this is exactly why i still buy discs in 2023. it's crazy to think that we are reaching a point where piracy will be the only option to own media once dvds and blu-rays are gone.
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I think this applies to all subscription based business models dealing with digital content/products. I am just sad after hearing this. I was thinking about something like this happening from few years. Can this happen with ebooks as well like kindle?
Legitimately why I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place with Alan Wake 2. Big game, digital only right now, either on PS5 where storage space will be eaten up and Sony doesn't care, or on the Epic Games store, a platform I'd rather not touch.
People called me crazy for collecting Blu ray movies, but now look.Discovery removed a bunch of shows off HBO max for tax write offs, now Playstation is doing the same, except the tax writeoff, I will always keep telling people buy and support Physical Media!!!!!
I have a couple of Criterion discs; I don't have experience with its streaming service, although I somewhat doubt I would get to watch Big Trouble in Little China* with commentary from John Carpenter et al. Or Die Hard.
*Otherwise known as one of the greatest films ever made. 😉
The Criterion Channel is great. It doesn’t have the full Criterion Collection, of course, but it’s got a lot of well-curated movies that are hard to find elsewhere.
In a similar vein, I’d also check out Kanopy. It’s free with almost any public library membership in the US.
Big city public libraries are often quite expansive about access—for example, anyone in Massachusetts can get a Boston Public Library card; anyone in California can access the SF public library…
Many (though decidedly not all) movies on Movies Anywhere have extras. Sometimes they provide extras that the storefront you originally purchased from doesn't even have.
This current crop of video games will pose a problem. What ships on disc is often little more than a barely functional beta release. Some need server connections to install
Absolutely. This is incredibly ridiculous and no one has presented a good enough reason that it's okay that Sony is doing this. If they keep doing this, then the people have no choice BUT to pirate content
I've been buying the Simpsons on DVD just because I prefer watching my own rips on my plex server. Also Disney+ doesn't have all of the show. It's missing the first episode of Season 3, Stark Raving Dad. Because that episode had Michael Jackson as a guest star.
If the copyright holder and distributor stop cooperating, copyright holder should provide alternative mean for purchasers to get the content. Nobody cares about what streaming platform to use but we want to get THAT movie we paid for. Simple voucher code would suffice.
Wow and they still call it a "purchase". I mean like, unless the price for that so-called purchase was a quarter then that's pretty scammy. And even then!
People seem to forget that if you can't hold it in your hand, or have a copy of it on your hard drive, you don't own it.
Sure, a disk on sale might be a couple dollars more than the digital copy you're renting, but not only is it yours, the playback is better looking and sounding as well.
They aren’t completely going away, but will definitely become a sort of collector only item. I personally don’t like either of those outcomes, but better to exist than to not.
I'm so tired of often well-meaning people misusing the word "theft" in this context (it's still there; you can still use it). what's wrong with "copyright infringement"? words matter: insulting you isn't murder, no matter how much you hate it.
It’s written down and called fair use doctrine. One is “theft” (more like impact) on possible commercial exploitation of one’s work.
On the other side of this equation is the Sony TOS. Companies with lots of lawyers will bend either way to extract as much money as they can and yet not be custodians
Y'all think steam will last forever? Wild thinking how many thousands of dollars I've sunk into that stupid account knowing it could literally vanish overnight
I don't think Steam will last forever, but I don't remember there being a precedent for a game being removed from sale and Steam removing it from people's libraries.
Sony made the licensing deal with Discovery and they willingly put unaware users into this position when they purchased content.
I have personally fully migrated to digital-only content, but I am afraid that this will happen to any of my usual platforms. Worst thing is, even with physical, we sometimes still have to watch a bunch of ads or endure horrible monetization techniques to enjoy "the full experience"
I'll say this over and over: if you support physical media SUPPORT LIBRARIES. Libraries are currently the ultimate wellspring of "real stuff". And it's all free.
I got rid of my physical media a couple years ago but ripped all of them to an external hard drive beforehand. I’ve bought a few movies through VUDU & worry about this problem but so far, so good
I've been saying this for years already - the CD player's days are numbered, they've already stopped putting them in cars - best to start hoarding the players as well as the CDs themselves
At what point will companies be stopped from using deliberately verbose T&C to hoodwink consumers into this bullshit? Folks shouldn’t have to be lawyers to avoid being swindled like this by corporate entities.
i desperately hope that consumers realize that streaming was always a trap and home media eventually makes a resurgence. at current rates they're going to phase out offering it
I hate this because contract writers will put whatever they want in there, knowing that there are no consequences if a clause is ruled to be unenforceable
In the EU, consumer protection means that any clause in a contract or EULA that an end user wouldn't reasonably expect to be in there is unenforceable, for this reason.
I think a fine argument could be made that Sony's provision of an option to Rent or Buy these shows, being distinctly different, and "buy" meaning a specific form of transaction, makes this a form of theft. Someone needs to cough up some refunds, or grant access to them on the MAX app.
(I am lawyer, but this is based on outrage, not knowing what buyers were told or the law in any state.)
If they told you you were buying the video, not renting it, but the T&C, say "as long as we fell like paying for the rights," that seems deceptive, "unconscionable," & thus unenforceable. 1/2
Unfortunately, typically the terminology "Buy" or "Purchase" is used when one is really buying a license. It should be illegal. The terminology should have to be be "License*" with a disclaimer including "*limited access; restrictions apply". People would probably not notice though.
It's not necessarily wrong to buy a license but it should be clear what you're buying. Most people don't understand they aren't buying a copy of a movie like a physical copy of a book. Knowing what you're buying is a basic requirement of a fair market and I'm surprised the FTC doesn't crack down.
Probing a contract term is so unconscionable as to be unenforceable is a tough bar to clear, but directly contradicting what you've said elsewhere may do it or may contradict "fraud in inducement" (tricking someone into entering a contract by lying about what it says). 2/2
Ostensibly telling customers you are buying the content when, in fact, selling a (arguably very) limited license. Prob how they get around the issue of essentially repo'ing the consideration.
Same shit will happen though if Sony ever shuts down their platform and then there's even less recourse.
Honestly, if they shut down Playstation, I wouldn't be especially outraged, but they're still out there selling ostensibly permanent licensees at higher price than they charge for rentals.
If you offer one price to rent and another to buy, they can't be there same.
There’s basically always a purchase and rent option wouldn’t selling something under purchase basically be reasonably expected to be an indefinite license despite any disclaimers about the “this license may be revoked at any time”clause that exists in nearly every digital purchase
Of course aside from what the law actually is we would also need a series of judges who actually followed it when it ran contrary to the interests of the large corporations.
Against Sony? They legally can’t distribute it anymore because they lost their contract.
Or against Warner Bros, who are the rightsholders and ones actually responsible for this. They want you to go to MAX for Discovery properties.
I wouldn’t call a digital license tangible. You don’t own a local unrestricted copy.
When it comes to video there is really no difference between streaming and digital purchase, and you can thank the studios for that, they won’t allow for DRM-free purchases like music.
Not unless you own a disc or have a DRM-free copy. That is true for any media, but especially for video because it has always a been sticking point with studios. Even Apple, with as much bargaining power as they have, can’t offer DRM-free TV and movies like they do for music.
Don't think the physical media will be a huge help. Considering the policies of modern companies, even if physical media would not extinct its capacity will be artificially lowered, so its real value will be no higher than a value of some nft. Just a receipt.
And they have the cheek to conclude with a "Thank you". Imagine being robbed in a dark backstreet and the muggers think it's okay as long as they say "Thank you." 🤬🤬🤬
There are other major companies pulling that foul trick, one provides image treating software, another translation dictionaries...
This is also dumb because we in the video game industry solved this problem decades ago - people who previously purchased a copy prior to the end of the licensed term get to keep that copy 🙄
This shit scares me, we need to rally and support physical releases as much as possible. Yes that means some games won't have much exposure but this scares us much more with no physical releases.
Hypothetically, you could purchase an HDMI to USB capture dongle (about $15 online) and connect it between a Roku (or whatever streaming device) and your computer with OBS installed. Hypothetically.
Absolutely buy if you’ve the room to store and there’s so many places to buy old dvd’s etc and the equipment for a couple of bucks- like Value Village, in my berg.
i don't think so. sorry if you wanted to watch it. im still mad that infinity train (a cartoon network show) literally got snapped of existence last year. only half the show's on dvd. even the creator themself was like "yea just 🏴☠️ it". only way to support those artists and actors is to donate
we're already at that point with so many things. just because dvds and blurays still exist doesn't mean all the stuff we want is still being sold on them. just a few days ago i went to buy a show from about 10 years ago on DVD and it's out of print. i have it on disney+ but their player is awful so…
Nice. For the last 20 years I’ve used Sagetv to DVR shows from both over the air and Directv, but barely use it anymore since linear TV has become a total wasteland if you don’t watch sports.
"Content providers or retailers of instances of copyrighted work should not be able to hide behind "provision as a service" and/or restrictive end user licenses: when you legally acquire an instance of a particular work, you should "own" that instance".
17th February 2009
With lots of games, the disc is just a license too - virtually all games now depend on a downloaded element, even if it starts with you putting the disc in the box
I am glad I brought my DVDs over when I moved from San Francisco to Berlin. Why pay to stream it again, especially when half the time only the German dub audio is available?
Prime is dreadful for this. In Lux, Leon only has French audio (it has a French guy in it, I guess?), one Blacklist episode was bizarrely only in German etc. I told them and they started bleating about “not having the rights”, and when I pointed out how idiotic that was the CS numpty/bot was like 🤷♂️
Disney Plus is way better than Prime Video if you're overseas, because of course they own the rights to their own film library. Or pay for VPN of course.
In Berlin if you have a city library card you can often find the original DVD and they will pull it for you and put it on a pickup shelf.
I think it is because English language films so completely dominate theatres here. As English speakers, we rarely encounter a foreign-language film unless we seek them out, but here it is the norm. I am a fluent German speaker, but it throws me off not to hear the actors' voices I know.
You can always turn on the subtitles if you're streaming. The point was that you can't access the original English-language *audio* on some streaming sites in Germany. Closed captioning is different.
Aquiring the rights for the original and the dub version is just more expensive than just getting the dub version which is more popular, especially with an older (middle age) audience.
There's been a few times when, years after I bought online movies or TV episodes from Amazon, they stopped serving them. But they always refunded me. This is crazy town banana pants.
I have a theory the video rental store will rise from the ashes. Streaming is just going down the drain year after year. Pretty soon we will be buying cable again.
Luckily purchasing movies and tv shows through Apple allows you to back them up to a drive (HD MP4 files) and Apple encourages it in case a license is pulled (rare, though it does happen).
they can do the same thing with blu-ray discs by de-authenticating the disc. Sure your blu-ray playing isn’t connected but your game consoles certainly is
This is true... when the art is accessible legally. Tell me when and how you're planning to support the artists involved in art that ends up removed from all platforms?
So Discovery and Sony ceased their rights agreements; but Discovery offers their shows in Blu-ray and streaming. It is awful that people already paid for content they lose, and that is wrong; but pirating any kind of art that’s still available is just another wrong. And they say two wrongs…
If you bought the content, pirating it again isn't taking a sale away. You bought it in the first place; the company who owns the IP literally stole it from you.
Piracy has long been the ONLY reliable method of media preservation in the video game space, that will be even more true for traditional media as digital-only becomes more prevalent. If you leave preservation to the rights holders they'll literally leave things to burn in warehouses.
If you already purchased the media and corporations stole it from you through fraud (i.e. making you think you 'purchased' it but then actually taking it back later)... please explain how it's 'piracy' to download it. It's not piracy to watch media you paid for. The artist got paid BY YOU ALREADY.
It's a bad example and posting it over and over doesn't make you right. If you bought those DVDs and the studio came to your house and took them without warning, should you be forced to pay for them again? No.
Your lack of understanding on the subject is clearer every time you post.
again, artists already paid. Suggesting people keep throwing their money at things until they disappear completely isn’t a good take, and honestly its defending these predatory and deceptive practices, which is an even worse take.
Again, I don’t feel an abhorred corporate policy justifies pirating. The answer is to call out and make noise that forces the awful greedy corporations to not treat their consumer base like this. Sony is at fault here. I’ll leave it here.
this literally doesn't give adam savage and the whole productin team any money, this just lines the pockets of either executives or random people reselling it
Like, you should be getting paid for this. Every minute you spend doing this shorts a Sony employee of pay they would have gotten for their time spent trying to placate customers yelling on the phone. You gotta make this right
I do not pay for streaming or cloud gaming serives ever. I buy only physical media. I have media that I can watch that's long been removed from streaming services. They love to delete content rather than invest in expanded capacity.
It's also the main reason why I primarily have games on my Nintendo Switch in physical format. If I have no guarantees the digital copy is safe for whatever reason, why should I buy it in a digital format if I can buy it physically first and foremost?
Just recently (thanks to a friend) understood and got convinced of the need to buy discs (games, movies, etc). At the end of the day, we don’t own anything online, and the only way to secure it is buying a physical copy.
Can’t think about how things will turn with discs are completely gone…
This is 1000% while I'll continue to buy physical copies of games and movies cause if tomorrow Amazon clapped their hands and closed down streaming services I know several peeps who'd lose hundreds if not thousands of movies and games.
The ultimate goal is that we will own NOTHING. Everything will belong to the Laird o' the Manor... excuse me, the capitalist, who will let us use a bit of it as long as we spend our daylight hours (at least) working for him. And, gradually, the robots (that he also owns) will do more and more work
That internet connected console could theoretically block you from using any disc the platform owners decide they don’t want you to play and you won’t know until it’s too late.
I found part of my collection of Disney vhs in my grandmothers house. Deciding I didn't want to pay Disney for access to content I already owned once, I started filling gaps in the collection buying vhs on eBay. Sure, its vhs, but they still play. No subscription.
I’m sure there’s a wall of fine print about how you aren’t actually buying anything when you click “buy” but are purchasing license to view the content and blah blah blah
If they want to do that, they shouldn’t be allowed to say you’re “buying” anything. Call it an “indefinite rental” or something
I am not a lawyer but I did read all the t&c on a couple digital purchases (my only option, no physical disc available) and, yeah. They reserve the right to pull it at any time for any reason and they pretty explicitly ain't giving you your money back, even.
Being able to revoke content that you own should not even be allowed to be possible. This is what I dreaded when it happened with P.T.; if they can do it once, they can and will find reason to do it again... It should not even be possible. I don't recall this ever being possible in the PS3 days
Unfortunately this is what happens when media company decides to do a tax write off on tv shows that gets cancelled: it’s purged from internet like it never existed. And even if purchased for streaming that will also be wiped out from your account like it never existed.
Vote with your wallet. Sony has a history of pulling this shit. Every time you have the option to buy, through sites like GoG and Bandcamp (unfortunately gutted), choose that over some proprietary library of licensed content.
Why I won't spend more than $5 on a digital movie, and only if it's on Movies Anywhere...
Hopefully mitigates the chance of it disappearing from *all* the linked storefronts, and if it does, not out much more than a rental.
Movies Anywhere is the Mouse's best idea.
There's basically nothing on Discs any more, except a DRM code that gives you access to a download. and the way blu-ray player firmware works, a hardware company could feasibly brick your console, making it unable to read specific discs, if they really wanted to.
The other issue with "buying" digital media is, it can be altered by the actual owner. I've had digital comic books "corrected" by the publisher. Seems like we are heading into a world where the majority of us will own very little.
I won’t buy a car if the manufacturer can mess with it remotely. It may come to a point that I wouldn’t have a choice, but maybe by then I could figure out a way to not need a new car.
Google bought YouTube like the fossil fuels buying the railroads. Media pimpin’s gonna get wild now that this fad internet thing is in everyone’s pocket more than drinkable water.
piracy is not theft; at worst, it's *making a copy*
piracy is valid and ethical in the digital age where a corporation no longer sells you the rights to own a copy of the content, but rents to you access to the content
Each time a company pulls a licencing trick to fleece customers, I hope the customers, whether past, present or future, return the favour with a giant f*ck you & take their business elsewhere.
Publishers are doing this with ebooks. They claim that the "right of first sale" which attaches to print books does not apply to ebooks -- you don't own them. The ongoing Internet Archive lawsuit might well be decisive in this battle. The publishers purport to be protecting authors, but really...
I’ve never understood the point in ‘buying’ on a VOD platform. It’s only yours as long as they permit you to watch it. I still love buying physical media, and buying it second hand it’s usually a lot cheaper than renting it from the VOD platform where you only can watch it once.
There was one for anime in Europe but I’m pretty sure it’s being destroyed for the whole Crunchyroll takeover as we speak, which is now owned by… *oh, also Sony*
Anyway, I still have a bunch of purchases from there and they were fully compatible mp4 files. Should be the standard really
https://GOG.com sells DRM free digital goods, the vast majority of which is, of course, games. But they do have a really pitiful selection of DRM free videos as well- mostly video game related documentaries. If more content producers were interested/willing to sell, I'm sure GOG would love to help.
When Sony closed their e-book store in 2014, they gave me the option to transfer my account and (except for one or two exceptions) all my purchased books to Kobo. Dodged a bullet that time! But it was a decade ago. Things only got worse since!
I worry about stuff like this sometimes. For a while I’ve been considering taking an old iPad, clearing out almost everything on it but Kindle, then loading up every book I’ve purchased, then turning off the wi-fi so that no one can take them away.
Same with music. It feels a bit paranoid tho, but…
I have a Plex server with all our movies, music, and digital books. The drive gets backed up regularly (and second backed up quarterly-ish) just so I've got a copy of everything I've purchased.
I'm not trusting my purchases to the capriciousness of some corporation.
That’s bizarre. I own dozens of streaming movies and shows across Amazon, Xbox and iTunes, bought as early as 2008 and I’ve never heard of a license being revoked after purchase.
"Due to our content licensing arrangements with content providers" ... was their some kind of force majeure clause in the contract I (apparently) agreed to so I could try and get my partner into Doom Patrol??
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*Otherwise known as one of the greatest films ever made. 😉
In a similar vein, I’d also check out Kanopy. It’s free with almost any public library membership in the US.
Sure, a disk on sale might be a couple dollars more than the digital copy you're renting, but not only is it yours, the playback is better looking and sounding as well.
On the other side of this equation is the Sony TOS. Companies with lots of lawyers will bend either way to extract as much money as they can and yet not be custodians
Sony made the licensing deal with Discovery and they willingly put unaware users into this position when they purchased content.
Frankly, I think that any digital content that has a licensing/expiry date attached to it should have a very clear disclaimer upon purchase.
This should be illegal
At what point will companies be stopped from using deliberately verbose T&C to hoodwink consumers into this bullshit? Folks shouldn’t have to be lawyers to avoid being swindled like this by corporate entities.
e.g. if you record an audio on vocaroo it says in the t and c that they own your first born child
Agreeing to t and c doesn't make them legal
If they told you you were buying the video, not renting it, but the T&C, say "as long as we fell like paying for the rights," that seems deceptive, "unconscionable," & thus unenforceable. 1/2
Same shit will happen though if Sony ever shuts down their platform and then there's even less recourse.
If you offer one price to rent and another to buy, they can't be there same.
*constitute, not "contradict"
The first one's just a typo. The second one is a genuine brain-fart.
Or against Warner Bros, who are the rightsholders and ones actually responsible for this. They want you to go to MAX for Discovery properties.
When it comes to video there is really no difference between streaming and digital purchase, and you can thank the studios for that, they won’t allow for DRM-free purchases like music.
thanks for amplifying this
There are other major companies pulling that foul trick, one provides image treating software, another translation dictionaries...
Hypothetically fascinating!
17th February 2009
In Berlin if you have a city library card you can often find the original DVD and they will pull it for you and put it on a pickup shelf.
– an artist
but it's interesting that you're okay with big companies stealing from us, but wouldn't be okay with regular people stealing back. bootlicker vibes.
Your lack of understanding on the subject is clearer every time you post.
c'mon have some sense before being that wrong
You're helping placate public outrage against the license-holders and distributors
Oh yeah, Warner Bros.
Zaslav strikes again?
Can’t think about how things will turn with discs are completely gone…
If they want to do that, they shouldn’t be allowed to say you’re “buying” anything. Call it an “indefinite rental” or something
*Plugs on SNES**
This should be the norm by now.
Honestly the discs and dvd need to be retired.
https://7news.com.au/business/retail/disney-to-stop-releasing-dvds-and-blu-ray-discs-in-major-change-for-australian-customers--c-11414857.amp
You take what I paid fo'
A piracy I will go
Hopefully mitigates the chance of it disappearing from *all* the linked storefronts, and if it does, not out much more than a rental.
Movies Anywhere is the Mouse's best idea.
https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/
Yes. Yes, I would.
piracy is not theft; at worst, it's *making a copy*
piracy is valid and ethical in the digital age where a corporation no longer sells you the rights to own a copy of the content, but rents to you access to the content
But they definitely exist 🏴☠️
Anyway, I still have a bunch of purchases from there and they were fully compatible mp4 files. Should be the standard really
Same with music. It feels a bit paranoid tho, but…
I'm not trusting my purchases to the capriciousness of some corporation.