Sony deletes more movies from the accounts of people who ‘bought’ them

Is there any way to buy long (decades) lasting physical media?

IANAL, but is it illegal to have a "Buy" button that is just a disguised "Rent" button?

If not, should we change the law?

This has happened dozens of times, and it will keep happening as long as people don't care about it.

Long live offline physical media, and The Pirate Bay.

For more recent takes:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48747389 - "Sony Deletes 551 Movies PlayStation Owners Paid For" (reclaimthenet.org)

636 points | 15 days ago | 304 comments

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48730904 - "Sony erases digital content from libraries" (arstechnica.com)

184 points | 16 days ago | 76 comments

I read recently that PlayStation users are moving to PC en masse, and also Xbox has been gutted by layoffs, and there's a backlash against Nintendo for the switch 2 pricing.

Is the age of the console finally coming to an end?

Obviously media permanence is the best solution, but in the absence of that we just need laws that say that if the purchase isn’t time limited to something a reasonable user would consider a rental (48hrs? a week?) then companies that withdraw access rights need to refund in full the purchase cost.

They removed ‘A Shaun The Sheep Movie: Farmageddon’. OK Sony, this is war.

Sony and other vendors got to remove the concurrency problem of tangible items, and it's only fair the internet of file sharing gets to solve the concurrency problem of a public library in the same way.

Recent and very related:

Physical disc production ending in Jan 2028 for new games on PlayStation (797 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48745456

So Sony is simultaneously announcing that all purchases will be digital from now on while actively demonstrating that digital purchases aren't actually purchases. They're clearly communicating that they believe in a future where no one owns games any more.

The same story again?

Previously:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48730904

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48747389

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48691346

and several others.

Looking in search, it seems there's a Sony hate thread almost every day over the last month, and many of them are just reposts of the same thing (eg >10 submissions about Sony's decision to stop manufacturing game discs in 2028). It's also odd that these stories are attracting hundreds of comments every time; for comparison several submissions about about Xbox laying off ~5000 people have attracted less than 10 comments between them.

It's looking like astroturf at this point. I don't have any connection to Sony, direct or indirect; it's just a weird pattern on HN.

So the only "buy" option one has now is to torrent the movie? At least no one is going to delete the mp4 file.

Curious what others use to store media for home/remote use.

I naively assumed my purchases from [company A] would mean I have permanent/immutable access. Even in the case of access not being revoked, I've found content itself changes over time. Usually related to jokes which have "not aged well" let us say.

I'm not here to champion leaving in that content. Or defend nostalgic rewatching. It just feels strange to not acknowledge.

I know I'm not the only one here who remembers the Sony rootkit debacle in the age of CDs. One of the all-time worst companies I can think of when it comes to mistreating customers.

As bad as this is, it’s worth noting that this is the same incident that was widely reported earlier this month. Sony has only rugpulled hundreds of purchased titles from customers once this year.

So far.

If they offered refunds this would still be terrible.

They don't even offer refunds.

if you cant hold it your hands, you don't own it. used dvd and bluray on ebay are cheaper anyway. another underutilized resource - the public library - mine has a huge catalog of movies you can borrow for free.

Hopefully most of these folks that have been scammed know how to sail the high seas.

Isn't this where some lawyers step in and file a class action lawsuit?

Previous discussions:

Sony Deletes 551 Movies PlayStation Owners Paid For (294 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48747389

Sony erases digital content from libraries (74 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48730904

Once its deleted it becomes a indefinite p(irate) license.

Isnt there an issue with "Buy" and different countries marketing laws? Ie it implies "Hold" or "TemporaryKeep".

Guess it will be an upswing of BlueRay movies. Already happening with LPs and CDs

Without laws to force companies to honor this, The only reasonable answer to this ownership issue will end up being piracy. Also, “Buying” the movie and making a copy of it for personal use shouldn’t be illegal.

I we are heading towards a digital world, we need to solve the issue of how to ensure by legal means that in 800 years people will still be able to study current day media and arts.

If you bought movies on a digital platform that would later go under (could be Sony one day), what would happen to your collection? Is it transferable in any way? If not, it's already a risk no matter which platform you use.

How do people still "buy" any movies after all these stories?

If "buy" means you can watch it on this specific device while logged in with this specific account, for some limited time, then downloading it to your disk is not "theft".

Seriously, my brain, deformed by years of file sharing, can't get it.

Seems like a class action suit ready-made? Idk why this isn’t absolutely lawyer-crack.

I mean, on one hand you have centuries of precedent about what “buy” means, and on the other you have one party depriving another party of access to their property , without providing alternative access, defacto depriving them of their property in absolute terms.

This seems like a clear case of theft, conspiracy to commit theft, and fraudulent advertising, interstate commerce in the pursuit of an organized criminal enterprise , etc.

I've sold my PS5 several months ago. You can get a pretty gameable laptop and gog/steam prices are better. And I can install mods. Tree Sentinel Thomas Mod for example.

Yes, the chairman of StudioCanal is.

How is Sony not commiting piracy, ok not piracy, because a pirate at least makes an open frontal attack and says "har har har", and girls fantisise about bieng abducted by swashbucklers, but Sony is like some perv stealing peoples underware , or more accuratly a contract underware theef working for the real perv who knows where you live and nobody else like this stuff at all, zero fantasies, 100% icky perve

     boolean bought = true;
     boolean owns = false;

        if (bought && owns) {
            System.out.println("Purchase resulted in ownership.");
        } else if (bought) {
            System.out.println("Purchase did not result in ownership. You have rented.");

physical media forever and always <3

Everyone of these stories makes a great case for piracy. Torrents or illegal online streaming sites.

I guess they want the masses to start sailing the high seas again

Interesting also that even this article doesn't mention "DRM" anywhere despite the fact that this is exactly the worst case scenario DRM critics have always warned about.

(Personally I would consider DRM okay if Sony's behavior here was illegal without a full refund.)

Well - I actually think the problem is not Sony being malicious here, per se, but the legislation. There has to be a guarantee as if it were a physical copy, as-is. The right to repair movement has the same cause ultimately. You purchase something, you own it, no matter what counter-legalese is tried.

The USA really needs to stop being a corporate-country. Weren't the republicans all about the people at one point in time? Now they are all about the billionaires and family dynasties pillaging what they can, with the forerunner the mad orange king pillaging the most. And starting wars he loses by default, after promising to not start wars.

And yet Sony wonders why people pirate their movies. In this case here the owners who had their movies stolen should be able to steal them back.

[flagged]

Its all a bit hand wavy nonsense. Own a physical copy? How long until its unplayable because either the media corrupts or the player isn't available? The only real "ownership" is the IP, everything else is just renting.