If I purchase a movie or TV show from iTunes and they decide not to make it available to me any more, do they give back my money?

Question

My wife purchased Pride and Prejudice TV show over a year ago.
Now the screen says "This TV show is no longer available on the iTunes Store."
Does this mean that they only renter it to us? When I purchase anything that gives me a piece of hardware I can use it again and again until I replace it or dispose of it. One of the sales points for online services like iTunes is that you never worry about damage or loss.
Why is it they claim to sell you something they do NOT intend on allowing you access to for the life of your account?
If I wish to purchase something it comes at a significant less cost.
I understand there must be a small clause in the agreement that allows them to back out of their agreements, but now I am reconsidering "purchasing" from iTunes again.
Aladane

Answer 1

Aladane wrote:
Why is it they claim to sell you something they do NOT intend on allowing you access to for the life of your account?
It is not Apple that decides this. Since Apple is just the retailer, they do not own the copyrights to the content they sell on the iTunes store, if the copyright owner decides to remove something from the store that you have purchased Apple must abide by the terms of their licenseing agreements and remove it. Regretablly this also removes the items from your purchase history. This is why it is up to you to download and backup all of your purchases if you wish to maintain your investment.
In the Apple KB article Downloading past purchases from the App Store, iBookstore and iTunes Store, and in many other places, it is clearly stated:
It is recommended that you always back up your iTunes library in the event that a purchased item is no longer available on the iTunes Store. For more information about backing up your library, see this article.