Apple media sharing limits explained and why you should use Plex instead

Apple sets limits on what you can share among people in a family or home.

-  GLENN FLEISHMAN

Apple has implemented multiple kinds of sharing for media— apps, music, audiobooks, movies, and TV shows—but imposes limits across a few directions, ostensibly not to reduce piracy, but to limit the reach of any particular purchased item. Some of this–may be all of it–is at the behest of copyright holders that require Apple to meet certain terms to offer the media at all.

If you BYOM (bring your own media) to any of Apple’s software that manages, plays, and shares it, you’ll feel these limitations, depending on with whom you share and how you’ve set things up.

The better alternative if you have a lot of your own stuff to share among a family, including on the go and geographically-dispersed? Plex.

(It’s obligatory and morally necessary forme to point out that none of this advocates sharing media in a way that’s prohibited by the terms of what you’ve purchased or been given access to. Those rights tend tobe either explicitly broader or carved out through court cases for media shared within a family or in a single residence.)

APPLE’S VERSION OF SHARING