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Sony is deleting 551 movies and TV shows you bought on PlayStation, because you don't really own your digital purchases— John Wick, Paddington, and Terminator 2 are among the titles–no refunds offered (www.playstation.com)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[+] -15 points 4 months ago* (15 children)

As far as I can tell, the headline is misleading, it's streaming of movies bought on Studiocanal that isn't available.
I assume streaming is still possible through other sources, but I can't really say, the service isn't available in my country.
The company operates primarily in France, Germany and UK, so if the headline was really true, I bet it would result in a shitstorm from EU regulators.

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  • [–] 23 points 4 months ago (8 children)

    The last Time i 'owned' something from sony, back on my ps vita, when they pulled the same stunt the regulator didnt give a fuck. So i would assume neither do they now.

    I learned my lesson back then and never again spend money on ps store.

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  • [+] -13 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (7 children)

    That's a very vague story. If people have bought access to watch a movie without a time limit, they can't legally just remove that access. Unless that service is available through other easily accessible services, like for instance an internet service.
    You also don't mention if you were in EU at the time.

    It seems like this may be a 3rd party service delivered on the PlayStation, so it may be the responsibility of Studiocanal and not Sony.

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  • [–] 12 points 4 months ago (3 children)

    If they had to write "lifetime means 2 years (or whenever we feel like it)" in big letters above the works "buy" or "purchase" it may affect their "sales". They can write whatever they want in small print, they shouldn't have told customers it was buying.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago (2 children)

    they want in small print,

    Nope, not in EU they can't. And pressing a button that says yes is not legally binding in EU, we do have actual legal precedence for that.
    Also the laws that protect consumers CANNOT ever never be put aside by any license agreement!! Any such license is ILLEGAL, and by being illegal all claims to protect the issuer of the license are illegal. While those granting consumers protections may still stand.

    Actually putting things in "small print" are more likely to void any claims than actually uphold them in a court of law.
    Remember these are also EU countries, and EU countries have actual consumer protection, it's not like the wild west of countries like USA.

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  • [–] 12 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    It was Eu, Germany and they removed the abillity to redownload bought series/movies,but graciusly allowed us to keep the already downloaded stuff.

    As the files where drm protected and not copy able, that was not a long time solution, espacially with the price gouging of psvita memory cards.

    Im so vague, because its probably over 10 years since then.

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  • [–] -4 points 4 months ago

    While that obviously sucks, there was a way to keep accessing all the content you wanted to keep.
    While that is a scumbag move, I can understand how regulation wasn't designed to handle a situation like that.
    I'm not even sure it is today.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago

    They can and they do, it's called selling a license to watch. If the platform loses their license to redistribute you may still hold that license to watch with them but since they now are not allowed to show it to you anymore that license is worth nothing anymore. Now if what you "bought" ever enters their platform again your license should still be valid, however often they weasel around this by licensing a "remaster" or other slightly modified version so they can argue it's a different work.

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  • [–] 13 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    It's not misleading. Sony is the one who took the money and hides somewhere 23 pages inside their terms of service that the terms "buy", "purchase", "own" and so on don't mean what they commonly do. Your contract regarding these movies is with Sony - the underlying structure should not matter to you. This is not the first time Sony pulled this shit. Go watch Louis Rossmanns video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYxmRaRRdc0

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  • [–] 4 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    hides somewhere 23 pages inside their terms of service that the terms “buy”, “purchase”, “own” and so on don’t mean what they commonly do.

    Doesn't matter in regard to consumer protection laws, you can't press a button, and legally lose your legally defined consumer protections.
    Also no license is allowed to put consumers in a worse position than required by law. Attempts to do so can actually make the license illegal! Voiding any protection the issuer seeks from the license.

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  • [–] 5 points 4 months ago* (2 children)

    Where did you get that information from?

    Why would they buy it on Studio Canal and then stream it from Sony?

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