and after downloading the movie, that is your copy that you own. You are responsible for its safekeeping. Them giving you an option to keep re-downloading the file or to stream it is really generous on their part. Apple cloud charge you a fee to stream your movie thru the cloud. I brought lion lion keep and and why they removed it i was still able to watch it on my apple tv, because i have the file on my iMac

Put it this way if you buy a blu-ray from best buy and lose it, you can go back to best buy and demand a new copy.

Nope, but if the disc you bought, for some bizarre reason had disc rot and stopped playing after the third viewing, you could go back to Best Buy and they will replace it.

I don't know, maybe Ultra Violet is a more secure cloud storage than iCloud? While I've only tried two HD versions of the Ultraviolet, their service is there so I can stream that movie from any device whenever I want. That is what Ultraviolet is, they have the movies in the clouds for you to stream from anywhere whenever you want. Plus, the Blu-ray disc, on top of including the Ultra Violet, brings an HD iTunes/digital copy for the most part. So you have a more secure streaming service through Ultra Violet and the HD digital copy to store as well.

Honestly though, I've mainly used the HD Ultra Violet/Digital Copies to compare their HD to that of Blu-ray. Most other codes I either give away or just let them sit there. Like I have Season 5 of Breaking Bad Ultra Violet/ iTunes code that came along with my Blu-ray purchase which I don't need. If anyone wants that code, let me know so it can go to good use and won't expire.

 

[fa8362]

Nope, but if the disc you bought, for some bizarre reason had disc rot and stopped playing after the third viewing, you could go back to Best Buy and they will replace it.

If that disc died more than 14 days after purchase, Best Buy is not obligated to replace it. The consumer would have to deal with the manufacturer, unless Best Buy decided to extend their 14 day guarantee.

 

[Bishope1999]

If that disc died more than 14 days after purchase, Best Buy is not obligated to replace it. The consumer would have to deal with the manufacturer, unless Best Buy decided to extend their 14 day guarantee.

Yes. But sometimes the manufacturer will help. The only time I had an issue with a Blu-ray disc, T2 Skynet Edition, the menu didn't load correctly. I rode it out for months until I decided to contact Lionsgate about the issue. They told me to try it in another Blu-ray player, at that time I only had 1 BD Player, and if the issue didn't go away, they told me to send in the disc for a replacement. Shortly after, I bought my second BD Player and indeed that was the only issue, the disc was fine.

But Lionsgate was willing to exchange the copy for me.

 

[Xiroteus]

i think people are confused. When you buy a movie on iTunes and after downloading the movie, that is your copy that you own. You are responsible for its safekeeping. Them giving you an option to keep re-downloading the file or to stream it is really generous on their part. Apple cloud charge you a fee to stream your movie thru the cloud. I brought lion lion keep and and why they removed it i was still able to watch it on my apple tv, because i have the file on my iMac

Put it this way if you buy a blu-ray from best buy and lose it, you can go back to best buy and demand a new copy.

Slightly different since it's digital vs tangible. (No real cost to have people download it again) I can also see how they could say once you download it make sure to back it up because that's all we do. Being able to re-download is a good thing for people and a little extra. In the case of Apple they do make a big deal about iCloud and that you almost don't have to download anything to your computer.

 

[scottishwildcat]

How can they pull content that's been paid for? This is why I don't buy movies from iTunes or anywhere else as a download. I consider this THEFT and expect a class-action suit to be filed.

Good luck with that. Everybody who signed up agreed to the T&Cs, which clearly allow this to happen, as it can any other cloud-based service.

If you want to keep stuff, buy the physical media. Or at least back up everything you buy as soon as you download it.

 

[FlatlinerG]

The issue is that if you want to push your cloud offers, you want to give customers the perception that it's safe to keep stuff there. If the customers start to think that their digital goods are not safe in the cloud and they have to download everything and keep it on their local storage you might have a problem with your cloud strategy...

So at what point should the consumer be responsible to know their rights and responsibilities?

Blame needs to be directed at consumers eventually. A perfect example is why there is a need to have a warning label on coffee cups saying that the contents are hot. Next up, we'll have to put a warning label beside any major highway that says, "Caution, cars are moving fast, you might die".

 

[bencjedi]

You need iTunes 10 on a computer (PC or Mac) to do it plus a copy of Requiem (the program which does the DRM removal). It doesn't strip out the metadata, so Apple can find out who originally bought it if you decide to 'share' the files with others.

Thanks! I did the Fandango deal when Star Trek: Into Darkness was in the theater. The deal was that if you purchased your ticket on Fandango you got a free iTunes copy of the first movie. Well I cannot play the movie back on my local system because the integrated video chip on my motherboard is not HDCP compliant and I don't have one of the newer monitors with HDMI connectors either to support this BS. I can play the movie downloaded on my iPad3, but it's a local copy taking up a lot of space (and I only have a 16GB device). On my PC I have a nice 20" widesreen monitor, but because of the stupid DRM I am not able to watch it there. Can't wait to strip out the crap and watch it on the larger screen. Thanks!

 

[xxBURT0Nxx]

Well I have an external 16X LG Blu-Ray burner, got the best thing I could find. I just haven't gotten into ripping Blu-Rays because there's no software that's just click, make a full-size QuickTime file of the movie. That's what I'd want. A one-button software that just transfers the movie into a QuickTime file of 25GB or 30GB or whatever it is.

And since all my Blu-Rays work with Mac Blu-Ray Player I'm okay for now either way.

The programs I mentioned do make files out of your blurays that can be played in quicktime. You can set the settings in whatever way you like, lossless, compressed, for iPad, iPhone, aTV, etc. It's a few more than 1 click, but not exactly difficult to do, and once you determine your settings you can save them as a preset for every movie.

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YES IT IS

1. Did they buy the movie to own? YES
2. If you own a movie can you play it anytime you want? YES
3. If they remove it from you watching it, have they deleted it? YES

NO IT'S NOT....

1 As has been pointed out numerous times, you don't OWN the movie, you essentially have an indefinite rental license.
2. You can still play any movie that is saved to your hard drive, ANYTIME you want....
3. They did not remove it from your computer. They did not delete it off of your iPad. It still is the exact same as before.

the ability to RE-DOWNLOAD has been taken away. NOTHING has been DELETED from your computer. NO files have been TAKEN AWAY.

Stop acting like they have. People like you are making much ado about nothing, trying to convince people not to buy movies online for NO REASON. This is a NON ISSUE, download your movies to your computer, backup said files, and you will NEVER lose anything. nobody will take it away, disney will not send lawn gnomes into your home to delete the files while you sleep. If you can't read and comprehend a situation, don't try to give people advice on what they should and should not purchase by making false claims.

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But handbrake isn't a more advanced video encoder than avc or vc-1. Blu-ray is already a compressed file, when compared to the original source, if he were to reduce the a 40 GB movies down to a 15 GB or 20 GB movie, he will have a noticable loss in quality. The audio won't be a lossless track either, it would be converted to a lossy track.

Only way to reduce the size of a Blu-ray movie without losing quality is going to be with a more advance video encoder like .h265. Once that becomes easily available, then he will be able to reduce the size of the Blu-ray files. Similar way to making a smaller avc file from an original mpeg-2 source. At least that will work for the current Blu-ray movies as that .h265 format will likely become the norm for the 4k Blu-ray movies later on.

Just because some computer says that you lost a little bit of bitrate blah blah does NOT mean you are going to notice the difference in quality. Without the highest quality equipment you are not viewing a perfect image in the first place. Someones TV is going to make a much bigger difference in the quality of the picture they are seeing than a bluray vs. high quality encode of the movie. Eye tests work perfectly fine, you don't have to say this video encode is not as good because the computer tells me that I lost 300kbps of bitrate. If your eyes can't tell the difference, does it really matter?

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

i've had hundreds of DVDs and blu rays and it takes A LOT of effort to break them

I got a 'broken disc' in a brand new movie purchase. It looked like someone tried to press it into a small diameter hole. It was literally bowl shaped and the disc box was bulging from the pressure. It was from Best Buy, and the last in the rack. They refunded my money and I bought it at Target.

I was surprised as I have never had a bad disc up to that point. How anyone at the packaging plant didn't see that as it was being packaged is totally beyond me...

It's like getting an empty can in a multi-pack. It happens...

Whatever...

 

[xxBURT0Nxx]

i think people are confused. When you buy a movie on iTunes and after downloading the movie, that is your copy that you own. You are responsible for its safekeeping. Them giving you an option to keep re-downloading the file or to stream it is really generous on their part. Apple could charge you a fee to stream your movie thru the cloud. I brought the lion king and when they removed it i was still able to watch it on my apple tv, because i have the file on my iMac

Put it this way if you buy a blu-ray from best buy and lose it, you can go back to best buy and demand a new copy.

Exactly, well said. You get a copy of the movie that you can download, burn to a disc, backup, save to the cloud, do whatever you want with.

Apple is offering CONVENIENCE to you by trying to let you re-download movie titles you have already purchased. When a couple of movies are pulled from the store and unable to be re-downloaded for a day, your original file is not touched. Nobody deletes it. It doesn't suddenly not play on your devices. Your computer doesn't blow up when you try to play it. Everything works as before, you just had a several hour window where you would have been unable to re-download the title. If that's reason for you not to buy something off of iTunes, I don't know what to tell you. Not sure why people keep acting like apple or disney is deleting movies from their computers, iPads, phones, etc.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Well I have an external 16X LG Blu-Ray burner, got the best thing I could find. I just haven't gotten into ripping Blu-Rays because there's no software that's just click, make a full-size QuickTime file of the movie. That's what I'd want. A one-button software that just transfers the movie into a QuickTime file of 25GB or 30GB or whatever it is.

And since all my Blu-Rays work with Mac Blu-Ray Player I'm okay for now either way.

I've ripped a few Blu-ray discs, and it's something like 3 clicks, and two programs, and sifting through the multiple tracks that the program finds and rips. What bothers me is the time involved, but you are looking at 20+ gigs of 'data' to push around... It takes time, and I don't do it often because of that drawback.

 

[ToomeyND]

Good luck to all of those that put their iTunes library in the cloud. You basically gave away your music.....ugh. Not good.

 

[tbrinkma]

...but I think people should hold fire until we actually know what is going on.

Welcome to the Internet. You must be new here.

 

[xxBURT0Nxx]

Good luck to all of those that put their iTunes library in the cloud. You basically gave away your music.....ugh. Not good.

says who? Using iTunes Match didn't magically delete the files I have on my computer. It didn't somehow zap my hard drive and get rid of my locally stored music.

It simply matched my songs to versions on the iTunes store and allows me to download said songs onto any device which may not have them at any given time.

Again, spreading more falsehoods because people can't comprehend what is actually going on. They read the title and a few words and think they know what an article is trying to say. Sad.

 

[aced411]

Thanks! I did the Fandango deal when Star Trek: Into Darkness was in the theater. The deal was that if you purchased your ticket on Fandango you got a free iTunes copy of the first movie. Well I cannot play the movie back on my local system because the integrated video chip on my motherboard is not HDCP compliant and I don't have one of the newer monitors with HDMI connectors either to support this BS. I can play the movie downloaded on my iPad3, but it's a local copy taking up a lot of space (and I only have a 16GB device). On my PC I have a nice 20" widesreen monitor, but because of the stupid DRM I am not able to watch it there. Can't wait to strip out the crap and watch it on the larger screen. Thanks!

DRM can get REALLY hairy. I had a mkv/handbrake rip of The Amazing Spiderman blu ray that I legitimately own. I keep movies in iTunes but I also run plex so I can watch those movies on any device. I was streaming it over Plex to my PS3 and Cinavision kicked in about 10 minutes into the movie and disabled audio! I was shocked, it's not like I pirated it off the internet or made a disc copy. That is crazy drm!

 

[Bishope1999]

Just because some computer says that you lost a little bit of bitrate blah blah does NOT mean you are going to notice the difference in quality. Without the highest quality equipment you are not viewing a perfect image in the first place. Someones TV is going to make a much bigger difference in the quality of the picture they are seeing than a bluray vs. high quality encode of the movie. Eye tests work perfectly fine, you don't have to say this video encode is not as good because the computer tells me that I lost 300kbps of bitrate. If your eyes can't tell the difference, does it really matter?

That's the thing, there is a visual discernible difference, it isn't only because of the numbers the computer tells you. I know that there are people that will tell you there is difference between a DVD or a Blu-ray, a Digital HD or a Blu-ray, no difference between a Retina display and a non Retina display, or even a difference between an iPhone 4 or a iPhone 5s. But to those people who understand the difference in quality and appreciate the better quality, the difference is very noticeable.

I personally can tell you that I've tried playing around with the bitrate of a few movies I own to see the difference on my HDTV. I use Vegas Pro and DVD Architect for my encoding. For example, I got a chapter from the Man On Fire Blu-ray which averages about 28 Mbps. To test it, I had brought down the bitrate to 19 Mbps and used the same AVC encode to test the difference. I assume this will be a much higher video bitrate than what you were advising the other poster to compress them to. Either way, I then played the two clips on my Blu-ray player to see the difference. On the lower bitrate re encoded clip I made, compression artifacts were clearly visible, macroblocking was an issue during high movement scenes, and color banding was apparent.... That was just reducing the bitrate to 19 Mbps. I think the other poster chooses Blu-ray because he wants to see the best image possible on his HDTV to take full advantage of it and these issues may be very apparent to him.Increasing the bitrate of a movie is one area were you won't get any benefits at all besides taking up more space.

Which is why the movies that have been re-released on Blu-ray, from their early 2006 release, look much better now. A movie that was released back then with an mpeg-2 encode, looked ok for it's time, but when you buy the re-release which was given a high bitrate AVC encode, there is a big visual difference, even if the movie wasn't remastered. Yes, your display makes a difference. If you properly calibrated your HDTV, you should get a great picture quality from a great source. Also, that you don't few them at 120hz or 240hz.

Now, the .h265/HEVC codec, will be a great way to re-encode the AVC files at a lower bitrate and retain the same quality because it is more efficient. Not sure by how much because I haven't been able to test it. Hopefully it's as efficient as the jump from mpeg-2 to AVC/.h264 was or greater.

 

[tbrinkma]

A Disney spokesperson told AppAdvice that Disney plans to work with Apple to ensure that users who purchased The Lion King and other content now removed from the App Store will be able to continue to download their purchases.​

So, umm... Why did they do it to begin with? Jump the shark, or the couch?

This just might be the first 'pull back into the vault' that they've done since 'cloud' availability after purchase was a thing. It may have simply been an oversight, where they didn't realize that this would be a side effect of pulling it from the store to put it 'into the vault'.

 

[tbrinkma]

Let me fix it for you : Sorry but anyone who buys something, backs it up locally, relies on local storage not to fail, and then complains when it does deserves this...

See what i did there?

If you've backed it up, and your local storage fails, you restore from your backup. Not sure where you're seeing a problem.

 

[xxBURT0Nxx]

That's the thing, there is a visual discernible difference, it isn't only because of the numbers the computer tells you. I know that there are people that will tell you there is difference between a DVD or a Blu-ray, a Digital HD or a Blu-ray, no difference between a Retina display and a non Retina display, or even a difference between an iPhone 4 or a iPhone 5s. But to those people who understand the difference in quality and appreciate the better quality, the difference is very noticeable.

I personally can tell you that I've tried playing around with the bitrate of a few movies I own to see the difference on my HDTV. I use Vegas Pro and DVD Architect for my encoding. For example, I got a chapter from the Man On Fire Blu-ray which averages about 28 Mbps. To test it, I had brought down the bitrate to 19 Mbps and used the same AVC encode to test the difference. I assume this will be a much higher video bitrate than what you were advising the other poster to compress them to. Either way, I then played the two clips on my Blu-ray player to see the difference. On the lower bitrate re encoded clip I made, compression artifacts were clearly visible, macroblocking was an issue during high movement scenes, and color banding was apparent.... That was just reducing the bitrate to 19 Mbps. I think the other poster chooses Blu-ray because he wants to see the best image possible on his HDTV to take full advantage of it and these issues may be very apparent to him.Increasing the bitrate of a movie is one area were you won't get any benefits at all besides taking up more space.

Which is why the movies that have been re-released on Blu-ray, from their early 2006 release, look much better now. A movie that was released back then with an mpeg-2 encode, looked ok for it's time, but when you buy the re-release which was given a high bitrate AVC encode, there is a big visual difference, even if the movie wasn't remastered. Yes, your display makes a difference. If you properly calibrated your HDTV, you should get a great picture quality from a great source. Also, that you don't few them at 120hz or 240hz.

Now, the .h265/HEVC codec, will be a great way to re-encode the AVC files at a lower bitrate and retain the same quality because it is more efficient. Not sure by how much because I haven't been able to test it. Hopefully it's as efficient as the jump from mpeg-2 to AVC/.h264 was or greater.

you are assuming that the majority of people calibrate HDTVs and have high end equipment. NO, they don't. Majority of people get their tv's at best buy and are looking for the best deal, not the best TV. A lot of people buy HDTV's and don't even hook up HD sources, or they don't use component/hdmi to hook up their cable box and use RCA instead. The majority of people don't even know what to look for when talking about HD, they just assume an HDTV makes things look better.

Yes, a few video nuts might notice some differences here or there, but I will guarantee you that the majority of people will not be affected by the compression of an encode, and would enjoy the space they save far more than they would ever notice the difference in video quality. And if you are so anal to need a lossless copy, it is still possible to rip your bluray straight across, just be prepared for huge video files. If that doesn't bother you, that's great. I'm just saying 99% of consumers would never notice the difference between an iTunes movie and a bluray.

 

[tbrinkma]

because you are comparing it to an imaginary crime that is not possible, and saying that in your idea of a "practical" world, the crime wouldn't be as bad.

That's like me saying piracy isn't bad in the land of the hobbits because they have magic wands so they aren't really stealing, they are just using magic.

You can't argue a real world issue with some fantasy.

You do realize that it actually *IS* possible to copy a car, right? It's cost-prohibitive due to the machinery and materials needed, but it is *possible*. The day that 3D printers reach a certain level of capability, it will be possible and easy, but expensive (and eventually as cheap as the raw materials and energy needed). Even in *this* day and age, I know people who (as a whole) have reproduced virtually every type of part needed to copy a car except the engine block. Certain parts (such as air filters and spark plugs) are, and will almost certainly remain, easier and cheaper to buy off the shelf, but since they are standardized and already available to the public, that doesn't make it any less *possible* to copy a car.

So, back to the hypothetical scenario originally posed, which you claimed was *impossible*: If someone made a copy of your car, and drove off in said copy, do you think they'd be charged with theft of your car?

 

[NeroAZ]

Stuff like this is disconcerting for those of us that buy content through the iTunes Store.

It's real simple, download the files to your hard drive and even if its removed from "the cloud" you can still watch it. iTunes sharing is awesome for watching movies locally on Apple TV.

 

[Bishope1999]

you are assuming that the majority of people calibrate HDTVs and have high end equipment. NO, they don't. Majority of people get their tv's at best buy and are looking for the best deal, not the best TV. A lot of people buy HDTV's and don't even hook up HD sources, or they don't use component/hdmi to hook up their cable box and use RCA instead. The majority of people don't even know what to look for when talking about HD, they just assume an HDTV makes things look better.

Yes, a few video nuts might notice some differences here or there, but I will guarantee you that the majority of people will not be affected by the compression of an encode, and would enjoy the space they save far more than they would ever notice the difference in video quality. And if you are so anal to need a lossless copy, it is still possible to rip your bluray straight across, just be prepared for huge video files. If that doesn't bother you, that's great. I'm just saying 99% of consumers would never notice the difference between an iTunes movie and a bluray.

Of course they won't notice. Which is why I gave the example that people won't notice the difference between DVD's or Blu-rays, like they won't notice the difference between the retina display and one that isn't. All they will do is see the retina name and pay a premium for it. Also, like those people that may buy iphones year after year. They may not really know or even appreciate the difference between the new one and the older model, they just want to buy the latest item.

Which is why I was referring to the poster who didn't want to compromise his video quality just to back them up. That these compression methods aren't a good option. The video and audio quality suffers and watching the Blu-ray movie is a much better option.

But that general public is out there that wants quantity over quality. That's why Netflix is the more successful streaming service and why Roku is more popular than AppleTV. Which is why people will buy a cheap smart phone, it gets the job done and they don't see a difference between those and the high end smartphone. Still, the physical media format for movies makes more revenue than streaming movies or digital movie sales. Sure, they are not all buying Blu-ray because of the high quality, but a large group of them are choosing to buy them over purchasing them digitally or streaming them.

Yes, I can transfer all the m2ts files into external hard drives if I wanted to, but I have no need to do it. I perfectly enjoy my collection and putting the disc in the player

 

[Bishope1999]

You do realize that it actually *IS* possible to copy a car, right? It's cost-prohibitive due to the machinery and materials needed, but it is *possible*. The day that 3D printers reach a certain level of capability, it will be possible and easy, but expensive (and eventually as cheap as the raw materials and energy needed). Even in *this* day and age, I know people who (as a whole) have reproduced virtually every type of part needed to copy a car except the engine block. Certain parts (such as air filters and spark plugs) are, and will almost certainly remain, easier and cheaper to buy off the shelf, but since they are standardized and already available to the public, that doesn't make it any less *possible* to copy a car.

So, back to the hypothetical scenario originally posed, which you claimed was *impossible*: If someone made a copy of your car, and drove off in said copy, do you think they'd be charged with theft of your car?

That would most likely be an issue with the car manufacturer than with a car owner. If the laws established prohibit that, then it is against the law.

Just think about this. People will download a movie even though it is against the law. Sure they won't go after you, but to test it, make multiple copies of the movie and start selling them in the streets for $1. If an officer sees you, I'm sure he will have something to say. You're breaking the copyright infringement and even those with out monetary gain, is against the law and it's technically considered theft.

 

[pjarvi]

I've found it's cheaper to buy DVDs and Blu-Rays and rip them myself than to buy them digitally. As for my existing iTunes library I figured something like this would happen and backed up all purchases locally. Never trust the cloud, remember: cloud = someone else's computer.