Apple has added movie support to its iTunes in the Cloud service in 11 new European countries today, enabling customers in those countries to re-download content previously purchased from the iTunes store. The new countries include Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Greece, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden.
As noted by French site iGen [Google translation], France has also seen iTunes in the Cloud support go live for TV shows.
iTunes in the Cloud was first launched for music in June 2011 in the United States, with Apple adding movie and TV show support for U.S. users in March 2012. Movie coverage has been gradually expanded since that time, with today's additions bringing the total to nearly 100 countries.
iTunes in the Cloud support for TV shows remains much more limited, with France becoming just the fifth country to see the feature, joining Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Top Rated Comments
Frustrated.
We don't own iTunes-purchased content at all (instead it's "lifetime license" at best). And if we don't download and store our purchases so that we have no dependency on iCloud, we can lose them at any time.
Buy the BD or DVD and actually own your media in a very full way. Rip it and store it in iTunes just like you ripped your CDs. This gets you almost all of the benefits & niceties of iTunes media management without the whims of the Studios or Apple affecting your perception of ownership. And instead of a "lifetime license" (where others get to decide what lifetime actually means), you actually own it such that you could sell it, will it, or give it away to someone else who could then fully own it too. If it's BD, you also get to decide the quality of the video (rather than the Studio or Apple deciding it for you) and can optionally enjoy a far superior audio track vs. 1992's Dolby Digital standard.
Yes, ripping is a hassle and storage has some cost but trusting a big corporation as caretaker of your media and that caretaker being entirely dependent on what their suppliers of that media want to provide- or take away- is begging for vanishing media and other anti-consumer surprises. iCloud is not the end-all, be-all answer... it's just one option. And a mentality of "stream everything from iCloud" is only music to the ears of those who sell (and increasingly pinch) bandwidth tiers... companies like AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, Comcast, Time Warner, etc.