Purchased Songs Disappear From iPhone

Just recently I finally broke down and got an iPhone. My old Sony Ericcson T610 was konking out so it was time to buy a new phone anyway. So far I've been very happy with it, even the service from at&t has not been too bad. Being that my old phone was nearly eight years old, having a phone with newer, more easily accessible features is a nice change.

A couple weeks ago I purchased the new album from Ryan Adams and the Cardinals from iTunes on my iPhone. After listening to it for a week or so I sync'd my iPhone with my MacBook Pro only to realize that the entire album disappeared from both the iPhone and iTunes. Upon trying to download it again on my iPhone, I received an error stating that I had already downloaded it, am I sure I want to purchase it again? So I started Googling the problem and much to my amazement this seems to be a fairly widespread issue with the iPhone. I found many folks in the same predicament with no solution whatsoever. The only option is file an issue with Apple about it by selecting the purchase in my iTunes account and clicking a button named Report a Problem.

So far I have received nothing from Apple about the problem I reported and, sadly, I don't expect anything. My solution was to purchase the album a second time and make sure it was backed up by iTunes so I won't lose it again (hopefully).

Has anyone else experienced this and had the situation remedied by Apple in some way?