As always, the paying user has the worst experience. “Purchase” a show, can only watch on a certain console of a certain brand, no transfers, no backups, then it suddenly disappears from the library and nothing can be done.
If media companies insist on draconian DRM, then they should pay for full refunds to their loyal customers when one day they decide to delist that specific show.
if buying isn’t owning piracy isn’t stealing
I wish u could retweet a lemmy comment. Well said.
welcome to the fediverse. Boost = retweet ;)
You can on /kbin
Fairer words have never been spoken
Cool tattoo idea!
Absolutely insane.
I can understand extreme cases, like some sort of disputed IP where their contact to sell the content turns out not to be with the actual rights holder, resulting in no longer serving the content (with an unconditional full refund). But past that they should be legally required to host the content until the heat death of the universe.
Yeah this is one of the reasons I’ve been slowly moving my gaming time over to Steam as they very rarely do stuff like this and if they delist the game, if you’ve already purchased the game you can still play it 99.99% of time. Sad to see Playstation go down this route.
This is all movie/show content. It’s still BS, but it’s licensed TV/movie content that’s the problem. The dumb laws we have really are the problem.
Steam is the same. It’s just a license to play the game. GOG is better in this regard.
Kinda, but its not black and white. For a start steam has a much longer track record of nearly 20 years not doing this, I’ve heard of them de-listing games and not allowing them to be sold any more but never of revoking games that have been sold. Secondly there are many games on steam that stream cant just revoke, games that use no DRM or DRM that isnt integrated into steamworks they cant just delete if you back it up.
But that being said there is the possibility of something like this happening on steam, which is why I’m glad there is still an active game piracy scene even if I dont use it any more.
How do you back up a drm free steam game on steam deck?
I dont have one, but I’m pretty sure you can drop to a desktop that you can do whatever you want with the files on the system just like any other linux distro.
Unfortunately it’s the same situation on steam. You are only buying licenses to games you don’t actually own it, they can be taken away at any time with no recourse. Steam might be doing good now in this regard but it’s hard to say if it will stay like this forever.
The day Gabe Newell no longer owns Valve/Steam things will begin to change, I’m sure.
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Your point?
Give it another 10 years, you won’t “own” anything. It’ll be “licensed.” Weird tho. Digital content is endless. But you can’t consume it into extinction; physical things are finite, but we’re like here take it! It’s yours! Call a cop or shoot anyone trying to take it.
Seems backwards to me.
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There was probably nothing Sony could do
Wrong, Sony could issue full refunds to customers or ask WB the royalties back. Sony should had a clause in their contract with discovery that allowed them to host the video files indefinitely, if it was voided all the royalties to be refunded as a penalty fee.
When Google closed their digital magazine store, they let users download the PDF or to get a full refund.
Google again, closed stadia and everyone got a full refund even if all the devs were paid
When a game is delisted on Steam, Valve continues to host the files for previous customers.
But here no, they already got the money, they know that console users are used to just STFU, they saw that they can save a lot of money by deleting hundreds of TB of video content, and seized the opportunity
At least have the decency to do a partial refund where only the royalties paid to Discovery are kept. Or if not a money refund a store credit as goodwill. Or a prorated refund/store credit according to how many times it was viewed. Never viewed = full refund, viewed once, keep the price of a rental, and so on. Or force WB to transfer the license in another digital locker.
But no, nothing.
Had I purchased that video content just to see it disappear from my archive, I wouldn’t ever trust them anymore for future purchases and exclusively resort to piracy. (Well I do it already but this is an example) It’s a lose-lose situation for Sony and for WB. The rightholders do extensive campaigns “please pay for movies and show, don’t steal them”, then if someone believes them and *purchases" the video content, he is the one that will actually get something stolen
That, or Sony didn’t want to pay the fee to extend the licensing agreement. Sony has a history of screwing over their customers and being a cheap skate. (Removing Linux from PS3, releasing controllers without force feedback because they didn’t want to pay the license fee, installing root kit malware on PCs of buyers of their CDs)
“As always, the paying user has the worst experience.”
So true.
“We sincerely thank you for your continued support.”
As in stfu and keep giving us money?
Looks perfectly translated to me
And this is why I never “buy” media online. If I can’t own the media and enjoy the content whenever and wherever I want, it’s rented. I may be ok with that, but I never let them claim that it was a sale.
Sadly purchasing a phyical copy still will mean you can’t play it due to the required download for most consoles these days.
That’s one reason I’ve ordered a few titles from PlayAsia recently. For example, the NTSC switch edition of the Metal Gear Solid collection requires downloading the titles. With the PlayAsia edition, lo and behold- everything is on the card, and multiple languages to boot.
Never heard of that before today, that’s fucked, why even is that a thing?
Some places have crappy internet, so they need it
You and I can download a 1300MB game, it’s not necessarily so in Brunei
Hence “and enjoy it whenever and wherever I want.” If they maintain control, it’s not sold. It is, at best, rented.
Fortunately, there are often tools to enforce the first sale doctrine.
Buy it for the convenience and for the good Devs, pirate it after if they try taking it away. You already paid for it
Exactly.
It’s much the same as creators in Second Life who don’t want to sell in the Opensim metaverse. I get where they’re coming from in terms of protecting a recurring revenue stream, but if the customer has already paid for the product once, under first sale doctrine, they have the right to continue using it.
Slap one pirating at the front if it’s a game with no demo.
Now THAT is stealing.
Like… They’re straight up taking it back? No refunding? That is so asinine.
“We sincerely thank you for your continued support.”
Not only are they not refunding, They seem to think you might purchase something else from them in the future.
Even Google was giving people full refunds for all games that were bought on Stadia when they gave up on that. I can’t imagine that the total refunds would even be that bad for Sony given the increases they made for PSN prices. Would at least come across as at least pretending to “do right” to keep some level of trust from the people that have been buying non-game media from them. It would all be just a PR thing with some loss of current money for future money. Maybe even just offer a free amount of credit for getting some shows/movies from the Sony owned studios.
But since Sony is currently the number one, they will keep on their fuck shit until Microsoft or Nintendo are able to pull some big push. Playstation really only does kind of cool shit for customers when they aren’t in the lead.
Just FYI: there’s been about 45 million PS5’s sold to date. There’s been over 130 million Switch’s sold. PS4 sold 117 million during its total run.
They’re in the lead against Xbox. They don’t really cross paths with Nintendo. Different demographic, sort of.
And idiots will do it, too.
Because most people will still continue to buy things.
You can bet Australian users will be entitled to a refund, should they be affected.
Similar to how “no refunds” didn’t fly with steam in cases where people are entitled to a refund under Australian Consumer Law.
Alright, what this looks like is Sony’s deal with Discovery to sell and host their TV shows has been removed. From my quick glance there are no games being removed.
Still is BS, and beyond ridiculous. But it was inevitably going to happen at some point.
I am more pissed that I got informed that they are doing this from here instead of being told that I am losing my Myth Busters.
But it was inevitably going to happen at some point.
If you believed this, wtf would you ever give them your money to begin with???
Because it was 2009, I was I kid, and I saw Mythbusters and I said yes. I learnt my lesson when they remove PlayStation Video years ago from PS3, and the PSP. I didn’t even know I could re-download it until I stumbled upon it in a menu years later.
I am just hoping and praying that this will not extend to their games. Sony’s been pretty good about game ownership to this point, look at those who bought the PT Demo and can still play it.
Ok fair enough.
Modern consoles are a scam.
Yeah, I stopped buying’em when they started charging for 2nd internet.
Fucking rubes ruin everything I swear lol.
I still like having a console strictly for games, but not for media stuff. Plus since it’s an Xbox, you can subscribe to Game Pass and treat every game as a rental.
That doesn’t do anything to help game preservation though, which sucks. But between the sheer volume of games and the “every game is a rental” attitude, I treat new games as a one-time experience that I probably won’t care about returning to.
Fortunately though, the games I care most about having access to forever are easily backed up and can be played with an emulator if necessary.
“But you only ever owned a usage-license, which we now suspended” strawman argument incoming.
Well duh, then i don’t have “buyed” but rented it. Usage of those terms by platforms should be sued as misleading.
I look forward to the class action suit, and the $14 check I’ll get in the mail.
That’s one reason why Piracy will always exist, am I right?
It’s why it must exist.
Fucking assholes. This is why piracy is justifiable, and in some cases, even necessary.
If I’m to believe I own the crap I buy that’s digital delivery, then if they want to take it back, they need to buy it from me at my price.
God, I hope these bastards get sued 'cause little doubt they won’t be refunding the poor schmos who’ve just been robbed of their property.
I’m sure they covered this in the terms of service that they know no one ever reads.
In many countries that wont work. The Terms of service need to only include reasonable and expectable clauses, as they are not negotionable.
And “purchase doesnt mean ownership, we take it from you anytime we want” is neither reasonable nor expectable.
Also this should run under criminal fraud imo. The customers were deliberately deceived by the term “purchase” into believing they would be granted ownership.
That argument might fly in the EU, but in the current US political climate? Not so sure. Hopefully they’ll keep making laws with actual teeth to drag these multinational corporations to change things that may lower their bottom line
To be fair, Sony might go for that. This is incredibly embarrassing for them as well, and it does erode the trust in their service which is really important for a marketplace like this. Sony will be handing out coupons probably, but this is still damage to their brand.
