Audiobooks not downloadable/gone, Apple: "Your bad..."

[Midlantica]

I purchased the whole set of Patrick O'Brian audiobooks, all 21 of them I think, and they all disappeared. After chatting with Apple, I was able to redownload ~6 of them, but 12-13 remain un-downloadable after I paid for them and indeed did have them.

Granted, I should have had them backed up and I thought I had, but I had to do a manual install on new Mac... I didn't think I had to worry about iCloud purchases. But, what if the computer was stolen? Oh well you're screwed?

Apple said that contracts come and go and they do not keep the out-of-contract audiobooks, but frankly I think that's very weak. The whole point of the iCloud is that all of our purchases may remain safely there and re-downloadable at any time, it is part of what we pay for.

Even if Apple is on good legal ground — and no doubt it was in page 67 of 128 of the 'Agreement' we all clicked OK on without reading — should not Apple provide a fair warning that your particular purchases are about to go out of contract and then therefore no longer be downloadable?? Should they not send an email and say "X & Y are going to be no longer available, please be sure to have them backed up"? Or some such?

I'm really mad... Must I repurchase all ~12 books?? I'll be damned if repurchase them from Apple.

Does anyone have feedback on this woeful situation?

 

[JackieInCo]

Start buying Audiobooks directly from Audible. You can download them over and over forever. Most of the time, the same audiobook is cheaper on Audible than iTunes.

 

[Midlantica]

What about other forms of media?

Might I also lose other forms of media? Like Movies? TV SHows etc?

 

[JackieInCo]

It's possible. In all the years that I have been keeping my movie and TV shows in the iTunes cloud, I have only lost one movie and it was a cheap $4.99 movie.

I continue to buy movies and TV shows and just keep them in the cloud. I used to buy drive after drive to store them on but that's just not something I want to continue doing since drives fail after so many years and my Mac only has so many USB ports.

 

[Aldaris]

Might I also lose other forms of media? Like Movies? TV SHows etc?

Answer is a complicated yes- Previous experiences depending on the individual content deals, certain titles can disappear, this was true especially with disney, and has since been somewhat addressed.

Also media that has become controversial have also been removed like certain South Park episodes.

Be safe and download and store a backup! Transfer your iOS purchases and the like.

 

[Midlantica]

Well.. I just checked a few books on Audible and they were $5 more expensive...

And how come Audible/Amazon doesn't have the same licensing issues as Apple? Can you say with 100% certainty that they won't suddenly run out-of-contract?

This sucks.