Apple responds to Anders Goncalves da Silva’s iTunes films tweets

A scene from Disney film “Cars 2.”
Disney / Pixar

• A man’s Twitter thread complaining that Apple deleted
  his films from iTunes has gone viral.
• The thread seemed to indicate that people who buy films
  or music for permanent download potentially don’t get to keep
  those files forever.
• But the problem is more complicated than it looks, and
  was probably caused by the fact the man in question moved
  countries, and then got caught in a licensing trap.
• Apple said it doesn’t delete films from people’s
  libraries.

Apple has responded to a man who went viral on Twitter, claiming
the company had deleted his iTunes films.

Anders Goncalves da Silva posted a thread last week (which has
been shared nearly 20,000 times) in which he outlined an exchange
with Apple’s customer support.

He claimed he had bought three films which subsequently
disappeared from his iTunes library. When he contacted Apple to
ask about their disappearance, the company said the films were no
longer available in his resident country of Canada, and offered
him some free rentals instead.

Da Silva’s frustration at his vanishing films seems to have
resonated. His post was shared so many times that it even caught
the attention of FTC commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter.

What makes this incident so mysterious is that Apple shouldn’t be
able to remotely delete films that have been downloaded to
customers’ devices. Business Insider contacted da Silva for a
little more information.

The issue seems to stem from the fact that da Silva moved
countries, emigrating from Australia to Canada nine months ago.
He bought the three films — “Cars,” “Cars 2,” and “The Grand
Budapest Hotel” — for around $25 while still living in Australia.

Here’s what he says happened after he moved to Canada, and his
son wanted to watch “Cars” one day:

“I could not find it anywhere on our Apple TV. I could see it on
my phone, so I gave that to him while I investigated. I noticed
it was not in any of my other devices. I looked through my
purchase history and saw that I hadn’t dreamt buying them —
having a toddler can cause that. I emailed Apple, they apologised
and activated downloads on my iTunes account.

“I could not find that anywhere, but on my phone. I started the
downloads and went to sleep. From what I could tell they were
progressing fine. Next morning, they were not on my phone, and
Cars had disappeared from there too. You look on the forums, and
you see people talking about hidden films, I checked my account.
Nothing hidden. Apple emailed me back to check in that the
downloads had happened ok. I explained what happened, and that is
when I was told they were no longer available.”

Apple customer support’s initial explanation was that the
“content provider” of the films had removed the three films from
the Canadian iTunes store, meaning da Silva couldn’t re-download
them in his new home country.

Apple makes it reasonably clear in its terms and
conditions that different countries have different rights
environments. Just because you bought a film in Apple’s
Australian iTunes store doesn’t mean that same film is available
in Canada.

But
CNET did its own deep dive into da Silva’s problem and,
confusingly, found that all three films are in fact still
available in both Australia and Canada’s iTunes stores. The
issue, the publication speculated, might be that they may all be
slightly different versions. 

Da Silva, in his exchange with Business Insider, said the whole
saga was pretty frustrating.

“My view is that when I purchase something from a vendor I made
an agreement with the vendor, and we both undertook the
transaction in good faith,” he said. “The vendor trusted me to
pay them in valid currency, and I trusted them to give me a
product that works as advertised. If there is a problem, I go
back to the vendor.

“Whatever agreement the vendor has with the supplier is between
them, and is not my problem. If the vendor had told me from the
onset (and not buried in the small print) that they had an
agreement with the supplier that the product would cease to exist
at some point in the future, I may have reconsidered my purchase.
It comes down to an issue of transparency.”

Apple suggests that people can redownload their films…

Apple eventually responded to da Silva’s complaint. The company
suggested that, despite what its earlier customer support rep had
said, da Silva probably still does have access to his
films. He would simply need to change back to Australia’s iTunes
store.

A spokesman said: “Any films you’ve already downloaded can be
enjoyed at any time and will not be deleted unless you’ve chosen
to do so. If you change your country setting, some films may not
be available to re-download from the movie store if the version
you purchased isn’t also available in the new country. If needed,
you can change your country setting back to your prior country to
re-download those films.”

….but it’s complicated 

As CNET found, changing iTunes region was tougher than you might
expect. Switching your region settings means you lose any iTunes
credit that you have. You also need a local billing address
which, if you’re no longer living in the country, isn’t possible.
So while da Silva may be able to re-download his films by
jumping through lots of hoops, it’s not easy.

Da Silva told Business Insider that he didn’t plan to take the
issue up with any consumer protection agencies, but that he might
return to physical DVDs.

“At this point, I do not expect Apple to do anything to make
amends,” he said. “Even if they did, given so many others in the
same boat, it would seem unfair that I got the films back, while
others did not. And, even if I did get the films back, there is
no guarantee they won’t disappear again!

“So, it seems pointless, and I have resigned myself to continue
watching the films I still do have in my iTunes library for as
long as they remain available, and to dust off my old DVD player.
My local library has a collection of DVDs, and there are plenty
of second-hand shops selling them too. I’ll support the local
businesses. Ultimately, I would just like others to know so that
perhaps they can make an informed choice.”