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Playstation store will remove customer’s purchased movies
- chrisbolt 4y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32010317 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32010317
- Victerius 4y agoThat noise you hear is the sound of the Jolly Roger being hoisted atop the mast, and the echoing cheer of the ship's crew.
- gravitate 4y agoIf there’s a way to justify piracy it’s this.
- PaulHoule 4y agoIt reminds me time that I bought a DVD from Target that wouldn't play and just downloaded the movie instead of returning it.
- 2Gkashmiri 4y agoso if you had returned it, what would have happened?
- PaulHoule 4y agoI might have exchanged it for one that played.
- mathieubordere 4y agoThere should be legislation around this, same for music and games. If you "buy" it, you should be able to download it in a DRM-free, non-proprietary format.
- Arnt 4y ago90% likely, the small print specifies that what was bought was the right to access that file provided that a couple of conditions remain met, and one of the conditions is "until 1. august 2022" or something like that. You may assume that other streaming companies will do similar things. They're all squeezed between customers who want to pay low prices for the service and rights holders who want high prices for their concent. The rights holders offer a lower price for time-limited access than for permanent access, and the streaming companies take that offer. Film at 11.
- chmod775 4y ago> 90% likely, the small print specifies that what was bought was the right to access that file provided that a couple of conditions remain met, and one of the conditions is "until 1. august 2022" or something like that. Note that this happened in Germany, where judges generally treat fineprint as "Whatever."* - the way something is communicated and customer's reasonable expectations matter a lot. * Where fineprint contradicts more prominent text.
- gumby 4y agoNote that this happened in Germany, where judges generally treat copyright owners as gods with greater rights than others, even when the copyright owners hurt themselves.
- wongarsu 4y agoMoreover, in a world where advertising "purchase this cheese* (contains no actual milk)" is illegal, why would advertising "purchase* this movie (actually a time-limited rental)" be legal? How could that not be deception of the customer?
- dorfsmay 4y agoThat and consolidate accounts. I "bought" movies with two different google accounts and there is no way to transfer from one to the other. You also cannot be logged in i to two differwnt accih t at the same time with an Android TV. All this bad faith is doing is pushing people to pirate more, not less.
- stjohnswarts 4y agoWhat tons of FOSS people always say and they're not wrong. You don't own anything that is really a licensed "work". You have to make a copy of it, often in violation of the license, if you really want to own it for your own viewing/use/systems.
- causi 4y agoI don't understand why this isn't bigger news. This is as much theft as if they broke into your house and stole your DVDs.
- daenz 4y agoMy theory is that companies that jumped into the cloud content space didn't really think out long term what it means. It means hosting the purchased content forever, or providing a digital download for it if you no longer wish to host it.
- Filligree 4y agoEvidently, that's not what it means. It means hosting it until you don't feel like doing so anymore.
- daenz 4y agoYes they are testing the boundaries, and I think they will be surprised to see the amount of pushback, bad PR, and probably legal action that they get when people can no longer access the content that they purchased.
- amelius 4y agoExcept there probably is some EULA.
- justusthane 4y agoSure, there probably is. But if you bought a smartlock and the EULA had fine print buried in it saying "Usage of this lock grants consent for us to enter your home and steal your DVDs" that wouldn't fly. Obviously that's a silly example, but my point is just because something is in a EULA doesn't make it legal, and even if it legal, maybe it shouldn't be.
- SilasX 4y ago
- lakomen 4y agoThis news was posted within the last 7 days already, can't find the url now though.
- amenghra 4y agoThis link? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32010317 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32010317
- andrewallbright 4y agoErm... As someone who has embraced digital purchases, what?! I need to look into if I can back up my digital movie purchases onto physical media. This maneuver is outrageous.
- wahnfrieden 4y agoas with all forms of rent, access is always at the mercy of the lord
- Akronymus 4y agoMost landlords, that aren't part of a huge company, actually take care of the property and such. As in they provide a service on top of just allowing you access. With digital licensing, not even that exists.
- wongarsu 4y agoNot in Germany. The landlord only has access in emergencies or in your presence, and the preventing renter from accessing whatever they rented isn't legal under any sane circumstances. Of course you can terminate the contract, but for rented flats or houses that includes 3 to 9 months of notification period (depending on how long the contract is already running). Germany and Austria are not exactly "at-will" countries: existing legislation is about balancing the interests of both parties, and when in doubt favors the regular person.
- wahnfrieden 4y agoyeah you have some better arrangements that were gained to be clear in part through union organizing, not just because landlord and govt decided to be nice. we're "at the mercy of the lord" only as far as we let ourselves be collectively
- mmastrac 4y agoEvery voracious pirate has an origin story. I love my Plex server.
- llampx 4y agoAren't the other digital services like the Apple movies store and Amazon the same way? That's what has kept me from buying digital content specifically movies, since it's just like renting but costs more.
- amelius 4y agoI think I've read about Apple revoking some Apple IDs in the past, with the same effect.
- judge2020 4y agoThe main issue is changing countries, as your digital purchases will likely not stay with the account when you do so.
- robin_reala 4y agoI’ve changed countries with my Apple account and kept my (admittedly few) digital purchases.
- dangus 4y agoThey are indeed like that, although it is relatively rare for digital content to be completely delisted in a way where you can't even re-download existing purchases. I know Apple in particular traditionally had/has a method to back up your movie purchases physically to your hard disk, but that is probably a little blurrier in the world of tvOS and iOS. For iTunes music, Apple has always stated that music storage and backup is the customer's responsibility, that re-downloads are essentially provided as a courtesy.
- iggldiggl 4y ago> I know Apple in particular traditionally had/has a method to back up your movie purchases physically to your hard disk, but that is probably a little blurrier in the world of tvOS and iOS. AFAIK movie "purchases" are still by-and-large only available with DRM, so ultimately I still have to rely on Apple for continuing access to such movies, though, locally backed-up or not. > For iTunes music, Apple has always stated that music storage and backup is the customer's responsibility, that re-downloads are essentially provided as a courtesy. On the other hand music is mostly DRM-free these days (is there actually any notable music store left that sells DRM'd files?), especially including iTunes/Apple, so while as you say re-downloads might be provided as a courtesy, I have absolutely no need to rely on Apple for ongoing access to my purchased music collection.
- spaceman_2020 4y agoCrypto can unironically solve this
- jahnu 4y agoUsing less cryptography can solve this
- ThePowerOfFuet 4y agoNo it can't.
- andruc 4y agoSo would being able to download a file. But Sony doesn't want that. Tech is not the problem here.
- wahnfrieden 4y agoipfs, ardrive are an interesting direction for allowing ongoing access beyond one-off personal archives (yes there are also more problems than this)
- AndrewDucker 4y agoHow would it do so? You wouldn't store gigabytes on the blockchain, so what you would store would just be a marker that you had a license to watch something. But as the owner of the copyrights isn't the person making it available, and the third-party who do make it available have lost the right to do so, I'm not sure what crypto would add here.
- grapeskin 4y agoWhat's crypto offer that a torrent and 99.9% less energy usage doesn't?
- tcfunk 4y agoNot really, I think? The video would still have to be hosted somewhere by somebody. How would a crypto token be any more valid than the license they grant you now if the video goes away?
- VectorLock 4y agoSony threatened to ban my account and I'd lose all the games and other content I paid for, if I did a charge-back on them when they had a security breach and I kept getting fraudulent charges on my card that they wouldn't refund.
- hnrodey 4y agoSony did ban my account after I did a chargeback because they let me double charge myself for a month of Playstation Plus. I asked for a refund because it was clearly a duplicate charge and they refused because it had been more than three weeks (could have been two weeks, the timeline is fuzzy).
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y agoThis would upset me. Admittedly, I do not attach credit card info to platforms and try to use gift cards when possible, but instances like these make hesitate purchasing anything digital.
- hnrodey 4y agoMy Playstation has been in a box since then, I will never again use another Playstation product and to this day try to minimize all business that I do with Sony.
- malka 4y agoDont ever trust Sony. They are clearly one of the worst offenders.
- wombatpm 4y agoStopped when they installed a root kit on music CDs
- kwhitefoot 4y agoA lot of us did that. I have a feeling that it hasn't made much difference to Sony though.
- bilekas 4y agoThis is why I WOULD download a car.
- Pakdef 4y agoWe need an opensource car that's for sure...
- marcodiego 4y agoBookmarking for my list of "why drm is bad".
- Calamitous 4y agoThat’s gotta be a big list.
- kderbyma 4y agoI never buy anything online for this very reason unless I have some gift card or something to spend. the only exceptions are some video games which only available online for purchase, and I make no delusions that they cannot be taken away. I download and install the games I really want to keep around, and buy the physical copies when I can (make sure it actually is a physical and not some download code in a box) retro gaming has none of these flaws. you get a physical copy, no dlc to download or patches to install, and I don't need to update my machine to play anything, passable bugs usually or just fun glitches, and you get a collectable that can be displayed on a shelf. win win win win. Digital gaming is like a junkies idea of a good time. consumption driven, interchangeable, constantly changing and needing the next fix....no respect for the gamers they milk, especially since their profit margins are so high with digital consummables and loot
- d_tr 4y agoFor games there is at least GOG. Still digital but you own the copy. I have all my games on Steam and I regret this a bit.
- tombert 4y agoHasn't Valve publicly stated that if they go out of business or something they will make all their games accessible? [1] Obviously a forum post isn't exactly top-tier evidence but if it's true that's at least a tiny bit reassuring. All that said, I usually buy my games off GOG when they're available there, simply because I like the guarantee that the games will continue to work even if they decide that I'm not cool enough to serve. [1] https://forums.evga.com/Steam-replies-to-what-will-happen-if-they-go-out-of-business-m446772.aspx https://forums.evga.com/Steam-replies-to-what-will-happen-if...
- ascagnel_ 4y ago> Hasn't Valve publicly stated that if they go out of business or something they will make all their games accessible? Valve is currently facing a situation where a game on Steam that includes third-party DRM will completely stop working in September of this year. There's no way they'll be able to follow through on this commitment outside of their own titles. https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/you-wont-be-able-to-redownload-assassins-creed-liberation-hd-from-september https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/you-wont-be-able-to-redownl...
- alfiedotwtf 4y agoStallman was right all along
- tombert 4y agoI think that's the part of these things that bothers me (almost) the most. I want to say that Stallman is an "extremist", because I generally don't like what he has to say, but it does seem like a lot of his fears are coming to fruition.
- InitialLastName 4y agoStallman has "prominent outspoken contrarian" syndrome: he's made the unfortunate conjecture that, because his contrarian ideas have been validated in one field (where he is a relative expert), his contrarian ideas and behavior in unrelated areas (in which he is not an expert) must also be valid. It turns out, not only are his other ideas based in fantasy, they are actively antisocial and damaging to the people and institutions around him (some of which he has played an outsized role in building). See also: Freeman Dyson, Ben Carson.
- tombert 4y agoNot disagreeing, but can you provide an example?
- tjpnz 4y agoI'm not a resident of Austria or Germany but might the affected customers have some options through small claims? IME those tribunals tend to side overwhelmingly with disaffected consumers and an argument centered on ToS might not carry as much weight.
- iggldiggl 4y agoGermany doesn't have any direct equivalent of a Small Claims Court.
- RichardHeart 4y agoNot your computer, not your movie.
- Pakdef 4y agoCopy-protected? not your movie
- goatcode 4y ago>customer's Customers'. It's not targeting one person :)
- Aeolun 4y agoI don’t know why they’d do something like this. Do they think that putting a damper on the entire digital purchases market, and the playstation store in specific, will somehow make them come out on top? Is this just a middle manager somewhere trying to make a quick buck by scrapping a loss making product?
- _Algernon_ 4y agoAnother point to pirating for those who are still keeping track. Especially with the recent fragmentation of the streaming market, it is time for consumers to return to giving content producers the middle finger until they sort their shit out.
- falcolas 4y agoOr buying disks. Probably for dirt cheap prices for many of these movies. Still reasonable for long term storage and viewing. I get it, this is the failure of a service, but piracy is hardly the only option.
- mojzu 4y agoBuying/storing disks requires a lot of space and hardware many people do not own anymore though, plus if you want to rip them to a personal media server you still need to break the DRM which depending on the country can be illegal
- falcolas 4y agoGiven that we're talking about movies on the PS store, even the PS5 has an edition with a blu-ray / DVD player. If you care about being able to play media over time (including games), you'll want that disk version in the first place. Piracy still not required. More convenient, yes. But not required.
- malka 4y agoLot of stuff is no longer released in a physical form anyway. Or is not sold ouside the US.
- juve1996 4y agoPiracy is more convenient and there are no consequences. You're looking at the problem incorrectly. People will pirate. Whether or not it's right or wrong is irrelevant. even if it's not "That much harder to X, Y, Z", people will do what is easiest.
- rizoma_dev 4y agoIt's still inconceivable to me that we've allowed companies to put drm on video files and ebooks so they can snatch anything you bought legally from your hands
- jeffwask 4y agoThis can happen on all of the digital distribution channels and it's going to be a bigger problem as the digital world continues to fragment.
- giancarlostoro 4y agoWas Sony's PlayStation not part of MoviesAnywhere? Because it seems like a no-brainer and missed opportunity: https://moviesanywhere.com/ https://moviesanywhere.com/ For those who don't know about MoviesAnywhere, basically if you own a movie on iTunes or Google Play (or whatever Google has renamed it to since last I ever looked) or vice versa or on both for that matters, it unlocks the movie on all other platforms. So anytime I buy movies at Walmart if they have a code I'll unlock it directly and double check that MoviesAnywhere is working as intended. This should guarantee I would assume that if one service stops selling movies, I can still watch them on the other remaining services. If not, at least I bought the physical movie which remains unused in the meantime.
- jon-wood 4y agoI'd never heard of this, and sadly its US only, but I'm really curious now. Does this make videos accessible on all platforms, or is it yet another video player I need installed everywhere that than lets me play back video I bought elsewhere? It also looks to be funded by a selection of major studios, does that mean it only supports releases from those studios?
- happyopossum 4y ago> Does this make videos accessible on all platforms, or is it yet another video player I need installed everywhere that than lets me play back video I bought elsewhere? In my experience, both. I use the app on devices that don't use my shared iTunes account (vacation home for example), but other than that, everything I've looked for shows up in my iTunes library.
- dehrmann 4y agoThe obvious solution for the future is replace buttons that say "buy" with "license."
- draw_down 4y ago
- paxys 4y agoI paid $100 extra for a PS5 with a disc reader, and buy physical copies of all my games, for exactly this reason. Not only does it work out to be cheaper in the long term (because you can resell the games), I can also use it completely offline and get to actually OWN the content I paid for. Sadly it's seeming more and more like this is the last console generation that will have this support.
- yomkippur 4y agoThe value of physical copies will also likely increase as are the case for old PSX games. Dragonball GT and Megaman Legends come to mind and other titles have really become ridiculously expensive. Same thing with arcade cabinets, manual ICE sports cars ($20,000 1991 Honda Beat anyone?)
- yomkippur 4y agoThis is why I install cfw on all my playstation whenever I get the chance. I got mad that the PSX games they sold dont even work properly because they are running it emulator mode. I just downloaded a massive dump of every playstation 1, 2, and 3 and play it on sd card on the original hardware. Only if a game is interesting/or i like I end up purchasing.