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PlayStation Is Deleting 551 Movies from Customers' Accounts
- dc3k 4mo agoit should not be legal for the product page to say “purchase” or “buy” when in reality you’re only renting it with a to be determined end date
- dathinab 4mo agoand this should include musics and similar in games (excluding stuff like sessional content) if you sell a game you should have to have bought a license to use the music (and similar) in the game permanently (for given game sold, new sold revision can change what they contain but only if there isn't deceptive advertisement and it's very clearly labeled that it's a different revision/the content changed!).
- autoexec 4mo agoSingle player games putting out "seasonal content" is kind of obnoxious too though so I wouldn't exclude them all. One example is the Moogle Chocobo Carnival and Assassin's Festival in Final Fantasy XV which players had to work very hard to patch back into the game after it was removed. The limited time Stellar Blade Summer Event wasn't nearly as impressive as the carnival, but it was still a black mark on a game that was otherwise refreshingly free from bullshit.
- b112 4mo agoYes, 100%, and that end date should be very clearly listed too.
- munk-a 4mo agoOftentimes that end date is not clearly knowable and can't be communicated explicitly, but consumers should still be aware of the fact that their rights are limited. While the Gaben lives valve will store many people's games - when the Gaben dies... well, it's going to suck - but it'll probably take a while to completely suck, we'll probably go through drawn out enshittification first. This outcome seems inevitable[1] but it is likely a fair distance off. 1. Unless you write a damned clear company charter, Gabe, get on that.
- jeroenhd 4mo agoCompanies selling these titles should know a minimum end date. Even if contracts don't get renewed, it's unlikely they will only have the rights for less than a year. If that minimum drives customers away, these companies should put more work into ensuring their minimum availability is a good deal.
- Karliss 4mo ago> Oftentimes that end date is not clearly knowable and can't be communicated explicitly I am pretty sure that whatever contract streaming platform has with publishers has a some kind of date. It might be unpleasantly short (a year or month) making it look like a bad deal, but that's the point. In current situation the "unknowable" date might be as short as 1 day. It's up to the good will of streaming service to warn ahead of time. Knowing what you get and the quantity of it is the most basic part of fair deal. If a streaming service has only negotiated a 1 month license they shouldn't be allowed to re-license the content for longer period. If they want to offer longer deal they need to negotiate better license with publisher or take the risk on themselves by being prepared to give refund in the case of failure to deliver promised service. Telling that they guarantee only single year of service to provide doesn't prevent them from providing it longer. If a travel agency rents a bus for a day, offering a 1 week trip around Europe would be considered a scam.
- tjpnz 4mo agoIf Valve continue to stay privately owned I've some confidence that the status quo will remain, regardless of whether Gaben's around. Enshittification is a feature of publicly traded companies and those owned by private equity.
- LoganDark 4mo agoRenting what? The non-exclusive, revocable license? Because that's what purchase or buy means.
- skywhopper 4mo agoNo, that’s not what “purchase” or “buy” means.
- akramachamarei 4mo agoIt literally is. "Verb "purchase (third-person singular simple present purchases, present participle purchasing, simple past and past participle purchased) "To buy, obtain by payment of a price in money or its equivalent." https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/purchase https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/purchase "Verb "buy (third-person singular simple present buys, present participle buying, simple past bought, past participle bought or (archaic, rare, dialectal) boughten) "(transitive, ditransitive) To obtain (something) in exchange for money or goods." https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/buy#English https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/buy#English
- LoganDark 4mo agoIt is. You can either be purchasing a license to a movie, or purchasing the movie itself. You have never been purchasing the movie itself from these services, because you're not entitled to it even after you purchase (i.e. there is DRM, etc. preventing you from ever getting it, you don't get it in any alternative forms, etc). If you want to own something, you buy on iTunes, where they let you download DRM-free copies, to do whatever you want with. But if you buy it on PlayStation, Amazon, etc. you are only getting a revocable license. You are only buying a revocable license. That is what "purchase" or "buy" means, because you're "purchasing" or "buying" the license, not the movie
- tremon 4mo agoCitizens don't need a license to read and/or watch stuff in their own private homes, that's a basic right guaranteed by the First Amendment (in the US; similar laws apply in the rest of the civilized world). Whatever you want to claim that people are purchasing it can not be a "viewing license" because that would violate the Constitution.
- mistyvales 4mo agoPretty sure the Terms of Use say just that. They should update the language on the frontend though.
- xboxnolifes 4mo agoThat's a big can of worms, since it applies to approximately 100% of all software. You only ever buy a license that allows you to use software, almost never actually buy software.
- yellowapple 4mo agoI'm quite alright with that can of worms being opened for software. Enthused, even.
- sidewndr46 4mo agoI'm reasonably certain when I ordered linux CDs in the 90s, no one put a limit on the time frame I could be using them
- jeroenhd 4mo agoAnd if that one-time purchased software stops working at an arbitrary date, it should be subject to the same rules. Especially online software or software requiring servers to run. You can still offer limited-time subscriptions, of course, and you can extend the minimum deadline for your server-dependent software to free as often as you want, just make sure people know what the deal is when they buy your software. DVDs and other media also aren't yours to buy, they're just licenses and a physical container to use that license. You can buy software the same way you can buy a DVD, and you can rent software the same way you can rent a movie on a digital storefront.
- fluoridation 4mo agoCopyright law has been playing semantic games with "buy" and "own" for decades. When I buy(1) something, it's mine, and I can do what I want with it. The person whom I buy it from doesn't have the right to rescind my rights over the thing I bought. When I buy(2) a software license, does the seller have the right to claw back the license? If not, then buy(1) and buy(2) are conceptually identical, and there's no difference between buying a license and buying the (copy of the) software. If yes or unknown, then buying(2) is not buying(1), as it does not grant ownership, but something else; not even over the license. So what kind of transaction is buying(2) something? What do you get in exchange for money? It's clearly not a good, so is it a service? Is continued permission to use the software a service? Then if that service is interrupted the consumer should be entitled to some kind of reimbursement from the provider, right? Because otherwise the provider has an incentive to stop the service.
- sib 4mo agoSo... I used to work in the "digital movie & TV selling" industry. Our product detail pages, like pretty much all our competitors, had language on the call-to-action buttons that said "purchase" (and also, as an alternative, "rent," for 48- or 72-hour viewing). At one point, about 10 years ago, one of the major Hollywood studios came to us and required us to change that because they believed that exactly this sort of thing would happen and we would all be setting ourselves up for liability because consumers would rightfully assume that that meant they owned the movie "forever."
- mzajc 4mo ago"Rent for 48h", and... "Rent until we say the time is up"?
- makeitdouble 4mo agoHave you ever bought a ticket to a concert ? what did you actually own ? I get the feeling, but this whole outrage about what words mean is sterile if you don't actually engage with what is sold here, by who from who, what was the contract, how it was setup and why. How do you feel about the right holders who also didn't bother providing simple "buy, download and it's forever yours" avenues to get that content ? Or are you just happy being outraged and will go back to your daily life afterwards ? (that's what I'll do, because I was already renting stuff when video tapes were a thing, and I see the current situation as a logical equilibrium, including what happens on the seven seas)
- pessimizer 4mo ago> Have you ever bought a ticket to a concert ? what did you actually own ? A ticket that would allow you entrance into a particular concert. Is this some sort of rhetorical question? I can't decipher what it's attempting to illustrate.
- makeitdouble 4mo agoThe original post was about the use of verbs. > it should not be legal for the product page to say “purchase” or “buy” when [...] The use of "buy" and "purchase" were never restricted to ownership or unlimited rights, we buy licenses, usage rights, priority tokens, all sorts of lottery tickets and weirder abstractions every day. GP probably wants digital movies to have a specific purchase model, but the discussion has to be about the model, not the vocabulary. Right now I actually have no idea what they'd be willing to accept as a middle ground to rights management.
- Anamon 4mo agoI think it's perfectly clear? If you buy a ticket, it's clear you own that ticket. But the usefulness of the ticket is that it can be exchanged for a service (admission to the concert), which is also clear. Nobody would expect the ticket to grant them admission to every future concert by the artist, or at the venue. The date and start/end times are on the ticket you buy, otherwise it would say "lifetime pass" or something. The same is true with movie downloads, except that Sony very strongly, probably deceptively and maliciously, implies the "lifetime pass" part while they full well know they're only selling you a ticket for access during a limited timeframe. We wouldn't have this article or discussion if Sony had been truthful and had their store pages not say "purchase movie", but "purchase temporary ticket".
- microgpt 4mo agoIn California it isn't legal
- neop1x 4mo agoYes, it is very comfusing. "Buy" buttons should be replaced by "License" buttons when you are licensing stuff instead of buyimg it. There should be a law for that.
- jmclnx 4mo agoOff to small claims court people should go. Amazon tried something similar and got in trouble because people when after them. And people wonder why some people sail the high seas.
- cebert 4mo agoI believe you’d lose in small claims court as all of the streaming companies make it clear you’re purchasing a revokable license.
- pinkmuffinere 4mo agoWow, "purchasing a revokable license" is an insane concept. Purchase of something revokable in general feels like... not purchasing? If there was a definite time bound that's one thing, but imagine if I sell a revokable license and then revoke it a week later -- it seems like that would be allowed? I don't mean to disagree with you, and I have basically no expertise in this area, just shocked by the whole thing.
- darreninthenet 4mo agoWould likely win in the UK as we have an unfair terms regulation, a small claims court could easily rule it an unfair as any reasonable consumer would assume they were purchasing the movie to watch whenever they want to.
- skywhopper 4mo agoNo, that is not what the plain meaning of “purchase” is.
- 72027372920 4mo ago[dead]
- anigbrowl 4mo agoISTM there's a good argument for a plaintiff to ask the court to ignore that on the basis that it's a contract of adhesion and one that's effectively unreadable for anyone without a law degree. We're not talking about terms and conditions that fit on a single sheet of paper in a normal font, bu thousands upon thousands of words. Tech EULAs are just absurdly long, and I'm sure they've expanded since this article was written in 2020: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/terms-of-service-visualizing-the-length-of-internet-agreements/ https://www.visualcapitalist.com/terms-of-service-visualizin...
- thomasmarton 4mo agoPiracy is justified especially when it comes to movies! If I am buying a DVD, I own that copy regardless of the studio and the distributor being in legal trouble or not. If I "buy" or "purchase" something online, I expect the same thing. I'm not always a fan of the EU over-regulating some things but I feel like they should start fining companies who want to re-define the meaning of the word purchase
- nerdsniper 4mo agoJellyfin + Jellyseer + PassThePopcorn has served me and my friends/family well. I pay $50/mo now for a seedbox with 16TB but it serves 20 people. I would self-host for $0/month but my current apartment only has Xfinity, not AT&T and the upload isn’t enough to self-host. It’s less about the money and more about: 1) Having a single place to go for any TV show or movie. I found it very frustrating trying to figure out what service had which show - sometimes none of them have it (a few things are still not streamable at all - e.g. “Sharky and George”) 2) Knowing that my streaming service isn’t downgrading the video quality. Even my lay friends notice the picture quality improvement vs Amazon / Hulu etc. 3) Jellyseer lets my friends request media that gets auto-downloaded. So it’s a curated list of content which helps me discover high quality stuff to watch.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- shepherdjerred 4mo agoHow did you get a private tracker?
- OptionOfT 4mo agoYou don't need a private tracker for stuff that comes out now. In fact, for those things, I'd say a private tracker isn't that interesting because of the share requirements.
- 4mo ago
- Karliss 4mo agoAgain? They already tried to pull that one a few years ago. [1] https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Sony%27s_attempted_removal_of_%22purchased%22_content https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Sony%27s_attempted_removal_of_...
- functionmouse 4mo agothey can do it as many times as they want until it works, then that's precedent
- Macha 4mo agoThey did get away with it in 2024: https://filmstories.co.uk/news/funimation-streaming-app-to-shut-down-purchased-content-to-be-deleted/ https://filmstories.co.uk/news/funimation-streaming-app-to-s... (For those without the background: In 2020, Sony bought Crunchyroll and in 2024 merged it with Funimation (acquired by Sony subsidiary Aniplex in 2017). Since Crunchyroll had the larger streaming service, this was done by moving the Funimation library to Crunchyroll. However, Funimation also has a business selling digital copies, not just streaming access, which was discontinued including access to purchased media)
- ganelonhb 4mo agoWow.
- alpineman 4mo agoNo refunds. Sounds like Playstation customer support. The most customer-unfriendly policies a company could think of.
- PacificSpecific 4mo agoA decade ago they pulled my purchased copy of mortal kombat 2. Not the first time they've done stuff like this. I stuck to buying hard copies and dwindled off the series as they started to charge just to play multiplayer.
- whycome 4mo agoFix the headline to say Sony
- patmcc 4mo agoThey should absolutely be forced to provide either a refund or a downloadable copy, this is absurd. It sounds like they didn't actually have the license necessary to be able to sell these movies in any reasonable way.
- smelendez 4mo agoExactly — they should have just offered a lease until the end of the licensing agreement: “Pay $X today and watch this movie as many times as you want through June 2026!”
- CamperBob2 4mo agoWhen this was originally tried under the OG "DIVX" brand name, everybody (including me) threw a fit. Some warned that everything would work that way eventually anyway, and everybody (including me) blew them off.
- lokar 4mo agoI thought divx came with one play when you bought the disk, and then PPV after that
- fluoridation 4mo ago>Some warned that everything would work that way eventually anyway Well, they were wrong, weren't they? The way it works now is much worse: what you're purchasing is a license for playback for an indeterminate amount of time, which can be arbitrarily and unilaterally terminated by the provider.
- smsm42 4mo agoNot to worry, eventually somebody will file a class action lawsuit, and after mere 12 years of litigation everybody affected will get $2.17 in store credits (in another 5 years).
- nottorp 4mo agoI own a playstation. I do not buy digital games, only discs. See the article for why not.
- nayuki 4mo agoThe game discs hold digital data. They're certainly not analog.
- crtasm 4mo agoit's common to refer to download-only purchases as digital and discs as physical
- platevoltage 4mo agoAnalog is not the opposite of digital in this context. I feel like you knew that though.
- socalgal2 4mo agoSony sucks and I will never give them another dime. Had a PS5 with a 120+ games (majority PS4), also PSVR2, got f-ed over by Sony when they would not refund in incorrect game purchase I'd bought literally minutes before asking for the refund. Gave up my PS5, I will never purchase anything from Sony ever again. Recommend everyone else do the same.
- mannanj 4mo agoHow soon until the digital distributions are owned by just a few cartels, and later when it’s suitable for them, they also modify digital movies to suit a political agenda without letting you know?
- vitally3643 4mo agoBuddy I hate to tell you, but this already happened several years ago.
- pezezin 4mo agoMovies have been pushing political agendas pretty much since the beginning of cinema.
- AdmiralAsshat 4mo agoHow is it that Steam manages to avoid yanking games from people's libraries even after the games are delisted for licensing issues, etc? I have multiple games that you can't "buy" anymore, but Steam doesn't stop me from reinstalling them as often as I like. Are they negotiating that as part of the deal with their vendors? Or is it as simple as "We're not dicks." ?
- wetpaws 4mo ago[dead]
- vitally3643 4mo agoThat's just how Valve's license agreement works. You publish with Steam and you grant Valve the right to publish the work in perpetuity. The licensing deal made by movie studios does not work like that because the studios are intentionally predatory. The distribution agreements are temporary and can involve periodic payments. Literally Netflix rents movies from the studios and rents them back to you. The studios reserve the right to cancel distribution deals at any time.
- kelvinjps10 4mo agoWhen a movie or show gets removed from Netflix sucks but no as much since it's a subscription and you can cancel if they don't have what you like but what you do with something you bought
- autoexec 4mo ago> How is it that Steam manages to avoid yanking games from people's libraries even after the games are delisted for licensing issues, etc? Steam isn't innocent either. The instance that comes to mind is Order Of War: Challenge (https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/12/30/steam-removes-game-order-of-war-challenge-from-user-libraries/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2013/12/30/steam-remov...) but I've also seen people say other games have been removed from their libraries or silently replaced with "remastered" versions that removed things like licensed music. Publishers have also taken games from people's libraries by revoking their keys. Steam says publishers can do this whenever they want. In one case, after the sale they thought a player should have paid them more money (https://old.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/w9jpd5/warning_publishers_can_remove_games_from_your/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/w9jpd5/warning_publi...)
- rachel-ftw 4mo agoThis is making me mad enough that I’m going to spend my weekend figuring out a media server and pirating movies. If buying isn’t owning, pirating isn’t stealing. Fuck those guys. It’s been 20 years since I’ve pirated shit, but here we are again…
- encrypted_bird 4mo agoIf you're not experienced in media servers, I'd recommend a QNAP NAS and then install either Jellyfin or Emby. (Plex has really gone downhill in the last 10 years imho.) QNAP is terrible for experienced users, but as Baby's First NAS it's absolutely sublime.
- platevoltage 4mo agoThank you for mentioning Emby. I've been using it for years. It's rarely ever mentioned in the Plex/Jellyfin conversation.
- encrypted_bird 4mo agoOf course! It's fantastic. I went from Plex --> Emby --> Jellyfin and honestly if I could have afforded it I would have purchased the 100 USD lifetime license. They work really hard and deserve the money.
- platevoltage 4mo agoThey've been getting $5 a month from me for who knows how long. I'm definitely happy to contribute.
- akramachamarei 4mo ago> If buying isn’t owning, pirating isn’t stealing A queerly sticky ego defense mechanism.
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- tracerbulletx 4mo agoWould love to know how hidden the fine text was on that buy button. Unless it said rent this should be illegal.
- chmod775 4mo agosudo pacman -S transmission-gtk I suppose it's time to form a new media consumption habit.
- encrypted_bird 4mo agoI'd recommend qbittorrent over transmission tbh.
- kelvinjps10 4mo agoI feel these license agreements have to be set up in such a way people that already bought their movies get to keep them, like okay Sony lost the licences and they shouldn't sell it to new customers but existing customers should get to keep their movies. Since companies don't care the government needs to force their hand and put it into law
- 1000100_1000101 4mo agoExactly. Sony/Playstation can lose their right to issue further licenses, but the existing licenses should be honoured. As that's apparently not baked into the existing contracts, someone needs to legislate that such basic consumer rights are required, and all existing and prior contracts interpreted as if these rights were in place. Make it work the same as delisted games where you can go into your purchase history and click download.
- paxys 4mo agoThe problem is that existing customers don't "have" anything. They stream the movie on demand from Sony's servers. And Sony can't keep the movie on their server anymore. The entire delivery model is broken.
- tancop 4mo ago[dead]
- microgpt 4mo agoEven if they did download the movie, Sony would be legally required to remotely delete it, because they can. The only way that doesn't happen is if they can't, such as when you download an mp3 on a PC from a company that is not Microsoft.
- Anamon 4mo agoIt's just a matter of negotiating sensible licensing deals. But that would require the distributors to actually care a little bit about not screwing over their customers. Look how it works over at Steam. If a license expires, even if the publisher goes out of business, Steam removes a game from its storefront, but the files are still on their servers and they keep them available for anyone who purchased a license. I think the only cases where they actually removed files from their servers and blocked redownloads were when there was an actual legal or liability issue forbidding them from continuing to offer the files (for example if they contain malware).
- bix6 4mo agoWhat’s wild is there is no legal way to actually buy and truly own movies anymore. Any major service is a license and if you can even get a DVD the legality of ripping it is questionable since you have to break DRM. I have purchased a few movies (surf films) from people who actually give you the digital file and it is so wonderful.
- Devasta 4mo agoBy not teaching the younger generations the virtues of piracy, millennials have failed them. It'll be all the more critical in years to come when we get more and more AI remastered versions of stuff so even stuff pre-2020 is slop.
- adrianwaj 4mo agoI'm more cynical here. I suspect these are films (or many of them at least) are ones "they" don't want you to see... ever. It's censorship, so no remastering. "due to our content licensing agreements" ..so this is just Sony placating to someone else's demands. The question is who are "they" and why these films? Maybe these films end up being revised with alternate endings or tweaked characters. If you see these films, what sort of person will you become? Is that someone who is undesirable? Terminator 2, Rambo 1, Cliffhanger and Total Recall. We can't have that! It's just a theory. Are PlayStation users younger than average? That's important to note too. Also interesting: recently YT removed the ability to see Likes in one's uploaded video list, only views and comment counts. The message could be: "be well-known, but don't be popular" Why? Yet I think "Sort by Likes" would be a boon for YT creators and that never even existed, with the Likes column even removed a week or two after I suggested it.
- tancop 4mo ago[dead]
- bergfest 4mo agoWhat will the end game in this licensing scheme be? I reckon once enough movies have been sold, the reputational damage of taking them away would become so large that streaming services will be strongarmed into accepting increasingly unreasonable fees.
- naturalmovement 4mo agoNot limited to PlayStation. Apple's been doing this for years. I have iTunes music going back to the day the store opened. Some of it is now missing from the iTunes cloud (or Apple Music or whatever it's called this week). It would be gone forever had I not made a local backup. At least Sony's contacting customers. I was looking for songs I knew I had and couldn't find them until I searched a local backup. When I complained, I got a boilerplate "tough titties, sometimes we lose licensing" response. Always keep hard copies people. This foolishness of trusting someone else to host your stuff for you? Well now you know.
- jrmg 4mo agoWith Apple, you can at least download the media you bought and keep it. Could you do that with these PlayStation store movies?
- BloondAndDoom 4mo agoIf I download it on my iPad I’m pretty sure it will delete itself or eventually got deleted on an update. I might be wrong but this is how these systems work.
- Telaneo 4mo agoIf you buy it on a PC, you get a file you can do whatever you want with. In Apple's case it's at least possible to keep if you're vigilant. I'm sure the file disappearing from your iOS device is naught more than a convenient bug. It's not ideal, but I don't think one can realistically expect much more (at least not without actual consumer protection, which will probably take a while).
- goblin89 4mo agoI have a smart playlist that gets automatically populated with songs in my library that are not available (evidently pulled) on Apple Music anymore, and it is growing with tunes that I like and that are sometimes impossible to find elsewhere. If I had the foresight to get actual copies, I could still listen to them. I don’t think there’s any way to download them, but I didn’t “buy” them via iTunes Store, just streamed them.
- al_borland 4mo agoI will only buy digital media from DRM free stores, which as far as I know, means I can buy music, not movies. I don’t trust any provider to honor purchases I made 20 years from now. I really wish I could, as it would simplify things for me.
- nayuki 4mo ago> Reminding Us Nothing Digital Is Ever Truly Ours Wrong, Kotaku. Lots of digital things are ours. Digital files on our personally owned HDDs and SSDs. Digital movies on DVD and Blu-Ray discs on our shelves. Digital ISO files on hard drives that are ripped from the aforementioned digital physical DVDs. What you meant to say is, streaming content is not ours - and that is true by definition, because the data is streamed from somewhere else. Someone else can always delete files, take down servers, or go out of business entirely. The word digital contrasts with analog. Digital and physical are two independent axes - there are digital physical things, digital virtual things, analog physical things, and analog virtual things.
- zenoprax 4mo agoI think you're playing language games here. What does an "analog virtual thing" look like? Digital = expressed by discrete bits of encoded digits (1s and 0s). Analog = lossy and necessarily physical A "digital physical thing" is just a physical thing (disc) with digital things encoded on it.
- fluoridation 4mo ago>What does an "analog virtual thing" look like? The image of an apple, stored as an analog signal on a magnetic tape. >A "digital physical thing" is just a physical thing (disc) with digital things encoded on it. Correct, a digital physical thing stores digital virtual things, and an analog physical thing stores analog virtual things.
- zenoprax 4mo ago> image of an apple, stored as an analog signal on a magnetic tape If I am following along... analog virtual: representation of apple on photographic film digital physical: disc with film.mkv Given the two remaining combinations: analog physical: unexposed photographic film? digital virtual: binary-encoded data (film.mkv)? Anything beyond this and it becomes a philosophical or metaphysical discussion though.
- jamesponddotco 4mo agoA Jellyfin or Plex server can be had for real cheap using used hardware. A Ryzen 3 build can be found for next to nothing here in Brazil[1], so I imagine it’d be even cheaper in the US. Add an old Quadro card for hardware decoding, or go with an Intel CPU for Quick Sync, throw some IronWolf drives inside, install your favorite Linux distro, and you’re off to the races. Yes, managing a server is more work than just signing up for Netflix or whatnot, but it’s definitely worth the effort. [1]: A quick search shows me a Ryzen 3 3200G build with 16 GB of RAM for $200, and electronics are super expensive in Brazil.
- danpalmer 4mo agoN5105 boards are also super cheap, and low power draw, but still with the transcoding hardware. Great experience with mine.
- bit_economist 4mo agoHere is the full list of the 551 movies and TV shows being removed: https://www.playstation.com/en-us/legal/psvideocontent/ https://www.playstation.com/en-us/legal/psvideocontent/ Top movies include Apocalypse Now, The Deer Hunter, The Graduate, Moonlight, Manchester by the Sea, Room, Silver Linings Playbook, Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Pan's Labyrinth.
- ls612 4mo agoNobody can delete 551 or even 1 movie from my Plex library other than me or the hard drive grim reaper.
- cameldrv 4mo agoArbitrage baby. Rent the movie from the studios, and then sell it to your customers! Before they know what happened, the sheriff is coming to evict them from the house they thought they bought, but you can just pocket the difference!
- anigbrowl 4mo agoI find it a bit sad that everyone is dumping on Sony here, considering it's StudioCanal that is presumably demanding the movies be made inaccessible to customers, but presumably is not offering to refund the royalties they collected. I't's natural for people to direct their ire at the reailer to whom they gave their money, but in my view its the rightsholder who is generally the abd guy in these situations.
- zmgsabst 4mo agoNo — both the person who pulls the trigger and the person who gives the order are criminals. Sony created a contract where this was possible, is who sold the product to customers, and is physically carrying out the act. They deserve every bit of blame.
- anigbrowl 4mo ago'Criminals'? Get a grip.
- varun_ch 4mo agoto be fair, if you went to a movie store, bought a movie (and unbeknownst to you there was some note on the counter that said the store reserved the right to take your movie from you), when the stores employees break into your house one day and forcefully take the DVDs from you, you might use a similar word…
- 40four 4mo agoMakes me glad I never got in the habit of buying digital copies of movies or TV shows. This a one off many reminders that if you really want to purchase a title, get the Blu-ray or DVD
- pico303 4mo agoI found a local store that specializes in used movies on DVD, BluRay, 4K discs and video games from Atari to PS5. I’ve started picking up hard copies of everything so I’m (a) not tracked and (b) can’t have my stuff taken away.
- paradoxyl 4mo agoI believe DVDs and Blu-Ray discs and players will increase in value over time, almost like samizdat printing presses -- underground video viewers that let us watch movies without the monolithic globalist corporate police state observing, penalizing, demanding identitification, and trying to extract an ounce of monopolist rentier blood.
- gblargg 4mo agoWhat good is a disc player when your display... can't... show it? Can't have unauthorized computing devices connected to displays in the future.
- einsteinx2 4mo agoI don’t know it sounds a lot more likely to me that piracy will just come back in popularity in a big way instead. Why pay inflated prices for old machines that will certainly break and old discs when you can just download a DRM free copy easily for free? When streaming first took off piracy hit all time lows, but it’s already been coming back in a big way and I’m sure will only continue to do so going forward as things like this keep happening and streaming keeps getting more expensive and fragmented.
- BloondAndDoom 4mo agoIs it just me who thinks that everything went wrong when we accepted the closed model hardware and their ecosystem? If it was an open ecosystem, we would have alternative options like we have in PC such as GoG for games. I know movie industry is stupid to begin with but it’s reasonable the make DRM free copy of the movies you own or even pirate at this point given how hostile the whole industry is until they move to more open approaches. Maybe EU should crack down on closed eco systems and make it mandatory to side load things officially on anything that runs external apps.
- wolvoleo 4mo agoThis is ridiculous. I thought at first that it concerned pirated movies that people were playing on their playstation. But no. It's purchased content. That is being deleted. That's insane. Even if an EULA states they can do this, there should be statutory rights that overrule this. I notice that Sony calls it "previously purchased" content. As if it's ok to do this because it's been a while ago.
- microgpt 4mo agoThere's actually a statutory right that says they have to do this.
- euribates 4mo agoAt this point, "piratery" is not just valid, it's our obligation
- hacker_homie 4mo agoSony is “stealing” 551 movies from customers.
- Anamon 4mo agoThis remains my favourite quote from any user agreement I've ever seen, from the PlayStation Terms of Use: > Use of the terms "own," "ownership", "purchase," "sale," "sold," "sell," "rent" or "buy" in this Agreement or in connection with the Content does not mean or imply any transfer of ownership of any content I mean, this is chef's kiss level of deceit. No parody could top that. Any jurisdiction where a company can just put "when we say you'll own it, it doesn't mean you'll own anything" in their contracts and get away with it, is broken.
- nyc_data_geek1 4mo agoIf buying isn't owning, piracy isn't theft.
- xbar 4mo agoI expected better from Sony's lawyers. How did they not get the right agreement to keep purchases in perpetuity?
- forgatmachine 4mo agoOwn your software. Own your music. Self host. This is becoming ridiculous. It is ironic how digital has led to us owning nothing, now that it should have been so much easier!