Sony Terminates UK Playstation Owners’ Purchased Movies
PlayStation owners in the United Kingdom that purchased any of 551 StudioCanal movies or TV series received notice last week that those titles will be unceremoniously deleted from their libraries on September 1. People who thought they owned a digital copy of Terminator 2, Bridget Jones Diary, or (one of this writer’s favorites) Inside Llewyn Davis were rudely awakened to the fact that they paid purchase price for a long term rental.
The email PlayStation sent to customers, first posted on X by @somatyk, was blunt. It included no apology, no promise of a refund, no attempt to smooth over the loss. Just a link to check to see if your content is among the titles to be removed and the unfitting slogan “Play Has No Limits.”
This latest PlayStation incident demonstrates the precarity of digital content ownership. When hard copies reigned supreme, your response to the video store that tried to take back a DVD or VHS you bought could be as simple as: “get off of my porch.” But the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s (DMCA) broad protections to digital locks grants copyright holders far more control over devices and content. In the process, the DMCA has eroded ownership rights.
A look at the PlayStation terms of service help illuminate how bad things have gotten. “Use of the terms ‘own,’ ‘ownership’, [sic] ‘purchase,’ ‘sale,’ ‘sold,’ ‘sell,’ ‘rent’ or ‘buy’ in this Agreement or in connection with the Content does not mean or imply any transfer of ownership of any content, data or software or any intellectual property rights from [Sony Interactive Entertainment], its affiliates, or its licensors to any user or third party.”
If that reads like dystopian doublespeak to you, that’s because that’s what it is.
This is not the first time that Sony has deleted PlayStation owners’ purchased content. In 2022, Sony removed StudioCanal titles that German and Austrian device owners bought through the PlayStation Store. The company then announced in 2023 that it would delete purchased Discovery shows from American’s libraries. Users who purchased episodes of MythBusters, Cake Boss, and American Chopper revolted. The blow back was enough for Sony to renegotiate it’s licensing agreement with Warner Bros. Discovery to extend access for 30 months, meaning PlayStation owners' content is safe until some point in 2027.
The clock is ticking for American owners of those shows. Sure, we might all be better off if we focused on buying Blu-rays or your hard copy format of choice. But it’s simply not right that the things that you purchase are at the whims of negotiations between multinational corporations.
You own it. You should control it. Until the DMCA is updated, that sentiment is only a rallying cry.
