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Apple Can Delete Purchased Movies From Your Library Without Telling You (theoutline.com)
Casey Johnston, writing for The Outline: When you buy a movie on iTunes, it's yours forever, until such a time as when Apple maybe loses the rights to distribute it, and then it will disappear from your library without a trace. This is what happened to Anders G. da Silva, who goes by @drandersgs on Twitter, and who tweeted about losing three movies bought on the iTunes Store.
When da Silva wrote to Apple to complain about the missing movies, Apple wrote back to him that "the content provider has removed these movies from the Canadian Store. Hence, these movies are not available in the Canada iTunes Store at this time." For his trouble in notifying Apple that it had disappeared three of his ostensible belongings for incredibly dubious legal reasons, Apple offered da Silva not even a refund, but two credits for renting a movie on the iTunes Store "priced up to $5.99 USD." After he argued that he was not in the market for rentals and would just like the movies he purchased, please, Apple tried to appease him with two more rental credits.
When da Silva wrote to Apple to complain about the missing movies, Apple wrote back to him that "the content provider has removed these movies from the Canadian Store. Hence, these movies are not available in the Canada iTunes Store at this time." For his trouble in notifying Apple that it had disappeared three of his ostensible belongings for incredibly dubious legal reasons, Apple offered da Silva not even a refund, but two credits for renting a movie on the iTunes Store "priced up to $5.99 USD." After he argued that he was not in the market for rentals and would just like the movies he purchased, please, Apple tried to appease him with two more rental credits.
This is why I buy the Blu-ray and rip it to my NAS; at least on shows I want to still have access to in 20 years. (Yes, I still have VHS tapes and a VCR)
This is why we need stronger consumer protection. This isn't a weird, difficult, complex issue. In my mind, there's a very simple solution to this:
Make it illegal for digital media stores to remove access to anything that has been purchased. If, for some reason, they're unable to continue hosting it for streaming, they should be legally required to provide you with a DRM-free download.
Your post makes some fine points, but let's all remember this happened in Canada. Had it happened in the USA, there may be a legal precedent basically in favor of what you proposed. The actor Bruce Willis got into a case where he wanted to leave his legally purchased song downloads to his children in his will and he had to go to court for the right to do that. He won. The providers of his downloads basically argued that Willis had entered into what was, in effect, a rental agreement for the songs, and as such no rights were transferable upon his death. He won and established the idea that he actually paid for the songs, he owned his copies, and as such they were his property to give away to his heirs in his will if he wished.
If its on his own Plex server then the closing of the Plex Cloud Service will have zero impact on him. I purchase everything on DVD/Bluray (and some iplayer downloading as I like in the UK) and the rip it before uploading to the Plex server which lives in my house. The closing of the Plex cloud service impacts me not a bit. In my house if you want to watch a DVD or Bluray it needs putting on Plex first as I don't have a DVD or Bluray player. Also if you want to listen to a CD that will need ripping too.
They're not difficult to read. They're just too long. Many people like me have 1,001 other things to read on any given day. So, I shouldn't have to spend my valuable time reading agreements for "purchased" items or content that should be "mine". If it's a lease they should call it a lease. But, of course they won't because leases aren't as sexy and inviting to the consumer as inferred ownership. I.e. a purchase.