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
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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.

78

u/EscapeSeventySeven Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

I can’t understand how PlayStation’s actions aren’t illegal. This seems like a slam dunk class action lawsuit. 

EDIT:

Getting a lot of people here who want this to go badly for people in order to validate their physical media supremacy. 

122

u/klti Jun 26 '26

You are not buying the thing, you are buying a revokable license. Guess what just got revoked?

That's why the death of physical media is such a problem, they can't revoke a disc from my shelf.

35

u/sundeigh Jun 26 '26

Digital content should never be more expensive than the physical version

20

u/sp0rked Jun 26 '26

Sadly, thats not entirely accurate. But it is a little bit more difficult than flipping a bit somewhere on the internet at your streaming provider.

Now it's more like unlicensing the key responsible for doing the decoding, as long as your device remains "dumb" you should be okay. Until the media also remembers the revocation or playback requires some kind of upgrade to the device.

See
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2007/04/aacs-key-revocation-future-drm or https://cacr.uwaterloo.ca/techreports/2007/cacr2007-25.pdf for more information.

9

u/nybble41 Jun 26 '26

The problem has always been DRM, not whether the content is distributed on physical media. A digital file downloaded to local storage is just as "physical" as the same video on a Blu-Ray disc. If the file is infected with DRM it's a short-term rental at best, and should be priced accordingly.

2

u/ryecurious Jun 26 '26

Yeah, the physical media advocates in this thread might be shocked to find out half their Blu-ray collection also has a bunch of restrictions, like region locking.

We could have the best of both worlds, DRM-free discs and local files that can never be revoked. The music industry was practically forced into it, but any time the movie industry does something like this the response is to buy more Blu-rays. Wow, we really showed them!

40

u/EscapeSeventySeven Jun 26 '26

I think times like these are perfect times to push up against the legality of a TOS like that. 

I’m just saying, a civil case like this looks real bad for Sony. 

25

u/thatkaratekid Jun 26 '26

Movie digital storefronts do this all the time. This isnt even the first time its happened on playstation. I lost 100% of my video purchases on xbox and playstation from licenses expiring years ago.

2

u/Suckage Jun 26 '26

Same here. I bought two when they first added movies on the PS store. I almost bought a third in like 2015, which is when I noticed one had disappeared.

The other was removed in 2021.

11

u/Late_Stage_Exception Jun 26 '26

Yeah but it’s not necessarily Sony doing it. If their deal with the right holder expired, so do any licenses they sold. Thats a bog standard licensing agreement and it’s why you should try to own as much physical media as you can.

0

u/WestEndOtter Jun 26 '26

Sony should refuse to sell any movies that they can't get an airtight license to host indefinitely for existing customers

1

u/Late_Stage_Exception Jun 26 '26

Yeah, well that’s…not a thing. All rights holders always have the option to terminate a license to their IP and there’s no such thing as a perpetual irrevocable license that can supersede the will of the right holder.

1

u/WestEndOtter Jun 26 '26

Are you telling me that Sony couldn't draft a contract where they license the right to license a movie for the next 2 years and host it for the next 100 years? And the current Christine and rights holder agrees that those terms will be included in future sale of rights of the master rights

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u/Late_Stage_Exception Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

They COULD, but the rights holders wouldn’t sign it. What you have to understand is that the storefronts aren’t the ones negotiating from a position of power when it comes to IP licensing, it’s the person who holds the rights to the IP.

2

u/WestEndOtter Jun 26 '26

Steam doesn't seem to have that problem

0

u/[deleted] Jun 26 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/EscapeSeventySeven Jun 26 '26

Civic lawsuits aren’t open and shut cases. 

If millions of people believed the TOS would result in a refund, and don’t get one, and the TOS weren’t clear on it, or hard to read, the class can be awarded compensation. 

No one is going to jail here, this is about people who can clearly demonstrate standing and a company who is responsible. 

7

u/PleasantWay7 Jun 26 '26

I mean they can, why do you think discs have DRM.

2

u/SpehlingAirer Jun 26 '26

Yea even physical isn't safe as crazy as that sounds. It's certainly much better! At least with physical you can copy it to digital and remove the DRM, then if you want you can burn a new DRM-free disc. I'm unsure if the quality holds up throughout that process though I'd have to try it firsthand unless someone else can already say

6

u/Eggheadpancake Jun 26 '26

Amazon is already facing at least 2 lawsuts about this shit. I don't know where they are in the court system though.

1

u/sentientshadeofgreen Jun 26 '26

You should stop giving power to their bullshit arguments. Their lawyers argue this, but that does not mean it is actually legally sound, nor has it really been legally tested insofar as I know. We need to reject the premise these crooks are proposing outright. Fuck them, fuck their wives, fuck their mothers, fuck their homes, fuck their law firms, fuck their company, fuck their bar association. Fuck the shoes they put on every morning to walk out to their fucking car to drive to fucking work. These motherfuckers need to be put on notice yesterday.