from Hacker News

Playstation is erasing seasons of Discovery shows from customer libraries

by derstander on 12/5/23, 11:01 PM with 526 comments

  • by dang on 12/6/23, 2:16 AM

    Recent and related:

    Playstation removing previously purchased Discovery content - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38492747 - Dec 2023 (174 comments)

  • by ajsnigrutin on 12/6/23, 4:29 PM

    If you download something from a torrent, that's digital ownership too, and it doesn't suck. The "digital" is not the issue here, the "ownership" is.

    If you "buy" something, there should be an implied right of ownership, lending to others and resale, and we probably need a better regulation of those. If you can't do that, you're not buying but leasing/borrowing and that should be clearly noted.

    And this should be true for physical items too... buy a cloud enabled camera with features requiring cloud access? Manufacturers should put guarantees for how long they intend to support those features at the purchased price, and refund the customers if they fail to do so. It's a lot easier and more scammy to sell a "camera that you can watch on your phone" than if it had a large label "guaranteed to work at least until 1.1. 2025" on the box... you'd reconsider buying that product if you knew that it'll maybe last only a few months or maybe a year or two, but you have no way of knowing that in advance (ahem, Nest).

    I could expand this also to parts and software availability, right to repair, etc.

  • by jmclnx on 12/6/23, 3:36 PM

    This is where the US Federal Gov should step in. But the pols are too busy counting donations (bribes) from these companies.

    If I buy digital content, I should be able to download it on removal media and use it off-line (esp. in the case with movies/music). I should be able to sell it (which is still legal). But these companies want you to "rent" instead of own.

    So I never buy digital anything. No wonder many people head to pirate bay because of the rights they loose.

    I hope the US Gov (and other govs) wake up to this, but as always donations (bribes) trumps people's rights all the time. (no pun intended).

  • by pwg on 12/5/23, 11:10 PM

    And these companies wonder why so many continue to pirate.

    Pirated copies do not get erased due to the whims of the copyright owner.

  • by nottorp on 12/6/23, 3:31 PM

    Do not buy console titles you think are good enough to replay later on consoles except on disc.

    That's for games. For video content, i'd say do not "buy" anything digital. The video content industry has Kafkaesque licensing agreements and a pathological fear of "piracy" so you're guaranteed to lose access either because someone's agreement thrice removed from whoever you "bought" the content from expired, or because the latest copy protection that was in fashion when you "bought" it is now unsupported.

    Edit: hey, can your kids inherit your "digital content"? They can inherit your disc collection.

  • by theandrewbailey on 12/6/23, 2:34 PM

    This is why I'm uncomfortable with paying for digital things that don't come in files and can't be used offline.

  • by b8 on 12/6/23, 7:16 PM

    Again, Stallman was right about the dangers of ownership of "digitally purchased" content like VOD, e-books etc. Of course, there's ways to de-drm content on some platforms, which technically violates DMCA, but having the content locally without DRM (that requires phoning home/encryption) is key.

    The DMCA should be reformed to allow de-drming content owned by you. This mostly applies to digital content and cases such as: your account being banned, licensing issues resulting in content being removed, buy in x country which later gets blocked etc. However, cases like making copies to store off-site in case of a fire, natural disaster, robbery or on digital storage (NAS, cloud etc.) should be allowed especially for people who pay. I thought it'll happen though. Perhaps a federal law entailing consumers for refunds for such cases such as Sony's recent actions should be created.

  • by yumraj on 12/6/23, 6:26 PM

    I see two solutions, there may be more:

    1) Sony refunds the price. This is the least that should happen.

    2) Else, the purchase should be honored by Discovery and it should provide an alternate means for users to access this content by transferring the purchase OR provide download for use without restriction.

    In parallel, there should be a class action filed.

  • by b8 on 12/6/23, 12:39 AM

    Stallman is right once again that electric content/IP such as ebooks, movies, etc. are a bad idea.

  • by superkuh on 12/6/23, 2:30 PM

    "If paying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing." - Louis Rossmann

  • by mcpackieh on 12/6/23, 2:34 PM

    When it comes to Sony, even buying physical media in a store sucks. I'll never forget that Sony deliberately used music CDs to infect people's computers with malware.

  • by glitchc on 12/6/23, 4:13 PM

    Buying physical media isn't even the safeguard it was before. Now games require a patch before they're usuable, or the game can be blocked from running until the console itself is patched to the latest version. We're in a new era where consoles are fully connected platforms and the OEMs use them as gatekeeping tools to control the ecosystem.

  • by EvanAnderson on 12/5/23, 11:18 PM

    Consumer protection hot-take: It should be illegal for revocable or conditional licenses (time limited, region or geo-locked, tied to off-prem DRM servers, etc) to be marketed as being "sold". The term "rental" (and whatever that does to the end user's perception of price-to-value) should be required in those cases.

  • by pluc on 12/6/23, 3:42 PM

    I've been using this arguments for years when it comes to owning music. Can't understand why anyone would rent from Apple or Spotify.

  • by taspeotis on 12/6/23, 12:04 AM

  • by andrewstuart on 12/6/23, 1:34 AM

    I buy DVD's from eBay.

    Mainly because the streaming service rarely has the actual thing I want to watch and there's no way I'm going to subscribe to a whole bunch of streaming services.

  • by xlii on 12/6/23, 8:15 PM

    It should be titled: "Playstation keeps reminding us why Playstation sucks."

    Personal experience: I had a huge PS3 games collection, but PS4 came out and Sony no longer was interested in keeping PS3 going (except for re-released). I had no machine outside of used one, and because my library was massive it only gathered dust in shelf.

    One day I finally sold it off which brought less than 10% of its purchase value. It barely covered cost of work that I put into cataloging and cleaning boxes. So I swore to never go physical drives.

    Today with Steam (where I have 4 digit title count) I don't really care, it's probably easier to pass down my account than 2 containers worth of dusty drives. And even recently I played Braid that I bought almost 15 years ago.

    I think it all boils down to the "slippery slope" argument. Sony and Nintendo showed multiple times - through remasters and re-releases - they don't give 2 cents about end-customer as long as they're happy and fed. But not every business is like that.

    As far as I know Amazon also took some book of people's Kindles, but still (for many) convenience of not having to build your own library in a small metropolitan apartment.

  • by llamaInSouth on 12/6/23, 3:32 PM

    I like the digital MP3s I own... (not what they mean, probably)

    maybe they should call it cloudy ownership?

  • by lusus_naturae on 12/6/23, 12:47 AM

    This has to do with licensing agreements with content providers, to which the solution seems to be that there need to be third-party escrow holders that maintain the license purchased by an individual so that Sony/Playstation is no longer responsible or required to pay for continued licensing of that content. This would fall under FCC regulations, and could definitely be brought to their attention via consumer action.

  • by davidmurphy on 12/5/23, 11:44 PM

    Regulation needed

  • by nehal3m on 12/6/23, 2:37 PM

    When it comes to games (at least when the box even contains physical media anymore) I want the physical versions so I can sell them or borrow them to friends. I do not have a PlayStation right now, but I do have an account floating around.

    Can I do the digital equivalent yet, or are purchases still permanently tied to your account?

  • by justin_oaks on 12/6/23, 5:16 PM

    While I've never had a game, video or book deleted from my library, I feel like I'd be justified (morally, not legally) to pirate it if it were deleted from my library.

    I'm still wary of buying digital items, but the availability of pirated versions does give me some comfort

  • by crazygringo on 12/6/23, 1:02 AM

    A platform like Sony should not be allowed to sell content for purchase if it doesn't own the rights to stream it to purchasers in perpetuity.

    There should never have been a contract that required renewal with Warner Bros. in the first place.

    Sure you can require renewal in order to sell it to new users, and if you don't renew then new users can't buy it.

    But the idea that Sony didn't originally have the right to stream it in perpetuity to existing purchasers is absurd.

    I don't care what the fine print of the user agreement said -- this is a perfect example of what consumer protection laws are for.

    I mean, what's next -- can I rent a house for a year, sell that house to someone and pocket the money, and then at the end of the year they find out it's not their house anymore because I didn't renew my lease...? Because that's basically what Sony has done here.

  • by amanzi on 12/6/23, 1:56 AM

    Companies should be forced to provide a refund in this situation - either Sony or Discovery.

  • by wiseowise on 12/6/23, 6:46 PM

    > And Sony isn’t offering any compensation for titles you’ve already bought or a way to transfer those purchases to another store.

    This is outrageous.

  • by thiht on 12/6/23, 11:42 AM

    Without surprise I see no mention of a refund.

    I fail to see how their « licensing agreement » is any of the customer’s business. They « sold » something they didn’t have the right to sell, instead of renting it. Sony should be forced by law to renew the licensing with their provider at any price, so that customers keep getting what they paid for. That, or a refund.

  • by Sparkyte on 12/6/23, 4:35 PM

    Sony does have a stance that we should buy physical media. I don't disagree with this either. They have a large investment in physical media and rightfully so they were one of the originals behind blu-ray technology. Also streaming is typicaly subpar quality to blu-ray while it is still decent.

  • by mariusor on 12/6/23, 3:41 PM

    Somehow I think this one is not Sony's fault entirely.

    Time Warner has recently moved towards "unifying all their streaming platforms" which meant that a lot of adjacent services will close/migrate to Discovery+ directly.

    I am someone that suffers the fallout of them shutting GCN+ down, which gives me about two weeks to watch around 100 cycling documentaries that the GCN people have put out in the past 3-4 years. Granted I haven't paid for them individually, so it's not as painful as for the Sony customers, but they will be shutting down access to all of them without any backup plan and without a look back.

    The people at GCN seem to be as baffled as everyone else about this move. Luckily they still have a good presence on their Youtube channel where they have more accessible content.

  • by baal80spam on 12/6/23, 2:42 PM

    That's why I refuse to use Steam.

  • by Decabytes on 12/6/23, 4:38 PM

    I'm fine with digital content being ephemeral, if it is priced appropriately. I'm talking about $1 per game/movie if there is a possibility that I will lose access to it through no fault of my own, and I don't get access to the files

  • by tbm57 on 12/6/23, 3:01 PM

    it seems like console manufacturers could just add a software update that prevents users from playing certain pieces of purchased physical media? the 'always online' paradigm is just as annoying as digital/physical ownership here

  • by dcdc123 on 12/6/23, 7:52 PM

    I am pretty sure the issue here is Sony purchased some sort of pay-per-stream license and effectively sold the users unlimited streams rather than a perpetual license and gambled that most users would not watch the content all that much and they could make more money. Now they are no longer able or willing to pay to renew their license which makes the content unavailable to the users. I assume they could have licensed it in some way that allowed true perpetual access for the users that purchased it but that would have cost more and they would have made less.

    ^^ just in case it wasn't clear those are all assumptions of mine

  • by hyperific on 12/6/23, 4:55 PM

    I try to buy PlayStation titles on disk as much as possible because I learned this lesson early on. A while back someone took control of my PlayStation Network account and deauthorized my PS3. I reached out to Sony and they said I'd have to wait the standard 6 month period until I could deauthorize the squatter's devices. During that time I lost access to any game I didn't have physically on disk. It showed me how ephemeral digital "ownership" is. I still pay for digital copies of games from time to time but much of my PS2-4 library is physical.

  • by wmsmith on 12/6/23, 12:46 AM

    Honestly, stories like this (and similar when streaming services change catalogs) is why I've gone back to DVDs. Nobody has knocked on my door (yet) to get those back.

    Han Shot first! I had to find an old VHS to see this with my own eyes.

  • by m0llusk on 12/6/23, 2:13 AM

    Digital media and the Internet have made copies nearly free. Because of this it no longer makes sense to base profits on charging for copies. Business models need to change. Alternatives like Pay to Release where only previews are available until the customer pool pledges enough to make copies available do not have piracy as an easy failure mode.

  • by iforgotpassword on 12/6/23, 6:44 PM

    Is Popcorn Time still a thing? I remember it was an overnight success until users got sued because BitTorrent, and the project pressured to eventually shut down.

    Could we have a super easy p2p streaming platform that integrates with Tor? I.e. tracker running as onion service and every user being a Tor relay?

  • by uuddlrlrbaba on 12/6/23, 6:09 PM

    Its inconvenient as hell but I still opt to buy physical copies of games whenever possible. This way I can play them usually without an internet connection, and resell or trade the game.

  • by VoodooJuJu on 12/6/23, 4:47 PM

    I'm afraid nothing will change because Zoomers are inured to this stuff. They expect it and they accept it. They understand they own nothing and they're happy about it.

  • by ChrisArchitect on 12/6/23, 1:33 AM

  • by beltsazar on 12/6/23, 4:33 PM

    Many don't realize that when you buy anything digital, you don't "own" it—what you actually buy is a license to access the content, which can be revoked at any time and for any reason. When that happens, you can't really sue them because there must be a clause in the ToS, that you've agreed on, that covers it. For most media, the only way to "own" it digitally is, unfortunately, by piracy.

  • by indymike on 12/6/23, 7:48 PM

    Let's use "digital rentals" instead of "digital ownership". Ownership is the wrong word.

  • by autokad on 12/6/23, 7:19 PM

    yeah, people fell hook line and sinker for put 'your everything on the cloud'. Now if someone doesn't like the way you think, all the things you 'purchased' can be blocked'. all 'your' photos, gone.

  • by shmerl on 12/6/23, 6:37 PM

    Buy DRM-free. We need more DRM-free video that can be paid for though.

  • by erellsworth on 12/6/23, 3:08 PM

    In my opinion, crap like this is the best argument in favor of sailing the seven seas.

  • by thedangler on 12/6/23, 7:21 PM

    Make NFTs. That way you can claim your copy again from anyone who licenses it out. And if you sell your digital copy the original owner can earn royalties.

    Hell you can even make it so its costs $1 to register it to a new device.

    Lots of possibilities here.

    Or am I wrong?

  • by Log_out_ on 12/6/23, 8:07 PM

    You wouldn't pirate stuff you bought.

  • by sowbug on 12/6/23, 6:41 PM

    BUY* now!

    *Borrow Until Yanked. Terms and conditions apply.

  • by sampa on 12/6/23, 7:00 PM

    licenses get revoked, drm servers die and rutracker.org still provides