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For years, (since the days of the iPod) I have had my thousands of songs converted to MP3s from CDs. I need to use iTunes obviously to sync the music to my iPhones and iPads. Randomly some songs will become grayed out and unavailable. The Music app pops up a message and says 'This item is not currently available in your country or region. ' or the song will just not play, and in some rare cases will be removed from the portable devices library and all playlists. This problem has been occurring for a few years. Multiple tech support calls. The only answer I ever received was today. I cannot play that music unless I subscribe to Apple Music or iTunes match, and only then if the Apple music library has the music available. Even though the songs work fine one day then suddenly they start becoming unavailable. 2 different songs on the same album, one is unavailable. the other is fine. This does not sound like a licensing or region issue, this is an error. Or based on the response from my last support representative, a shake down to be forced to pay a subscription. For music they don't even have in some cases.

It was insinuated that downloading to the computer only guarantees I can play it on the computer. And that unless I purchased through iTunes (which in some cases I have) they will not look into the problem.

There is no consistency in the policy. Can I download Cds or No? Are you phasing out the ability and don't want to tell customers. I am tired of being told to subscribe or pay for music again. Especially when there is no guarantee the Album is available through iTunes. I even have 2 mp3s that are self created that just get removed sometimes. Someone from Apple needs to say, Yes you can downloads music and we don't know why it is disabling songs, or we are removing that ability to do so. I have had multiple phone calls and I am being dismissed. I can see I am not the only person having this issue. But it seems we are being forced to subscribe to something.

And now then just hung up on me while I was waiting for an answer. Why can't they own up to whats happening.