PlayStation Is Deleting 551 Movies from Customers' Accounts

dc3k

it should not be legal for the product page to say “purchase” or “buy” when in reality you’re only renting it with a to be determined end date

jmclnx

Off to small claims court people should go. Amazon tried something similar and got in trouble because people when after them. And people wonder why some people sail the high seas.

thomasmarton

Piracy is justified especially when it comes to movies! If I am buying a DVD, I own that copy regardless of the studio and the distributor being in legal trouble or not. If I "buy" or "purchase" something online, I expect the same thing. I'm not always a fan of the EU over-regulating some things but I feel like they should start fining companies who want to re-define the meaning of the word purchase

Karliss

Again? They already tried to pull that one a few years ago. [1] https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Sony%27s_attempted_removal_of_...

alpineman

No refunds. Sounds like Playstation customer support. The most customer-unfriendly policies a company could think of.

PacificSpecific

A decade ago they pulled my purchased copy of mortal kombat 2. Not the first time they've done stuff like this. I stuck to buying hard copies and dwindled off the series as they started to charge just to play multiplayer.

whycome

Fix the headline to say Sony

patmcc

They should absolutely be forced to provide either a refund or a downloadable copy, this is absurd. It sounds like they didn't actually have the license necessary to be able to sell these movies in any reasonable way.

socalgal2

Sony sucks and I will never give them another dime. Had a PS5 with a 120+ games (majority PS4), also PSVR2, got f-ed over by Sony when they would not refund in incorrect game purchase I'd bought literally minutes before asking for the refund. Gave up my PS5, I will never purchase anything from Sony ever again. Recommend everyone else do the same.

mannanj

How soon until the digital distributions are owned by just a few cartels, and later when it’s suitable for them, they also modify digital movies to suit a political agenda without letting you know?

AdmiralAsshat

How is it that Steam manages to avoid yanking games from people's libraries even after the games are delisted for licensing issues, etc? I have multiple games that you can't "buy" anymore, but Steam doesn't stop me from reinstalling them as often as I like. Are they negotiating that as part of the deal with their vendors? Or is it as simple as "We're not dicks." ?

rachel-ftw

This is making me mad enough that I’m going to spend my weekend figuring out a media server and pirating movies. If buying isn’t owning, pirating isn’t stealing. Fuck those guys. It’s been 20 years since I’ve pirated shit, but here we are again…

tracerbulletx

Would love to know how hidden the fine text was on that buy button. Unless it said rent this should be illegal.

chmod775

sudo pacman -S transmission-gtk I suppose it's time to form a new media consumption habit.

kelvinjps10

I feel these license agreements have to be set up in such a way people that already bought their movies get to keep them, like okay Sony lost the licences and they shouldn't sell it to new customers but existing customers should get to keep their movies. Since companies don't care the government needs to force their hand and put it into law

Devasta

By not teaching the younger generations the virtues of piracy, millennials have failed them. It'll be all the more critical in years to come when we get more and more AI remastered versions of stuff so even stuff pre-2020 is slop.

bix6

What’s wild is there is no legal way to actually buy and truly own movies anymore. Any major service is a license and if you can even get a DVD the legality of ripping it is questionable since you have to break DRM. I have purchased a few movies (surf films) from people who actually give you the digital file and it is so wonderful.

bergfest

What will the end game in this licensing scheme be? I reckon once enough movies have been sold, the reputational damage of taking them away would become so large that streaming services will be strongarmed into accepting increasingly unreasonable fees.

naturalmovement

Not limited to PlayStation. Apple's been doing this for years. I have iTunes music going back to the day the store opened. Some of it is now missing from the iTunes cloud (or Apple Music or whatever it's called this week). It would be gone forever had I not made a local backup. At least Sony's contacting customers. I was looking for songs I knew I had and couldn't find them until I searched a local backup. When I complained, I got a boilerplate "tough titties, sometimes we lose licensing" response. Always keep hard copies people. This foolishness of trusting someone else to host your stuff for you? Well now you know.