Ben-DutkaPlayStation Plus is a great deal for many, but lots of new (and prospective) members have questions concerning the content you're allowed to keep, and content that goes away once the membership goes away.
Well, Sony's Jeff Rubenstein tried to clear that up over at the PlayStation Blog in his reply to a poster asking for a clarification on the potentially confusing issue. Rubenstein's reply is as follows:
"Free add-ons expire if your subscription ends. Add-ons you pay for (even if you pay at a discount) are yours to keep for good. The same thing is true for games- free ones expire if you don’t renew your subscription. Anything you pay for – even at a discount – is yours forever. Themes and avatars that are free, stay free for good.
There may be instances where a downloadable game is free and the add-on is priced at a discount. In this case, if your subscription ends, you would still have access to the DLC, but would need to re-purchase the game in order to use the add-on."
So essentially, the best way to describe it is this- if you buy something at a discounted Plus price, that will be yours forever. Don't worry about it disappearing when your membership ends. The stuff that will go away is anything you received for free as a perk of being a member. That sort of makes sense and should help to clear things up (for the most part). If you have any more questions, though, feel free to post a question at Sony's Blog; they're usually pretty good about answering queries.