The debate over digital media and physical media is taking a serious turn as some movies are being removed for Playstation users, even if they purchased the film.
Playstation owners who have purchased some movies are heading for a significant disappointment. Though it may be allowed inside the very fine print, those who bought movies believing they “owned” them are rudely surprised as Sony is announcing that some movies will no longer be available, even if consumers “purchased” them.
From Todd Spangler of Variety:
Sony’s PlayStation Store, as of next month, will remove access to hundreds of movie titles from Studiocanal that customers in Germany and Austria previously purchased.
The move comes a year after Sony’s PlayStation group stopped offering movie and TV show purchases and rentals, as of Aug. 31, 2021, citing the rise of streaming-video services. At the time, Sony assured customers that they “can still access movie and TV content they have purchased through PlayStation Store for on-demand playback on their PS4, PS5 and mobile devices.” But clearly, that didn’t mean forever.
Though this is only occurring in Germany and Austria, and though it is limited in scope, it certainly has people rethinking their purchasing habits when it comes to multimedia. Physical copies for games, movies and shows are about to be in much higher demand if buyers believe they could lose access to a piece of media they believed they owned. Of course there’s no guarantee that a company couldn’t put out an update that would “brick” physical media, but that is far less likely and might trigger stronger class action lawsuits.
There are advocates of physical media ownership that are likely to be eager to speak out about this situation. Those advocates might also cite better video quality in addition to the security one might have by owning something in physical form.
For more information on the advantages of physical media, check out the article “Physical Media v Digital Media.”
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