PlayStation Store Will Remove Customers' Purchased Movies (flatpanelshd.com) 164
In a move that will undoubtedly draw severe criticism, movies from Studio Canal that customers have purchased on the PlayStation Store will be completely removed next month. From a report: The legal notice is published on PlayStation's German and Austrian websites where it reads (translated): "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. We greatly appreciate your continued support."
In other words, customers will lose access to movies such as Apocalypse Now, Django, John Wick, La La Land, Saw and The Hunger Games that they purchased on the PlayStation Store. Not rented, but purchased.
In other words, customers will lose access to movies such as Apocalypse Now, Django, John Wick, La La Land, Saw and The Hunger Games that they purchased on the PlayStation Store. Not rented, but purchased.
Class Action Baby (Score:5, Insightful)
If they actually termed it a "purchase" but it's really been a rental all along... well then, release the lawyers Smithers!
Dumb. Pirate it instead. (Score:5, Insightful)
Dumb. You should have downloaded the movies instead of paying for it.
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Dumb. You should have downloaded the movies instead of paying for it.
Came here to post this exact thing. Ripping them off is always going to be preferable to them ripping you off.
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Re:Dumb. Pirate it instead. (Score:4, Insightful)
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So no, content has never been bought. Churches found that out when the bought movies and showed them to Sunday school classes. And
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What killed re order. music was perfect copies from CD.
If i look past the mobile input fail then what is left is still bullshit.
The copying never killed the recording industry (however hard they want to convince you of this).
The recording industry was doing fine.
What happened was that the projected profit was not met.
They still made ridiculous profits, mind you. Just not as good as ridiculous as they projected.
And now that they have the power to retroactively take away the content you payed for i'm sure the profits will be back to the hideous height they were b
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The industry was dying. Revenue from CD sales was lower than ever by 2010.
LOL, no. Lower revenue doesn't equate dying, it equates lower profits. And it's a very selective view on the industry, mainly propagated by that same industry, with millionaire pop stars crying crocodile tears about how they weren't getting any richer. Remember metallica?
Look at the graphs here: https://www.riaa.com/u-s-sales... [riaa.com]
In 2010 the industry had a revenue twice as high as in the 70s and well above the revenue in the 80s.
The truth is CD sales were exorbitant in the 90s because everyone was buying the
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If corporations keep shoving this anti consumer crap down our throats we need legislation that punishes such events where purchased content becomes unavailable, by at least having the money spent refunded.
Re:Class Action Baby (Score:5, Insightful)
While I do have a tendency to agree here, and would like people to not buy into that DRM shit in the first place, it's become so pervasive that we can no longer hand-wave it away so easily.
IF some corporation wants to shove DRM down my throat and prevent me from protecting my property in my home, then I damn expect them to do that protection for me and to be liable if they fail to do so.
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If corporations keep shoving this anti consumer crap down our throats we need legislation that punishes such events where purchased content becomes unavailable, by at least having the money spent refunded.
If a DVD you own is stolen or broken, you have no expectation of a refund. So why would you expect a refund when your cloud access to the same content is somehow stolen or broken?
I would expect the opportunity to download a copy that was not removed once a company lost the license to it. Or a refund of teh purchase price.
One might argue that in this case the gatekeepers are guilty of theft or vandalism. My response to that is that the world is full of thieves and vandals, so you lock your doors and take other measures to protect your stuff.
They sold it on the expectation that you would have permeant access to a copy, not that it could be pulled at anytime.
Having any of your own data on someone else's hardware - even if the "data" is movies or music you purchased access to - is like leaving your media system out on the front lawn on Friday night and expecting it to still be there Monday morning. Your optimism may be affirmed, but the chances are not good.
No, it's more like"We've lost the license to sell show XY, so we're revoking the keys to teh DVD DRM from your DVD player so you can't watch it anymore." Yes, I realize that isn't how a DVD works but it's illustrative of what happened - you still h
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"If a DVD you own is stolen or broken, you have no expectation of a refund. So why would you expect a refund when your cloud access to the same content is somehow stolen or broken?"
You...do realize that in either of those instances *you* had control of the media in question. This is not the same thing, in fact it's so far FROM the same thing as to almost be laughable. Why do people try to justify blatant bullshit by blaming the victim?
Re:Class Action Baby (Score:5, Insightful)
In Europe if it says "buy" then it better mean buy and no small print can override the consumers reasonable expectation that they are buying something.
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In Europe if it says "buy" then it better mean buy and no small print can override the consumers reasonable expectation that they are buying something.
And yet another thing Europe does better than we do. 'Murca! We're number two!
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The legal notice is published on PlayStation's German and Austrian websites...
I thought Germany and Austria were in Europe?
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You are purchasing the right to consume media that you have no rights to.
Even in Europe.
Further, there is an effort to push the US copyright standard as an international standard, and the EU will almost certainly sign on eventually.
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If you market it such that is appears to be sold, not a use time limited item such as a rental or subscription, then you can not later take it back as is the case with PlayStation store. Here customers will either be getting their full 100% purchase price refunded or a replacement DRM free ver
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Re: Class Action Baby (Score:3)
It would in more parts of the world than not. Unfortunately the US thinks corporations are people and that those people have more rights than actual people.
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In a way, your copy/pasta ad hominem soup is accurate-- we never owned the rights to the material on the CD or DVD either. However, fair use doctrine did cover us making copies on cassette, or even hard drives in the case of CD's, as there was no copyright mechanism. This behavior was, more or less, codified under the terms of the Sony Corp v. Universal case, in which time-shifting was allowed under fair use. Making backup copies of LP's, CD's and even VHS tapes was allowed as "fair use", as long as the r
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They can call it a purchase but if you have to ask someone else for permission each time you use a thing, you don't own that thing.
If you don't control it, you don't own it. Any seller who tells you otherwise is lying to you.
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Buried in the license agreement that no one read, I'm sure there's a "force majeure" type clause that leaves them fully protected.
All media these days is "rental". You own nothing, and that's exactly how they like it. Poor George Lucas had to buy up all the copies of the Star Wars Christmas Special-- now he could just have the studios revoke the keys and remove the streams.
Missing word. (Score:5, Informative)
No problem (Score:5, Interesting)
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pretty much.. tack on interest and a 5% asshole tax. ...1984 to be exact?
On an aside, anyone else remember when amazon did this with eBooks
i have a feeling as the pushback and outcry on this kind of anti-consumer behavior diminishes, the frequency of such abuses will accelerate -- particularly as we move steadily towards less physical media and more downloading/streaming.
i'll always have fond memories of buying video games back in the 90's. for example:
warcraft 2, amazing box art, actual manual, and hell
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i have a hard time believing games have such slim margins these kind of touches (call it fluff if you will) aren't possible anymore. i mean hell, they've outsourced their entire QA/testing department to their customers, how about passing some of those savings on guys?
You are right. Video games have big margins and they actually do sell physical copies with arts and stuff. They call them collector editions and they tend to seel for $80 to $250 depending on how extensive the goodies are.
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And in other news this week, Playstation Network is shutting down access to a number of old games.
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On an aside, anyone else remember when amazon did this with eBooks ...1984 to be exact?
This happened because the organization that was selling the book on Amazon did not have the rights to the book. Amazon also refunded the people involved, while Sony appears to not be doing so...which should be illegal. To be fair, Amazon probably should have transferred the purchase to the correct rights holder, but there may have been a price difference at play there.
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It seems to me like remotely disabling something that's been purchased. Whether that be a physical thing, or a right.
This is already a known issue, if you buy lifetime rights to say, an online game for example, it's not YOUR lifetime, it's the lifetime of the game studio. The day their servers shut down you are done, and there's nobody left to sue for any sort of refund. Same goes for online activation / always-on DRM servers. We don't yet have any strong laws on the books yet that force studios to writ
This is why (Score:2)
when the day comes that I can't buy movies on disc, I will stop watching movies. Hollywood isn't capable of producing anything entertaining enough to be worth putting up with this crap.
Why is it idiot (Score:2)
Re: Why is it idiot (Score:2)
You blind fool, this is why it's idiotic? (Score:2)
You didn't see the '?' at the end. DUH
Buy, then watch. (Score:2)
Yeah. You can buy, then watch.
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Which I don't have any interest in doing.
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No, I mean what I said. (Grownups do that). I don't go to theaters, and very, very rarely watch movies on TV even on the free channels.
And what's really, really, really idiotic is playing grammar nazi on Slashdot.
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its a subject field not a title field dipshit, learn to read before judging others
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Talking to yourself is often a sign of mental illness.
sock puppet
Learn to pronounce
noun
1. a simple hand puppet made from a sock.
2. a false online identity, typically created by a person or group in order to promote their own opinions or views.
"both sides in the debate use sock puppets to make it seem as if scores of people are arguing a point"
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Missed again, sock puppet. Not surprising, given that you appear to be an idiot.
Stuff happens (Score:5, Insightful)
But there is only one way to amicably solve this.
Refund all the money.
No way around it. If the original amount is less than enough to buy it at another service, then it should be set to that value instead.
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The fact online movie "stores" can do this without even refunding the affected customers (not that it would be ok even if they did refund, but not even providing even a refund is a textbook case of adding insult to injury) is the reason I torrent and even stream from underground websites without remorse.
Well, that and the fact I can't move an optical drive-equipped laptop from the EU to the US and back more than a couple of times before I run out of "region changes" for the arbitrarily defined "regions".
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I think VLC will play play any region. At least I had no trouble playing EU CDs on my US laptop with an optical drive. It even let me choose the language.
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I thought that region encoding, etc. was handled by the drive's firmware, not the software playing it.
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I'm not sure at present since its been a long while since I bought a foreign dvd
But back during the days when you could get an american dvd release before thd one in thd local country and it was common to buy that way.
Dvd / blu-ray drives did have region locking at the firmware level in addition to anything thd software player had. There used to be a website that released patched firmwares for different models of pc drives.
Although that was a long time back
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DVD drives are always encoded for region. Some gray market drives can be set to region 0, which in effect means they will allow playback of all regions, but that is not allowed by the license provided from the DVD FLLC.
The software protection for DVD is CSS. It has nothing to do with regions.
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> I thought that region encoding, etc. was handled by the drive's firmware, not the software playing it.
It works both ways. DVD-Region locking requires a DVD firmware able to count the region changes. Many modern drives, especially from Lite-On, can be set back to non-Region Code.
In addition the licence for the codecs requires the software (eg VLC) to also count region changes. Which actually noone cares about any more as there are no commercial licences left and VLC simply has no licence and therefore n
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I think VLC will play play any region.
DVDs: generally yes. Blu-rays: not without a third-party library and database of disc decryption keys.
At least I had no trouble playing EU CDs on my US laptop
The audio CD standard doesn't provide for DRM. Sony tried to tack some on, affecting CDs played on computers which caused a scandal and they eventually backed down.
Re: Rootkit Scandal (Score:2)
That's why I have not purchased any Sony products in the past 20 years (give or take).
Correct, VLC bypasses region restrictions (Score:2)
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The fact online movie "stores" can do this ...
This is why products that require an online service for safekeeping should be a Subscription service.
All "Purchases" are actually temporary If you never actually receive a Persistent copy of the product And are thus dependent on someone else's servers for your life of the ownership.
What incentive Does the provider really have to keep those servers online If they are not paid to do so?
A One-time $20 for a movie doesn't cover the Bandwidth and Upkeep cos
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Bandwidth and storage prices decrease every year. Power breaks even (approximately, hdd density goes up, but power prices go up). Equipment needs upgrading and staff needs paying. But as long as you're making new sales on any content at reasonable volumes, legacy content should be maintainable effectively indefinitely.
Even if all that weren't true, Playstation Store runs off the same infrastructure as Playstation Plus which *is* a subscription service. It didn't prevent this from happening.
This is a license
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region locking on devices is just a way to sell more devices. It used to be cost prohibitive to own more than one DVD / Blu-ray Player. Now you can have one for every region you want to watch movies from.
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The fact online movie "stores" can do this without even refunding the affected customers (not that it would be ok even if they did refund, but not even providing even a refund is a textbook case of adding insult to injury) is the reason I torrent and even stream from underground websites without remorse.
Yep. Putlocker. Just...putlocker.
That's quite some chutzpah (Score:4, Funny)
We greatly appreciate your continued support.
Are you just unduely optimistic or are you deliberately trying to antagonize your customers by adding insult to injury?
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You really need to get on youtube and look up "Ernestine Phone Operator"
This behavior is not new.
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"One ringy-dingy"....
Geez, showing my age, I didn't even have to look that one up.
I remember that from Laugh In.
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I caught it in nick at night reruns in the 80's. By then I had dealt with the phone company in PR a few times, and it was just like that. Circular logic, an unwillingness to listen, and an iron-fisted way of forcing their will on you.
Maybe that's why AT&T got busted up 20 years after those skits were made, and why PRTC (Puerto Rico Telephone Co.) is now a memory, it's job taken over by some Mexican joint called "Claro"
Sony also fucked theater operators hard. Anyone remember "SDDS" sound? I do. Sony
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"One ringy-dingy"....
Geez, showing my age, I didn't even have to look that one up.
I remember that from Laugh In.
"Have I reached the party to whom I am speaking?". Yeah, I'm a geezer too. Sock it to me!
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We're the phone company. We don't have to care.
[proudly holding Geezer card]
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That might be one of the best skits of all time that is still about 100% true
"We don't care. We don't have to. We're the phone company."
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this entire article/thread is just a really long winded way of saying that sudio canal films can and should be pirated at will.
if they're okay with what amounts to stealing from paying customers, well turn about is fair play -- right?
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"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
--Thomas Hesse, President of Sony BMG's global digital business division (at the time)
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Statistically speaking most people who get screwed this way, and most people who swear to boycott, will end up as their customers again.
Why would you 'purchase' this? (Score:3)
Recalling CinemaNow and Fandango (Score:3)
I remember when CinemaNow died, and moved as many of the movies as it could to your Fandango account. When Fandango decided it no longer wanted to stream movies, it offered you the ability to transfer whatever you had to Google Movies... I only lost a small handlful of movies I had a purchase streaming licenses for, but appreciated their efforts.
Sony, again, is FUCKING UP ROYALLY.
Yarrrrrrr! (Score:5, Insightful)
Rented, or purchased? (Score:5, Informative)
Customers will lose access to movies ... that they purchased on the PlayStation Store. Not rented, but purchased.
Wrong. Not rented, nor purchased. Licensed. Here's what it says in the current PSN terms of service [playstation.com]: 8.4. ...When you order Content from PlayStation Store, you buy a personal license to use that Content for private, non-commercial use.
And before you think the Terms of Service said anything differently a long, long time ago, it didn't. Here's similar text w/ the same result from a Playstation Store Agreement back in 2010 [playstation.com]: 7. GENERAL LICENSE RESTRICTIONS AND TERMS: ...All content and software provided through Sony Online Services are licensed non-exclusively and revocably to you, your children and children for whom you are a legal guardian..., solely for Your personal, private, non-transferable, non-commercial, limited use.
This is why I refuse to buy Sony or Microsoft console games now: you don't own the (physical copy of the) game. It's only as good for as long as the publisher supports it. Instead, I go on eBay and buy old console games for me and my son to play. They're just as much fun, plus I own the game, and I can play 100% of the game, since there's no extra fees for downloadable content.
Re:Rented, or purchased? (Score:5, Interesting)
In any case, it'll be interesting to see how this turns out, I wouldn't be surprised if Sonny tries to settle this one out of court if anyone takes up the challenge. Any verdict on a case like this would have massive implications to movie licensing rights, which a company like Sony would very much like to avoid I imagine. I'm definitely grabbing the barrel of popcorn if this one makes its way to the courts.
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Any verdict on a case like this would have massive implications to movie licensing rights, which a company like Sony would very much like to avoid I imagine. I'm definitely grabbing the barrel of popcorn if this one makes its way to the courts.
Yeah, you will get a coupon for $5 of PlayStation Store credit.
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I never purchased a movie on Playstation, but have purchased a lot on AppleTV. When I click on the button, it says "Buy", not "License" or whatever.
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Is it possible this might be the movie studios fault, or the law's fault, for not providing a non-revocable license to their movies?
Normally when you sell then watch a DVD, you only need a license to press the disc. When you're a streaming service and your customer begins watching a movie, the streaming service has to have a license that covers time you stream the movie. Copyright law considers each of those streams a separate copy.
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You're right, the whole licensing bullshit is too complicated. i'll just head over to bittorrent, the stuff I download there works at least.
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But what about when there is no physical version available?
There's a TV show that I'd pay serious 3-digits for a complete boxed set. That's non-existent, however... but I can "purchase" it (websites' own word) from many different online streaming services.
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"evolving licensing agreements with content providers..."
Yep, and you can't even count on the license staying the same after you buy it. What's the point of having a license if it changes on a whim, you can't trust it, and it doesn't actually mean anything?
I long for the day we finally make it illegal for companies to change licenses and agreements after you make a purchase. We don't allow that to happen for contracts.
physical media (Score:5, Insightful)
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I wholeheartedly agree. But a problem arises when there is no physical version available.
There's a TV show that I'd pay serious 3-digits for a complete boxed set. That's non-existent, however... but I can "purchase" it (websites' own word) from many different online streaming services.
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The movie wasn't purchased... (Score:2)
Re:The movie wasn't purchased... (Score:4, Informative)
Here's a phone, call someone who cares.
I give you money, you give me content. You take away content, I will consider it stealing. And I have no problem stealing from a thief.
And they ask why... (Score:3)
The Real Questions (Score:3)
Who in their right mind would dare to purchase another movie on the PlayStation Store?
Who would dare to, or at least hesistate to purchase another movie from a store of this kind?
..which brings us to..
Why would Sony decide they want to stop selling movies on the PlayStation Store?
Whose benefit does Sony hope to gain by destroying consumer confidence in this type of service?
What would make Sony scuttle their own sales voluntarily, but still pretend like they want to continue selling movies?
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Who would consider buying anything at this store? Why do you think they will stop at movies? What would keep them from simply taking away games you bought?
Calling it a purchase is lying (Score:2)
ALL streaming content is rented. Unless it's a physical object like a CD, you don't own it
Piracy (Score:3)
Piracy has always been the answer.
You bought it. You don't own it. (Score:2)
Once again, we learn that buying something is an illusion with many companies these days. You only get the right to use it in ways that the maker approves, and they can reclaim the product whenever they wish. How long will we put up with this horse puckey?
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not purchased (Score:2)
Hoist the mainsail! (Score:2)
Re:YouTube is even worse (Score:4, Interesting)
I share your sentiment, but I remember when this happened.
https://gizmodo.com/amazon-sec... [gizmodo.com]
https://yro.slashdot.org/story... [slashdot.org]
To get my copy of 1984 you're gonna have to break down my door, and meet.. me. It's in my music room bookshelf, next to Animal Farm and Matilda.
The only movies I purchase from streamers are on Apple, and I know they can and will do the same if the rights holder puts a gun to Apple's head. And even with apple, my purchases have been few. Things I wanted "right now" for one reason or another.
Which is why.. if you treasure it.. if you really treasure the story.. buy the goddamned book on paper.. or the movie on physical media.
No lessons will be learned here. Much butthurt and online gnashing of teeth, and everyone will carry on like it never happened. Convenience trumps all other considerations when it comes to people. This is why LP lost to Cassette, this is why VHS died at the hands of DVD, and why streaming is eating everyone else's cake.
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Convenience trumps all other considerations when it comes to people. This is why LP lost to Cassette, this is why VHS died at the hands of DVD, and why streaming is eating everyone else's cake.
I dunno - I find torrenting more convenient than setting up a streaming account. So much so that I've never done the latter - it just didn't seem worth the effort. I also find it more convenient to be able to watch movies and TV even when I don't have a data connection. Local copies rule, cloud services drool...
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I continue to collect my movies on DVD and Blu-ray disc. All the streaming services could stop tomorrow and I could still watch all of my favorites any time I want.
Until disc rot sets in. Rip'em and keep copies on a few hard drives - they're more convenient to watch and less likely to die of old age.