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PlayStation (Games) Television

PlayStation To Delete A Ton Of TV Shows Users Already Paid For (kotaku.com) 123

Sony is about to delete tons of Discovery shows from PlayStation users' libraries even if they already "purchased" them. Why? Because most users don't actually own the digital content they buy thanks to the mess of online DRM and license agreements. Some of the soon-to-be-deleted TV shows include Mythbusters and Naked and Afraid. Kotaku reports: The latest pothole in the road to an all-digital future was discovered via a warning Sony recently sent out to PlayStation users who purchased TV shows made by Discovery, the reality TV network that recently merged with Warner Bros. in one of the most brutal and idiotic corporate maneuvers of our time. "Due to our content licensing arrangements with content providers, you will no longer be able to watch any of your previously purchased Discovery content and the content will be removed from your video library," read a copy of the email that was shared with Kotaku.

It linked to a page on the PlayStation website listing all of the shows impacted. As you might imagine, given Discovery's penchant for pumping out seasons of relatively cheap to produce but popular reality TV and documentary-based shows, there are a lot of them. They include, but are not limited to, hits such as: Say Yes to the Dress, Shark Week, Cake Boss, Long Island Medium, Deadly Women, and many, many more. [...] Now, essentially anything you buy on PSN, whether a PS5 blockbuster or, uh, Police Women of Cincinnati, is essentially just on indefinite loan until such time as the PlayStation servers die or the original copyright owner decides to pull the content.

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PlayStation To Delete A Ton Of TV Shows Users Already Paid For

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  • Fraud? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NewtonsLaw ( 409638 ) on Friday December 01, 2023 @04:55PM (#64047415)

    Surely it's an act of fraud to sell someone something that you do not own or to sell rights (ie: in perpetuity) for something you only hold transiently?

    Sounds liike class-action lawsuit time to me.

    And this is why I still buy my music and my favourite movies on physical media. It's another reason that piracy will never die until the day that we can gain a transferrable (cross-platform) life-time license to watch/listen to media that is streamed.

    It was bad enough that I had to buy my favourite music on vinyl, then buy it again on tape, then buy it a third time on CD. Just what *are* you buying?

    If it's a license to use/liste/watch then damaged media should be replaced for the cost of that media.

    If it's just the media you're buying then what's wrong with ripping and burning?

    • Re:Fraud? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Friday December 01, 2023 @05:00PM (#64047435) Journal
      And this is why I still buy my music and my favourite movies on physical media.

      Yup. It's the only way to ensure it's yours. The same with books. Paper can't be changed, unlike digital versions.

      It's another reason that piracy will never die until the day that we can gain a transferrable (cross-platform) life-time license to watch/listen to media that is streamed.

      Nope, it's just an excuse people use to justify not compensating someone for their work or feeling they are entitled to anything and everything without providing payment.
      • Re:Fraud? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Tyr07 ( 8900565 ) on Friday December 01, 2023 @05:33PM (#64047553)

        Nope, it's just an excuse people use to justify not compensating someone for their work or feeling they are entitled to anything and everything without providing payment.

        Correct, when they took the persons money (Their work) and then took the item they purchased back, they are using licensing as an excuse for not compensating someone for their work and feeling entitled to anything and everything without providing payment.

        Some people pirate for the reasons you said, but not being available in the region, and situations where what they paid for was taken away means people will find other ways of compensation.

        Companies can want to be greedy and force you into a position so you're at their whims and just dump money on them, by laws, regulations, lobbying, controlling markets and competition, but at the end a lot of time when companies behave that way, and then whine about pirary, from my perspective it's just someone stomping their feet going for not getting their way. If companies can you use dirty tricks that are illegal, pay a small fine for doing it, but completely shut down the competition forcing their competition to close down, then I feel 0 sympathy when other people don't play by the rules either.

      • Re:Fraud? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Sebby ( 238625 ) on Friday December 01, 2023 @05:46PM (#64047581)

        Nope, it's just an excuse people use to justify not compensating someone for their work or feeling they are entitled to anything and everything without providing payment.

        Some have other reasons that I think have some validity.

        For example, a Canadian friend of mine explained how in Canada most digital storage (HDDs, etc. anything that can "record" data basically) devices have a 'levy' (read: tax) that's meant to "compensate" content creators (mostly the corporate giants - I doubt the 'little guys' see any of it) against piracy.

        The problem he explained was that this 'levy' was blanket applied to just about any data storage devices, regardless of its intended use. He said for example that his work ends up with this 'levy' on all the hardware they purchase for their business (which does not involve any piracy), just like he pays it for doing his own NAS for backups.

        He admitted he had some 'pirated' content (stated he mostly ripped from his own DVDs, etc. for convenience, but likely had loads of non-purchased content), and stated this as his reasoning:

        "They treat you like a criminal regardless if you did anything wrong or not [by making pay the levy always] , so I might as well play into that role!"

        Can't say I could disagree with him on that point.

        • Hard to argue with his reasoning. I don't pirate anything but if I had to pay a pirate tax anyway, I certainly would.

        • Re:Fraud? (Score:5, Informative)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 ) <slashdot&worf,net> on Friday December 01, 2023 @09:42PM (#64048097)

          For example, a Canadian friend of mine explained how in Canada most digital storage (HDDs, etc. anything that can "record" data basically) devices have a 'levy' (read: tax) that's meant to "compensate" content creators (mostly the corporate giants - I doubt the 'little guys' see any of it) against piracy.

          The problem he explained was that this 'levy' was blanket applied to just about any data storage devices, regardless of its intended use. He said for example that his work ends up with this 'levy' on all the hardware they purchase for their business (which does not involve any piracy), just like he pays it for doing his own NAS for backups.

          He admitted he had some 'pirated' content (stated he mostly ripped from his own DVDs, etc. for convenience, but likely had loads of non-purchased content), and stated this as his reasoning:

          "They treat you like a criminal regardless if you did anything wrong or not [by making pay the levy always] , so I might as well play into that role!"

          Can't say I could disagree with him on that point.

          Except it isn't true. In Canada, the levy only applies to CD-Rs and CD-RWs, CD-R (Audio) and CD-RW (Audio) discs, and is permitted only for audio works.

          No levy is put on HDDs, SSDs, DVDs or anything else.

          The levy is currently set at 29 cents.

          Sorry, your friend is definitely a pirate and there is no justification for his actions. Unless he is using CDs and putting music onto them. Movies and other content are not covered.

          Here's the actual law: https://decisions.cb-cda.gc.ca... [cb-cda.gc.ca]

          There was a proposal many years ago to expand the levy to include DVDs and HDDs (SSDs weren't even an option yet, that's how long ago it was) but that was fought against by basically everyone from consumers to retailers and manufacturers.

          Wikipedia has a good summary of it - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

          Oh, and yes, because of this levy, copying music IS legal in Canada. At least onto CDs.

          • Re: Fraud? (Score:4, Insightful)

            by guruevi ( 827432 ) on Friday December 01, 2023 @11:34PM (#64048251)

            In Europe they DO have such taxes on all media and it is still considered illegal to make a copy, Media companies are double dipping through government regulation.

            • Re: Fraud? (Score:4, Informative)

              by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Saturday December 02, 2023 @07:53AM (#64048763)

              No. Europe is a continent with lots of different rules. The EU proposed creating a set of rules, but left it up to member states to implement them how they see fit. For example The Netherlands tax everything (because taxation is a national sport there), Luxembourg tax nothing (because taxation is taboo there), in Portugal it's on CDs and DVDs only.

              Every variation exists in Europe. Each country is different.

              • Yes, for instance this kind of tax exists in France. But the devil is in the details. It is not aimed at offsetting the losses of piracy, but of what is known as private copy. In this country you are actually allowed to copy media you legally own and share it with your family and friends.
                • Private copy is ultimately what the EU rule was about. From 2001/29/EC:

                  38) Member States should be allowed to provide for an
                  exception or limitation to the reproduction right for
                  certain types of reproduction of audio, visual and audiovisual
                  material for private use, accompanied by fair
                  compensation. This may include the introduction or
                  continuation of remuneration schemes to compensate
                  for the prejudice to rightholders. Although differences
                  between those remuneration schemes affect the
                  functioning of the i

              • by guruevi ( 827432 )

                No, according to the EUIPO and CJEU European laws are sovereign and EUIPO has made a ruling that copying media and circumventing copy protection is illegal.

        • by Kokuyo ( 549451 )

          This is precisely what is going on in Switzerland where it is therefore legal to consume pirated media either via download or stream unless it is pay-per-view streaming.

          The crux of the matter is that you cannot under any circumstances upload... so torrents are still very much illegal.

          I just doubt very much that we have a system in place for license holder to get identities behind IP addresses without incurring cost to them... I don't think many torrent users in Switzerland actually get a visit from the gove

        • by dfm3 ( 830843 )

          "They treat you like a criminal regardless if you did anything wrong or not [by making pay the levy always] , so I might as well play into that role!"

          Can't say I could disagree with him on that point.

          Back in college I knew someone who considered themselves to be a self-described "professional shoplifter" but only from one single retailer. And over months they stole thousands of dollars' worth of inventory from this one particular store. Their justification (purely on their word but I had no reason not to believe them) was that at one point they had been falsely accused of shoplifting an item that they claim was an honest mistake (cashier didn't ring an item up properly, or something like that) and they

          • ... accused of shoplifting an item that they claim was an honest mistake (cashier didn't ring an item up properly, or something like that) and they proceeded to file charges...

            Most stores or chains will only drop or resolve charges filed on the condition you never step foot in their store again. Hard to believe this excuse.

            • by dfm3 ( 830843 )
              I never said I did believe him, just that he never gave me any reason not to. ;-) It was a big enough chain store that I imagine it would be very hard to enforce any sort of blacklist.
        • Germany has this too.

        • Ask this "Canadian friend" of yours to provide a citation for the non-sense he or she is spouting. It amazes me how totally retarded posts get moded +5.

      • I've come to a similar conclusion. Invested in a 4k BluRay player last month and started buying everything I know I'll want to watch again. I suppose I should do the same with CDs, but cars without CD players means I'd have to digitize them anyhow. Books I'm less concerned with. Other than the Bible, how many am I going to read again? Few. Reference books become outdated (remember those annual updates for encyclopedia?), other books I've read once and I'm done. With a few exceptions, very few.

        • well I would say potentially a large volume of work a. you seem to like to reread a work of fiction and fantasy.
        • by Kaenneth ( 82978 )

          Blu-Ray has revocable DRM. Even if you never give the player internet access, a digitally signed updated key revocation list will be automatically installed if you insert a newer Blu-Ray disc with a newer revocation list than your player has.

      • It's another reason that piracy will never die until the day that we can gain a transferrable (cross-platform) life-time license to watch/listen to media that is streamed.

        Nope, it's just an excuse people use to justify not compensating someone for their work or feeling they are entitled to anything and everything without providing payment.

        Nope, TV was meant to be free, it started out that way and as long as they force commercials on us it should remain so. I will never pay for TV.

    • I'd bet a large sum of money that if you were to somehow manage to scroll all the way through the EULA that was probably shown in a postage stamp-sized window next to an "I Agree" button, you would find a clause in there somewhere that makes this action perfectly legal.

      And even if it weren't legal, you probably gave away your right to sue them anyway. All you're likely get is "arbitration" by a panel whose salaries are paid by them.

      • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

        I'd bet a large sum of money that if you were to somehow manage to scroll all the way through the EULA that was probably shown in a postage stamp-sized window next to an "I Agree" button, you would find a clause in there somewhere that makes this action perfectly legal.

        Except that's not really how contract law works when dealing with contracts of adhesion. Terms of purchase between a big company and an individual are not contracts made between two equal parties, but rather are contracts between an army of lawyers and a normal person. As a result, the courts are a lot more likely to overturn contract terms that violate reasonable expectations.

        If something looks like a sale, regardless of contract terms, there's a very good chance that the courts will find it to be a sa

        • by Kaenneth ( 82978 )

          Fairest solution is a full refund of 100% of the purchase price; and Sony gets to keep the interest that could have been earned on the money as if it were rental income and no other penalties, and the temporary access to the media did have some value.

          • Nah, Sony will not be able to profit from this.

            The deal they made with the content provider was probably on a licence basis, with payment for each person who "bought" a piece of content. Except they told the end buyer it's a purchase (at least marketed it as such).

            So they probably did not keep all the money that the end buyer paid, probably a bunch was already paid to the content provider. Be it 99 cents per dollar or 1 cent per dollar (or whatever other percentage) paid by the end buyer.

            So even if they kep

            • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

              So they probably did not keep all the money that the end buyer paid, probably a bunch was already paid to the content provider. Be it 99 cents per dollar or 1 cent per dollar (or whatever other percentage) paid by the end buyer.

              So even if they kept the balance in a bank, it's unlikely they made enough interest to cover what they paid the content provider. Not to mention the server farms and other infrastructure they had to create and maintain (with the associated manpower costs as well).

              Here's the thing, if they paid the content prover only for a month-to-month license, but sold a permanent license, then it is copyright fraud, because they sold a license that they did not have the legal right to sell. And if they did buy and resell a permanent license, then revoking that license is theft.

              Either way, Sony needs to be broken up more than any other tech company in the history of the world, and has desperately needed to get broken up for about the last 25 to 30 years.

              In other words, I expect Sony to be out a bunch in this whole deal.

              I hope it knocks a digit

      • Yup. Best solution for the end user is to pirate the paid-for content guilt-free. After all, you paid for it.

    • Education is what you get when you read the fine print.
      Experience is what you get when you don't

      I guess this has to go in the experience column. I have bought some show on amazon prime, and I bet the fine print is I don't own them and they could be yanked at anytime.
      Back to buying movies and shows I really like on physical media.
      • I've purchased most of the Rick and Morty Seasons on Amazon but then once the DVD of the season is released I'll buy that to have my own physical copy. I then make local digital backups of these episodes so that I don't have to stream from the Internet and so I can ensure I never lose my purchase in described fashion.

        I do worry about my Amazon book collection but I don't really have space to store all the physical copies of every book and many of these books aren't so good that I'll reread them anyway. The

        • Get a plugin for Calibre and de-DRMify the kindle books and then back them up somewhere besides amazon cloud. Calibre will also then allow you to format the files for other digital readers if you want.
          • Try as I might I just can't get collections or sorting by series number to work. Putting the metadata in the titles works but so very clunky.
            • For episodes I've stuck to a very simple but effective naming scheme for a long time. "Show Name - season/episode# - Episode title".
              Comes out to be "Rick and Morty - 01x01 - WhateverTheTitleIs.mkv"

              This seems to be acceptable by Jellyfin though these days I just have all my content on a pair of harddrives connected to a single tv with a raspberry pi. I run VLC and watch them all locally on the one screen.

          • I did this for a while but something eventually stopped working and since I don't buy that many books, sort of just gave up. I may have to go back to that and try again. Thanks for the tip though!

    • A class-action lawsuit? Maybe. All the "front" stuff in a marketplace seems to indicate that you're making a purchase, like when you hit the "purchase" or "buy" button in any of the marketplaces. The sneaky bullshit is that you're "buying" a limited-time license; basically, a rental; but I don't seem them ever label them as rentals (I only see "rentals" labeled where you can watch for a day or two, then your license expires). Digital purchase laws overwhelmingly support the corporate side of things.

      It hone

      • by v1 ( 525388 )

        Depends on the fine print. If it says you "can watch your content using xyz methods" and that's it, then that sounds like in perpetuity, and they will be in breach of contract. But if the fine print goes on to say "as long as xyz is running" or something like that, which gives them the power to terminate your use, then you may be out of luck.

        It's a bit like the ol "lifetime warranty" on any product. Its usually not YOUR lifetime, it's the lifetime of the company that sold it to you. Many "lifetime" warr

    • by aergern ( 127031 )

      I ripped a little over 1300 CDs back in 2010 and then recycled the media ... I did it because I paid for the content. Since then I have bought a lot of unDRM'd music and that's worked out. Unless there are no more players that do .mp3, .aac or .flac ... I'm fine with not having physical media. I would never pay for something that lives in some company's network that I had to access through their bullshit software.

    • I'm sure buried within the fine print of the "purchase" was something about the purchase really being a license to view the material.

    • by taustin ( 171655 )

      Surely it's an act of fraud to sell someone something that you do not own or to sell rights (ie: in perpetuity) for something you only hold transiently?

      Surely you didn't buy something without reading the terms and conditions, which undoubtedly allows exactly this.

      Right?

    • Sony is no stranger to class action lawsuits, nor to being repeat offenders after such lawsuits.

      They make so much money, and pay so little when hit with these lawsuits, that they don't care.

      At all.

  • by pegr ( 46683 ) on Friday December 01, 2023 @04:59PM (#64047433) Homepage Journal

    Personally, I would have no ethical problem for anyone who paid for the content to just go ahead and pirate it. Sue me, I dare ya!

  • by Indy11 ( 1024587 ) on Friday December 01, 2023 @05:09PM (#64047473)
    This is exactly why I still buy bluray and UHD discs for the movies and shows that are worth watching again. That way I actually own the digital content and not beholden to some streaming service who pulls crap like this.
    • Bingo. I can't take my streaming content and sell it when I'm done with it. There's no First-sale doctrine when you pay a service fee and receive no physical media. Every streaming service is a unique contract that you click through, most of those contracts have you agree to terms that allow the IP owner to change the terms of the contract. Where as physical goods purchased at retail are generally done so with an implicit contract, I give you money, you give me the thing, the thing does what one would reaso

      • Sounds like we need some federal laws protecting consumers from this practice. In the event of licenses being revoked, the owner of the intellectual property should be required to buy those licenses back at the current market rate they sell that property for.

        • Unfortunately, I think circumventing any law like that would be extremely simple: stop selling the licence you want to revoke six months before you revoke it. Then, when the time comes to revoke the licence, you can claim that the licence has no value, because it is not being sold any more.
        • In this it wouldn't be the IP owner but Sony who is an intermediary and the ones who pocketed the fees.

          The buyer has a deal with Sony not Warner. But yes Sony should fully refund every penny.

        • Sorry, but our Federal laws are to protect producers, not consumers. Now get back to work so you can continue to consume. Baaa baaaa!

  • by Growlley ( 6732614 ) on Friday December 01, 2023 @05:10PM (#64047479)
    and where only renting a copy - then that sounds like fraud and theft and numerous other things a creative lawyer ould come up with - false advertising etc,
    • The industry has gotten very comfortable with the "renting" model, but without telling people what the rental period is. If I'm told that I can use something for a year, I can take that into consideration when judging the price and value of the product. Alas, the whole software industry just tells us, "You can use it until you can't."

      This practice needs to be made illegal. If any license is temporary, it qualifies as a rental, and the vendor must disclose a minimum rental period.

  • Literally dozens of my friends use their Playstations to purchase individual episodes of Say Yes to the Dress (season 3 - Katya is a minx!) and Long Island Medium. We were slowly making our way through - shouldn't we get a refund?

  • Well if it was DRM'd then you never brought it, you only rented it. It really should be illegal to 'sell' anything that that is DRM'd as it misleads the purchaser into thinking to they are buying something, not renting.

    However in this case looking at the list of programs IMHO nothing has been lost, with the exception of Mythbusters.
    • Even with Mythbusters, you still want the pirate version that edits out the mind-numbing repetitions. Some episodes were almost an homage to Bill Nye.

  • Especially TV shows, I'm not going to pay more to add it to my library for 24.99$ when you can pull it at any time. I'll rent, I'll subscribe, but I won't fall into the falsehood of buying it, nor pay the premium buying it license. This should count as fraud.

    • I buy the physical media, rip it (MakeMKV + Handbrake), copy the file(s) to my Jellyfin server, then put the disk away. Works pretty well.

      MakeMKV is free to use during its (seemingly perpetual) beta period, although I eventually bought a license basically as a "thank you" to the developers.

  • Video tapes got chewed up, laserdiscs got bit rot and Blu ray players can have their keys revoked. Pirate sites can ve seized and torrents can run out of seeds. Film vaults catch fire and some companies just hoard stuff away. There is no perfect solution for media preservation and ownership that works forever.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      So you'd equate tripping and falling with being tackled and punched to the ground?

    • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

      Video tapes got chewed up, laserdiscs got bit rot and Blu ray players can have their keys revoked.

      Ostensibly, yes, but in practice, you have a legal right to format-shift that physical media into a DRM-free digital copy that can never be taken away. You still have to back those archival copies up, of course, but they're yours forever so long as you make sure your backups are robust. The same is not true for content that you "buy" online.

      And more importantly, when something goes wrong with a physical copy, it is your fault for failing to do backups properly, rather than the content creator's fault for

    • All my CDs still sound as good as they did decades a go

  • Do you want people downloading torrents?

    Because THIS is how you get people downloading torrents.

  • Sony are being a bunch of cunts. No more. No less. I have many "digital" things. Things that have been withdrawn from sale, things that have been blocked due to copyright complaints, things which were subject to legal removal. Yet all of them on other platforms are still available.

    Rather than complaining about ownership (blaming the user) we should hold the companies who push these online stores accountable for providing what they promised (blaming the company)

    • How is it Sony's fault? It's literally illegal for them to continue offering the shows for download.

      It's Discovery/WB who decided to revoke the licences for people who had already bought the shows. They could've quite easily allowed downloads in perpetuity for existing owners of content.
      • How is it Sony's fault? It's literally illegal for them to continue offering the shows for download.

        No it's not. It's illegal for them to continue *selling* the shows. It's perfectly legal to provide someone a download for something they have paid for. It's not legal to do so for new customers / new sales. This has been tested in court.

  • No one owns any game that was paid money for on Steam.
    The terms "buy" and "purchase" on the site are lies and should be heavily punished by courts.

    • by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

      Not exactly true and I can prove it easily. Games that have been previously listed and bought through Steam and then later removed from Steam for any reason must still be downloadable and up to date with any non-Steam versions. The only way the game on Steam becomes useless is the same way a physical copy would... The publisher shuts the whole game down. Example: Rocket League is no longer listed on Steam because it is now exclusive to Epic. My Steam version is required to stay up to date with the Epic vers

  • No idea what their chances of winning are, but you can bet this will spawn at least one class action suit.
  • by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Friday December 01, 2023 @06:47PM (#64047795)

    >"The latest pothole in the road to an all-digital future was discovered"

    This isn't about digital. It is about lack of being able to own a digital copy that you control, completely. Any of those shows, if purchased on disc (Blu-ray for example), would have been completely "digital" and yet something that cannot be later taken from the purchaser.

    >"and the content will be removed from your video library"

    It never was a video library.

    What I suspect many consumers really want is to "own" digital content easily and quickly, watch it were and when they want, without fear of it disappearing, and without having to pay for it over and over again (at least for valuable, high-quality content that merits rewatching). That simply isn't going to happen when the model is locked into "streaming" it from some platform you don't control.

    This is why those wanting to do that really have only two paths. The first is legally purchasing content on physical media and then format changing (ripping) it onto their own machine. The second is illegally downloading it from somewhere [illegally offering it] and storing it on their own machine. The first pays for content, the second does not. The "industry" wants to take away the first by simply not offering physical media anymore while also never offering a paid download method. And where does that leave us?

    It leaves us in a strange situation where people who are willing to spend money on video content are forced to resorting to methods that don't generate any revenue for the content creators. What a shame. The music industry got the message- they usually still offer physical media, and then also started offering easy/friendly legal ways to download DRM-free digital versions...

    • What I suspect many consumers really want is to "own" digital content easily and quickly, watch it were and when they want, without fear of it disappearing, and without having to pay for it over and over again (at least for valuable, high-quality content that merits rewatching).

      This is exactly what the games companies want. They want it like the old arcades where you keep dropping quarters in. It is unfair that they don't get to do that already. All that profit being left on the table. (?)

  • Sony has been stupid about stuff like this before (see: Scott Pilgrim being pulled from PSN).

  • Not Sony! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by cipher1024 ( 905768 ) on Friday December 01, 2023 @07:35PM (#64047909)
    Sony has always been one of the good... oooh wait. They did try and root my pc that one time with one of their CDs. Fuck Sony.
    • by Anonymous Coward

      Sony has always been one of the good... oooh wait.

      As much as I like to post "Detective by Design" for nearly every Sony story, I actually blame copyright law in this situation. This is clearly an abuse of the legally entitled monopoly and if not illegal, should be made illegal. Discovery sold licensing rights to Sony who then sold licenses to end users. As far as I'm concerned Discovery is in breach of contract by demanding Sony revoke licenses that were legally purchased.

      • by Kaenneth ( 82978 )

        Yep, there are games on Steam and movies on Amazon you can't buy from them anymore... but are still in 'your' digital library.

      • If Sony didn't get a perpetual, irrevocable license, they shouldn't have "sold" those shows to their customers. You can't sell what you don't have.

    • Yarp. Always been contemptuous of their customer base, always will be.

  • This is how you take ordinary every day people and turn them into pirates. Great job Sony. The cost of a yearly VPN subscription is peanuts compared to the thievery being done to users here.

  • by PPH ( 736903 )

    What's that in Olympic swimming pools?

  • by TwistedGreen ( 80055 ) on Friday December 01, 2023 @11:11PM (#64048209)

    Dear valued customer,

    Fuck you!

    Yours truly,
    Sony

    P.S. Look for our Black Friday deals on PlayStation Plus membership!

  • by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

    This is why I laugh at all the morons who have been so desperate to get a piece of shit PS5 over the years. It's shit hardware, running shittier software, made entirely by an even shittier overall company. Sony has absolute zero redeemable qualities and all of their hardware is overrated and terrible.

    • Broad brush, much? Sony products tend to compare very, very favourably to the competition in areas such as, televisions, cameras, and smartphones.
      • by Bahbus ( 1180627 )

        Because they are OVERRATED. As in the people who are comparing these products are rating Sony higher than they deserve to be. How did you not get that the first time around?

  • And that is why piracy exists.

    It's also why I, personally, don't pay for any streaming service or digital movie rental crap. I'm happy to buy my music on iTunes, where what I purchased will be downloaded and I'll have a copy of it on my devices, just in case (and if they delete it somehow, I have it in my backups).

    "The Right to Read" was right, and the 2047 timeline may even turn out to be on point.
    (I don't mean the recent movie, but the short story)

  • The sooner people understand that they don't own anything in the cloud, and the imaginary property rental market tanks, the better. TVSaaS: TV Shows as a Scam.

  • Pay for something online and then it's gone. Post yesterday about pulling support on 32-bit games that you paid for and may no longer work/play in the future !
  • I only exchanged a license to use my money so long as I have access to the contact. I marked up our agreement in the browser HTML prior to hitting 'accept', and they still sold me the goods!

  • ...piracy gives superior user experience.

    If you pirate something you will have access to it as long as you want.

  • They will argue that the provided perpetual access for as long as they were legally able. This has been litigated before - For example - https://advertisinglaw.fkks.co... [fkks.com]

  • A Slash story like this should explicitly mention if Sony is going to issue a refund or not - in part or in kind. Even if just to say "um, we're not sure about the refund picture".

    Needless to say, 'no refund' means theft

The 11 is for people with the pride of a 10 and the pocketbook of an 8. -- R.B. Greenberg [referring to PDPs?]

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