You Don’t Own What You’ve Bought: Sony Removes 100s Of Movies Bought Through PS Store
from the poof!-it's-gone dept
We have done many, many posts explaining how, unfortunately, it seems the idea of a person owning the things they’ve bought has become rather passe. While in the age of antiquity, which existed entire tens of years ago, you used to be able to own things, these days you merely license them under Ts and Cs that are either largely ignored and clicked through or that are indecipherable, written in the otherwise lost language known as “Lawyer-ese”. The end result is a public that buys things, thinks they retain ownership over them, only to find out that the provider of the things alters them, limits their use, or simply erases them from being.
Take anyone who bought a movie distributed by StudioCanal in Germany and Austria through Sony’s Playstation store, for instance. Sony previously had a deal to make those movie titles available in its store, but declined to continue offering movies and shows in 2021, stating that streaming services had made the deal un-competitive.
Sony’s PlayStation group stopped offering movie and TV show purchases and rentals, as of Aug. 31, 2021, citing the rise of streaming-video services. At the time, Sony assured customers that they “can still access movie and TV content they have purchased through PlayStation Store for on-demand playback on their PS4, PS5 and mobile devices.
And when Sony said that, it apparently forgot to add two very important words to its statement: “for now.” Instead, Sony decided to drop the bomb with yet another statement regarding StudioCanal content in Germany and Austria. It essentially amounts to: hey fuckers, that shit you bought is about to disappear, mmkay bye.
“As of August 31, 2022, due to our evolving licensing agreements with content providers, you will no longer be able to view your previously purchased Studio Canal content and it will be removed from your video library,” the notices read. “We greatly appreciate your continued support.”
Poof, it’s gone! That remark about appreciating the public’s “continued support” seems more like begging than acknowledging reality. Especially once you start asking the questions that immediately leap to mind.
For example: will customers get a refund for the movies that they bought and now can’t access? As per the source article “it’s unclear”, which likely means “hahahahaha nope.” How many movies were delisted? Literally hundreds. Are these just small-time movies? Nope, they include AAA titles like The Hunger Games and John Wick.
And so a whole bunch of people are going to find out that they didn’t buy anything, they rented some movies for a previously indefinite period of time that just became definite, long after the purchase was made. It’s hard to imagine something more anti-consumer than that.
Filed Under: copyright, licensing, movies, ownership, playstation, purchase
Companies: sony, studiocanal
Comments on “You Don’t Own What You’ve Bought: Sony Removes 100s Of Movies Bought Through PS Store”
Ugh.
Say what you will about MST3K’s new season, at least every single episode they release (and their back catalog which they can legally sell) is free of DRM. That way, you actually own it. I’ve gone cold turkey with DRM when it comes to eBooks and audiobooks, and I never, ever buy a book with DRM in it. So encoding DRM on a book is indeed a “lost sale” because I’m never going to buy it!
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’tis a shame that some of the show’s episodes are unavailable because of rights issues. SoulTaker and The Final Sacrifice were two of my favorite episodes, but they can’t even be streamed on the MST3K 24/7 channel. “Keep circulating the tapes”, indeed…
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Totally agreed. At the very least, Shout! Factory doesn’t seem to take down their back catalogue on YouTube (even if they do take down clips of their current season), but the © owner of the Final Sacrifice, Tjardus Greidanus, is truly living up to his name by making sure that nobody gets to see The Final Sacrifice (which is my favorite episode, FWIW). I was lucky enough to purchase it from Rifftrax when it was there, and I’m just saddened that we can’t have great things anymore, like that episode being available.
Re: Re: Forgot to mention
This is true of my Rifftrax copy but I’ve seen evidence that it’s also true with the Gizmoplex: you can re-download episodes and riffed media that the store no longer sells in both of those places. I was able to download a higher-definition version of The Final Sacrifice in the Rifftrax store after the rights expired because I had purchased it when it was still licensed, and I’ve seen people do the same with the Gizmoplex. I think that kind of permanence–that it stays in your online library after you purchase it even when the rights are expired–is a far better business practice than what Sony is doing.
Re: Ugh.
Well, maybe and maybe not. If you access that DRM-free content through their app, they might tell the app to refuse to display it.
Even if you use local copies on your devices and someone else’s player app, if their app is also installed on your device, it might scan that local storage and delete those local DRM-free copies.
Remember, they don’t care about a few bucks of liability from an individual customer, they care about millions in contract violations with other corporations, and when the two conflict, well…
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That has not been my experience. At all. Here’s why.
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And the worst thing is that Sony will inevitably put all lost sales such as yours down to illegal actions that you (AFAIK) don’t engage in, not their own theft of legally purchased content.
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They even made a point of it in the Kickstarter — “with no insulting DRM.”
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It’s not exactly the first time shit like this has happened.
The grift which is “imaginary property” is, in the end, all about convincing people that you don’t own what you bought and that the owner of information allowing someone else to manufacture a copy of that information is evil.
It’s no wonder that piracy remains a mainstay – and especially so when your “purchase” of a product means the vendor can walk right in and steal what you bought from right under your nose.
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And off-topic, but
I say that they’re on a hot streak and Munchie, Dr. Mordrid, and Demon Squad are all-timers.
The host segments have been subpar this season (aside from the mutha-crabba song), but nobody watches MST3K for the host segments.
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To be fair, some of my favorite MST3K moments are host segments, such as Joel & the bots mimicking the studio scene in Pod People and Mike & Crow making fun of Canada (and Tom Servo threatening violence against them before Mike reining him in) in The Final Sacrifice, and the “Noh Theater” Abbott-and-Costello-esque vaudeville bit in Invasion of the Neptune Men. But that may be just me. I love the host segments because they show what the silhouettes are like when we could see light upon them. I rarely had that chance back in the 90’s (I was a kid and didn’t have the patience; also my parents didn’t subscribe to cable until after MST3K had ended its Sci-Fi run).
But to each one’s own! That being said, I would definitely agree with you about “Mother-Crabber” as I would say it’s the best musical segment MST3K has ever done, and that includes “Patrick Swayze Christmas”, “The Canada Song”, and “Living in Deep 13”.
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Oh, I’ve definitely got my favorite host segments (and a “You know you want me, baby!” T-shirt). But they’re the icing. The theater segments are the cake.
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That’s fair. And I agree with it!
Ubisoft is also stealing purchased game content, even stuff sold through Steam.
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There are reasons many people use credit cards for online purchases – among them the fact that you can chargeback purchases that are delivered defective or not at all. And not being able to watch purchased movies would certainly qualify.
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Good luck reimbursing stuff purchased months, years earlier. And even better luck trying to argue against the ToS saying you don’t own the thing, it’s just a lease. I have it very clear in my mind that I will pirate every single piece of game I have if they simply decide to remove from my library or if the service shuts down.
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You ever heard of GOG or itch.io? Both of those places are DRM-free.
Re: Re: Re:2
Ah yes, for those piracy is not needed. I have tons of stuff from Humble and GOG too.
Mr. Masnick,
Could you please clarify that clause about firstborns in your site’s user agreement?
Thanks.
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Hate to burst your bubble there, pardner, but Techdirt doesn’t have a browsewrap “agreement”.
“That game? You didn’t buy that!” — Obama
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Links.
“As of August 31, 2022, due to our evolving licensing agreements with content providers, you will no longer be able to view your previously purchased Studio Canal content and it will be removed from your video library,” the notices read. “We greatly appreciate your continued support.”
Well, tough, Sony. You can whistle for my support. As long as you keep stealing people’s legally purchased content, my movies are not only going to be on physical media so you can’t delete them, but also pre-owned so you don’t get a single penny of support from me. Wankers.
Pirates: Hold my beer.
Seriously, there’s no better place to save your money nowadays. And avoid being (legally) robbed.
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You’re referring to Sony, right? What they’re doing is a lot closer to theft than the actions of the people Sony calls “pirates”.
Given that the legal system is kind of supporting them, perhaps “privateer” would be more appropriate. The technically correct term would be “fraudster” on account of them using the term “purchase”. Anyway, Techdirt authors shouldn’t be accepting the MAFIAA’s definitions; one of the first things I learned about debates was to never let the other party define the terms.
You are seeing exactly why I won’t buy digital on line. There’s been too many times over the years, some company that took your money goes belly up or decides they aren’t making enough money and shut their services down.
You’re paying for air, as far as the terms go and sooner or later they are going to renege. It’s just a question of how long before they do.
As far as I am concerned, they’ve shot themselves in the foot. I’ll keep my money, they can keep their ‘products’ as they aren’t offering what you think you’re getting for the money. They charge as if you are buying but it isn’t even a rental. It’s you’re paying for use until they decide they no longer want you to access it without paying again.
NO DEAL.
Pirates, as always, are unaffected.
But what about "my" copy
of “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, or “Dracula’s Mirror”?
Sonys store, Sonys choice
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My movies, my choice. I’d much rather do without than spend all that money and have to do without anyways.
Re: whoosh
Here’s the difference between, say, Sony (or Amazon or Apple for that matter) revoking a movie I paid for from my library with Twitter or Facebook kicking a TOS-violator off of their service: It costs nothing to make a Twitter or Facebook account. There’s no demand to get my money back from Facebook or Twitter because I didn’t spend any of it. By contrast, I spent money on movies from Apple TV, Amazon, or Sony and if it doesn’t work that means I flushed money down the drain.
¿No lo entiende usted?
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Myeah, and since sony makes that choice their story obtains less customers and piracy becomes yet more popular.
Sony’s business model has, for a long time now, been centered around “malicious stupidity” and have cast the blame on the existence of the internet as a whole for all the failures they’ve had to consign to the scrap heap as loss leaders since there are clear limits on how much the consumer will accept.
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Myeah, and since sony makes that choice their story obtains less customers and piracy becomes yet more popular.
TBH, the problem’s not in making piracy “more popular”, it’s in making piracy the only way to regain access to legitimately purchased content.
We just don’t understand how piracy keeps growing…
Oh hey, remove another studio from the library and tell them to suck it up.
been said a gazilion times, the asshole judge who voted in favour of Sony over the ‘alternative operating system’ opened such a giant can of worms! i hope the cunt was paid well for letting down the rest of the world, on top of those in the USA! he ought to be proud of his conquests!
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…the asshole judge who voted in favour of Sony over the ‘alternative operating system’ opened such a giant can of worms!
Isn’t that the case that was settled by Sony in 2016 and 2017 after initially being dismissed in 2011?
Just buy the physical copies
Why do people still buy digital copies when companies can remove them from the customer’s library? Hasn’t this happened a few times before with other companies?
The same is true of watching your favorite show on a streaming service: yesterday it was on Netflix, today it’s on Amazon, but tomorrow it could be on HBO or Disney+.
So just buy the physical version that you can watch whenever you want without worry that it’ll disappear. And if you own the physical version, you can rip it to your computer so you don’t have to carry the disc with you.
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I’ve got a large collection of physical media, but most people aren’t interested in buying discs anymore. They take up space and often cost more than digital copies. Especially once you start getting into 4K, where you’re looking at hundreds of dollars just for a player and usually around $30 for each movie.
All that and you’re still dealing with DRM, and many of the same problems you get with downloads. No, they can’t take away your ability to access your purchased movies, but you’re still dealing with bullshit like region locks. You can buy a region-free player, but that’s one more thing that you’ll be paying extra for.
As for ripping discs, it’s just as illegal to circumvent DRM on a disc as it is on a file you downloaded to your hard drive.
Removal of movies
What right does Sony have in removing hundreds of movies that I have purchased on psn, movies that were bought with my money should at the very least be refunded in full for any titles removed, can we start a petition, maybe making enough noise will stop sony from fucking over their loyal customers, surely we have the rights to stop this injustice.
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I have to wonder whether this is sarcasm. If not, maybe look up their history. The infamous CD rootkit, all the other anti-copying stuff, the PlayStation 3 Linux disablement, membership in the RIAA and MPAA (a.k.a. MAFIAA), etc.
“Noise” won’t fix a thing. It’s not that they don’t hear people, it’s that they don’t care. They don’t have to. People are still shoveling money at them. Nothing will change until people start avoiding Sony game systems and films based on this stuff. (Or until a court forces change, at which time they’ll do the bare minimum—maybe people in certain European countries will get their movies or money back, and Americans will remain screwed.)
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People are still shoveling money at them.
Not me, the PS3 was my last Sony console purchased brand new. Every console I’ve had since has been purchased pre-owned from CeX.
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I purchased a PS3 used. I haven’t bought a Sony console since (though I have bought Nintendo consoles, so I guess I don’t really have the moral high ground).
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I have a 3DS, a 3DS XL, a 2DS XL, and an NSwitch all purchased pre-owned. Anybody who tries to argue that my money from those sales flows back to Nintendo through the sellers’ purchase of replacement consoles doesn’t understand the market, and they certainly don’t understand human behaviour.
Re: Re: Re:3
Unless you never plan to use the eShop, good luck buying physical-only.
Re: Re: Re:4
I don’t know how those consoles function where you are, but even the NSwitch takes cartridges here in the UK, and unless you’re only interested in playing racing games, then you’re pretty spoilt for choice.
The latest business model. Once called theft.
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The latest business model. Once recognised as theft.
FTFY. 😉
After Eldred v Ashcroft established that works that have already fallen into the public domain can be reinstated (and republishers can be sued for continuing to have the once-public works in their catalogues!) it’s clear that the law simply elevates the bottom feeders above all legitimate uses.
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Wrong. The case wasn’t Eldred v. Ashcroft but Golan v. Holder which established that public domain works can be re-copyrighted. Eldred v. Ashcroft was the decision that upheld the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. If the latter decision went the other way, Winnie the Pooh would have been in the public domain in the US on January 1, 2002.
Time for a Hack?
One of the best ideas I ever heard was for a piece of what would ordinarily be called “malware” but in this case is actually the Good Guy: a program that runs in the background of your computer, phone, etc., and watches for the telltale sign (details left as an exercise for the reader) of a T&C-acceptance popup, and injects a click on YES before a human could possibly have read them. Sure, on the one hand this reeks of “signing me up for something I didn’t want to sign up for” — but that’s splitting hairs. You’re absolutely right, the vast majority of people DO click straight through T&C stuff without reading it — so what this thing is REALLY doing is… giving them PLAUSIBLE DENIABILITY when they decide to VIOLATE the T&C in some way, be it by reverse-engineering a piece of software, hacking or copying a game or song or video, etc. etc. etc. “I never even SAW the T&Cs, so I can’t be held responsible for agreeing to them!” You see? I strongly recommend that someone write and deploy this not-so-mal-ware, ASAP.