As above, say like me you have paid for movies or TV series with iTunes (or via AppleTV), what happens if Apple was to ever go bankrupt or similar (and iCloud disappears), how would I get copies of the content I paid for?
With music you can at least convert to another format but not sure if you can also do that with video.

your paying for movies and tv series? 😆

Well, if I enjoy them through the traditional method online (cough) I like to pay, after all if its good (like Breaking bad or the Sopranos) you’d want more made, takes money though.

didn’t you amend the terms and conditions when you signed up?

I added that the IMF would personally have to intervene and download what I actually liked to an mp3/mp4 player and a former Apple employee ride to my house on a bike with gears to deliver my replacement tunes

PS have you seen how much cash Apple has?

have you seen how much cash Apple has

Understand, but in theory digital content can last forever unlike books and CD’s etc but there’s lots of big companies no longer around, like IG Farban, Atari, DAF, Equitable Life, Polaroid Eric (thanks Wikipedia), in fact I would struggle to come up with a name of a company at the top of their game for 50 years is.
As far as I know there is no ‘shelf life’ on a digital purchase like other consumables, so what if Apple was to go bankrupt in 50 years time?

I would struggle to come up with a name of a company at the top of their game for 50 years is.

Ford motors
ICI
Shell Oil
BP
IBM
Unilever
Nestle
BAe

Products may come and go and and markets may swing but if a biog player like Apple went down a. It wouldn’t happen overnight and b. someone would buy up the rights to their licensed products and keep the service running.

1st world problem – go read the Daily Mail to cheer yourself up.

but there’s lots of big companies no longer around

small scale big ? a quick google gives me “Apple currently holds $146.6 billion in cash and marketable securities”. I suspect that is more cash than the “lifetime” sales of some “large” companies

Apple will never go kaput. Not while there are queues of lemmings eager to have their latest product and pay a prenium to do so.

The OP’s question has merit. All of the companies listed above as examples of longevity also illustrate that longevity is usually only achieved by radical reinvention at some point.

Case example, IBM doesn’t make any money from building computers and hasn’t done for a long time.

Shell cannot continue to rely solely on oil for its revenues.

BAe Systems looks nothing like it did when it was first formed.

ICI doesn’t even exist. It was bought in 2008 by AkzoNobel.

I can see a future where Apple sells of it’s, by now, unprofitable media library arm to someone else who can administer it for far less cost.

Isn’t it the same as with e books, they’re effectively a rental? Didn’t Bruce Willis have this argument, wanting to give all of his iTunes purchases to his kids and apple claimed breach of terms? Therefore if apple goes pop then so do your purchases?

It’s probably less of a rental agreement and more of a perpetual license for the original owner, i.e. you own the rights to that media forever but you don’t have permission to transfer ownership to someone else. I’m just guessing.

I’d guess that if Apples folded then your local copy of iTunes wouldn’t be able to verify the licenses and would eventually refuse to play any DRM protected media you had. There was another online DRM music company which folded a few years back and everyone just lost the ability to play stuff…

Do people actually worry about this sort of shit?

you are aware you don’t own anything you buy through iTunes?

If Apple goes bust, with those cash reserves, then I think we’ll all have more pressing concerns than streaming the last episode of Breaking Bad.

Like the feral mob presently trying to batter down your armoured, barricaded front door, as the rumour has spread through the post-apocalyptic wasteland outside that you’ve got a tin of Spam

you are aware you don’t own anything media you buy through iTunes? any format

FTFY

Microsoft switched off their player and stopped issuing keys for music, so just killed everyone’s players overnight: http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9926741-7.html

A few more links:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/05/22/acetrax_closure_drm_woes/

http://www.cepro.com/article/what_happens_to_your_digital_content_if_the_provider_goes_out_of_business/

Mrmo and spudly have it. You don’t own anything you’ve paid for on iTunes, you rent it from apple, so in the, unlikely, event they go bust, so will your music/movies.

Apple has more money than the usa.
If apple goes bust, then america probably will as well. Your music and film collection will be the least of your worries.