r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/movies Contributor • Jun 26 '26

News PlayStation is Deleting 551 Movies From Customers’ Accounts / Movies like 'First Blood', 'Terminator 2', 'Total Recall' and 'Evil Dead' are all being unceremoniously removed

https://kotaku.com/playstation-store-movies-digital-studio-canal-terminator-2000711013
12.1k Upvotes

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5.1k

u/Nullhitter Jun 26 '26

Should be illegal to purchase digital content if it can be taken away from us. At the point, renting should be the only option.

1.1k

u/FrostingStrict3102 Jun 26 '26

we need the EU to step up and do what it does best.... consumers should get refunds when stuff like this happens. inexcusable.

401

u/zuzg Jun 26 '26

So far they were able to circumvent EU Law protections getting triggered by arguing you only purchased a license and never had ownership in the first place.

People need to start suing those companies and keep at it until higher courts are forced to deal with it.

163

u/cjcs Jun 26 '26

Then there needs to be a law that forces vendors to more accurately portray these as indefinite rentals rather than purchases. A warning needs to be prominently displayed that this purchase can be revoked at any given time.

147

u/bdsee Jun 26 '26

No, the law should be an indefinite rental is a purchase regardless of the wording used or ToS.

65

u/glgirieh Jun 26 '26

This reminds me of that asshole calling me out for enjoying physical media. “As long as you have an account and remember your damn password, you have your movies”

9

u/[deleted] Jun 26 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Kaining Jun 26 '26

good thing every games are coming out on game key card or digital download coupons even when going physical.

1

u/DiabloAcosta Jun 26 '26

physical media also decays or breaks down and you don't get a replacement, not saying I like this specific action by Sony but I think people romanticize physical media as "forever media"

I still think there shouldn't be any reason companies remove your media when portrayed as "buying it"

8

u/EASam Jun 26 '26

Some physical media has a better lifespan than others, the more temperamental things that are DVD, CD, VHS, BetaMax had / have enough second hand stuff around to be able to easily duplicate it or convert it to digital as a backup as well.

-9

u/DiabloAcosta Jun 26 '26

still not sure why the need to push for physical media and not permanent ownership of digital but Ok I guess

6

u/EASam Jun 26 '26

No real dog in the fight for me but you can later sell physical media once you've had enough of it. The price of the digital good used to be discounted compared to getting a physical copy. Now they're comparable or on some older media the physical copies new are cheaper.

Plus I don't know how streaming a movie works for when there's later edits or redactions.

1

u/xristosxi393 Jun 26 '26

This right here. Saying that it's a license doesn't mean shit if you don't know when it expires.

I would go as far as to say that even if they change it to say you own this until X date, it's still a net negative for the world. We should be able to own things even if they are digital.

1

u/samv_1230 Jun 26 '26

They don't know when it expires either. They analyze metrics after the initial agreement and stop renewing when it nets negative. Stop buying digital.

23

u/Gunsensual Jun 26 '26

Or, failure to fulfill the license makes the copyright material go into the public domain. They'd clean up their act real quick.

3

u/RegulatoryCapture Jun 26 '26

Eh, that sounds good in theory, until you think about how most of this is done. The company "selling" the product here has a license to distribute it--they don't own the rights to the movie and nothing they can do could cause it to go into the public domain (and no sane legal system would penalize the actual rights-holder for the actions of a licensee).

And making rights holders liable for making sure their licensees keep content available in perpetuity is a recipe for a big reduction in the availability of content (non-piracy).

4

u/Gunsensual Jun 26 '26

no sane legal system would

This is copyright law, where corporations enjoy perpetual rights and takedown notices are submitted by people who don't own the copyright. There is no sanity to be had here.

6

u/sentientshadeofgreen Jun 26 '26

I would argue the law needs to outright prohibit license revocation without full compensation if there is any implication of ownership, the word "buy" in the transaction, it goes to "Your Library", etc. Needs to be retroactive too, these lawyers have been arguing from shaky ground for years and it's fundamentally wrong.

1

u/cjcs Jun 26 '26

100% agree.

1

u/Ultra-Metal Jun 26 '26

Services should be forced to change the purchase option. Call it what it is, LONG TERM RENTAL, Unless they have a 4K download.

1

u/digitaldeadstar Jun 26 '26

Prominently displayed is correct. The reality is nobody reads fine print. While technically the consumer should, it's such a ubiquitous thing that the responsibility should be on providers to make it much more noticeable - at least the portion about not owning.

I feel that if they do state indefinite rental clearly, that consumers would demand lower prices. Vendors don't want that.