Season Passes and iTunes in the Cloud Restrictions

Article

Season Passes and iTunes in the Cloud Restrictions

Ask iLounge offers readers the opportunity to get answers to their iPod-, iPhone-, iPad-, iTunes-, or Apple TV-related questions from a member of the iLounge editorial team. We'll answer several questions here each week, and of course, you can always get help with more immediate concerns from the iLounge Discussion Forums. Submit your questions for consideration using our Ask iLounge Submit Form. We reserve the right to edit questions for grammar, spelling, and length.

View the complete Ask iLounge archives...

Q: I’m a bit unclear on how the restrictions in iTunes work if I’m dealing with more than one account. Some of your articles talk about how iTunes doesn’t let you switch accounts for 90 days, but that this doesn’t apply to new purchased—only for downloading stuff I’ve already purchased. My big question is whether this applies to “Season Passes” or not? If I buy a Season Pass from a different iTunes account, can I still download new episodes when they come out, or will I have to wait 90 days? Does it matter whether the account is in a different country or not? Thanks.

- Pat

A: Pre-purchased content such as a Season Pass is excluded from the 90-day restriction on changing accounts, since the individual season pass episodes are still considered “new” content that you haven’t otherwise previously downloaded—at least the first time you download them.

Essentially, the 90-day restriction only applies to RE-downloading content that has already been downloaded by at least one of your devices. The limitation was actually introduced alongside the ability to re-download past music, movie, and TV show purchases, and was presumably implemented to discourage sharing of content via different iTunes accounts. The idea here is that this prevents you from giving your iTunes account password to a friend so that they can switch to your account and download your purchased content to their device.

The 90-day restriction specifically prevents you from switching accounts in order to do any of the following:

1. Re-downloading previous purchases from your iTunes purchase history.
2. Enabling automatic downloads of content purchased on other devices.
3. Enabling iTunes Match.

Note that the above only applies to media content such as music, movies, TV shows, and books; Apps are specifically excluded from these restrictions, most likely due to the fact that Apple controls the App Store itself and therefore does not need to concern itself with content provider licensing agreements.

This restriction also does not apply to transferring content directly between your devices and your iTunes library, sharing it from iTunes via Home Sharing, or even copying it manually to other authorized iTunes libraries. This behaviour has not changed from the pre-iCloud days, and you can continue to have multiple iTunes accounts authorized both in iTunes and on your iPod and iOS devices.

The only catch here with Season Pass content is that the 90-day restriction will apply to RE-downloading that content in the same way as it does for any other content. This means that if you’re using an alternate account for your Season Pass content you will only be able to download new episodes from your Season Pass once, when they initially become available, regardless of the device that you are using to do so. Once downloaded, of course, you can transfer this content to any of your other devices using iTunes in the normal manner, but you won’t be able to switch to your alternate account to download these items directly from iTunes in the Cloud.

One major exception to all of this is accessing Movies and TV Shows from the cloud on an Apple TV. Since these are streamed rather than downloaded, there is no restriction on switching accounts to view content, and in fact Apple added a new feature in the Apple TV 5.1 Software Update to actually make this process even simpler.

The most asked question at iLounge.com:

How do I copy content from my iPod/iPhone onto my computer?

Converting DVDs, web video, TV shows and more:

The Complete Guide to iPod, Apple TV and iPhone Video Formats

Converting DVDs, web video, TV shows and more:

The Complete Guide to iPod, iPhone and Apple TV Video Conversion (Mac)

Converting DVDs, web video, TV shows and more:

The Complete Guide to iPod, iPhone and Apple TV Video Conversion (Win)

Best Speakers?

Best Headphones?

Best Case?

Best In-Car Solution?

Best Battery Extender?

Find more answers in the latest publications in our Library. Free downloads developed by the editors of iLounge!

Ask iLounge Archives:

1-24-14: Viewing only downloaded iTunes Match tracks

1-22-14: Splitting purchased content between two iPads

12-13-13: Non-Bluetooth Lightning dock speakers

12-11-13: Shared Apple ID and switching away from iPhone

12-6-13: Syncing multiple iCloud data with a family Mac

View the complete Ask iLounge archives...

« Accessing iPhone data via iCloud.com

Editorial: Why iOS 7 Will Succeed, Despite Divisive Issues »

Comments

1

While this used to be true, recently Apple has made some changes as to how season passes are delivered: they’re not placed in your download queue anymore and so when clicking the e-mail link, you’re essentially asking for a re-download of the episode that is in your “iTunes in the cloud” account and that *is* affected by the “one device per account” limit since I’ve thoughtlessly switched accounts yesterday to re-download a corrupted music file from a purchase on another account, I won’t be able to download new season pass episodes for 90 days (or until Apple fixes this oversight). Which is not as bad as it sounds – since I can still stream them to the Apple TV or download them on another device and then use “transfer purchases” — bus still a very annoying (and unnecessary) restriction.

Posted by raphael on September 6, 2013 at 7:17 AM (PDT)

If you have a comment, news tip, advertising inquiry, or coverage request, a question about iPods/iPhones/iPad or accessories, or if you sell or market iPod/iPhone/iPad products or services, read iLounge's Comments + Questions policies before posting, and fully identify yourself if you do. We will delete comments containing advertising, astroturfing, trolling, personal attacks, offensive language, or other objectionable content, then ban and/or publicly identify violators.

Recent Reviews

Recent Articles

Shop for Accessories: Cases, speakers, chargers, etc.

iLounge

Article