Sony erases digital content from libraries

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/06/sony-erases-digital-content-from-libraries-were-reminded-we-dont-own-what-we-buy/

by pseudolus • 23 days ago

184 74 23 days ago

arstechnica.com

HelloUsername• 23 days ago

"PlayStation Is Deleting 551 Movies from Customers' Accounts" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48691346 26-jun-2026 208 comments

"Studio Canal Movies purchased on PlayStation Store removed without refund" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48718967 29-jun-2026 125 comments

ButlerianJihad2• 23 days ago

They were never "purchases" and it's more that the terminology has been faulty and misleading, more so than the business model.

The rank-and-file consumer wanted to believe that "purchasing" something was permanent, but the metaphor is leaky. If I purchase a table from Ikea, then I take the kit home, I assemble it, I store the table, I maintain the table, I clean the table, and I can keep the table around for as long as I can pay rent on the apartment or whever it's being housed.

The same goes for a CD or DVD: you can keep playing it as long as YOU store it, YOU clean it, and YOU have a machine that can decode and reproduce the content.

But with digital intangibles in the cloud, none of this holds true. Your "purchase" belongs to Chad and it's in Chad's garage:

https://m.xkcd.com/1150/

So how can you be sore when Chad tires of the sweet deal you cooked up?

The same type of leaky metaphor happens with "piracy-as-theft". You copied some content and stole it! No it's not stolen: stealing is depriving a rightful owner of property. The rightful owner (or copyright holder) can calculate all their lost revenue and try to hold you accountable for that, but with piracy and copying, nobody's deprived of the content itself. Some cultures accept copying and plagiarism as a great honor and compliment to the original authors...

himinlomax• 23 days ago

They were never "purchases" and it's more that the terminology has been faulty and misleading, more so than the business model.

They were advertised as purchases. That they were not in actuality has a name: fraud.

mapt• 23 days ago

I argue that the idea of copyright of intellectual property was a social compact, and this violates it; These are not "copies" in the common vernacular, they're a temporary viewing of a spectacle, and do not deserve protection against replication, especially nonprofit replication.

mft_• 23 days ago

But with digital intangibles in the cloud, none of this holds true. Your "purchase" belongs to Chad and it's in Chad's garage:
https://m.xkcd.com/1150/
So how can you be sore when Chad tires of the sweet deal you cooked up?

Except in the cartoon Chad wasn't paid, whereas in the real life example Sony was. So a more true analogy would be that Chad sold you a fishing rod; you thought it was a purchase and you owned it, and then one day he took it back off you and pointed to the small print you didn't read that stated he could do this.

Pingk• 23 days ago

Sony chose to use the words "purchase" and "buy" on their pages, and hide some sneaky text in the EULA that changes their definition to remove the implication of ownership.

They know that using terms like "rent" or "lease indefinitely" would reduce their revenue, so they squirrel away legal gotchas that no one ever reads to cover their arse. It shouldn't be allowed.

Just because something is legal doesn't make it ethical. Sometimes the ethical thing to do is ignore the legalities, which is why people are fine with advocating for piracy in cases like these.

ButlerianJihad2• 21 days ago

This type of transaction under discussion is neither "renting" nor "leasing" and those are also inapt terms, and so that is why nobody chose to use them.

WillAdams• 23 days ago

That they don't value knowledge as a good in and of itself is exemplified by the fact that the first (and only) e-book which I "purchased" using a $10 store credit offered for browsing on a certain day (it got me a check from the ebook pricing settlement) for my Sony PRS-505 from the Sony store was so riddled with typos I had to check out a copy from the library so as to determine what some text was so as to submit a list of errors for correction.

(That said, I've _never_ bought an e-book since which didn't have at least one typo or mis-formatted bit of text, including _Dune_ which I didn't get until it had been available as an ebook for _years_)

TFNA2• 23 days ago

It is publishers who generate ebooks – often with poor quality control as has been well known for two decades now – and provide them to distributors. Sony is just one distributor for such publisher-generated ebooks. Sony was probably unaware of the errors in that one of its myriad inventory until a customer alerted them, and the most it could offer would be a refund.

Obviously Sony has neither the right nor the competence to take a book it receives from a publisher and alter it to improve its quality. Your annoyance of someone “not valuing knowledge” should be directed at the publisher.

gosub1002• 23 days ago

A grocery store is just a distributor. Yet they are responsible for selling something that makes me sick.

markus_zhang2• 23 days ago

I never subscribe to any music/movie services. If I can find them I buy DVDs and if I can’t I download them.

cryo32• 23 days ago

I find DVDs mostly pointless now. I've started seeing some from around 2000 which are now unplayable.

markus_zhang2• 23 days ago

So far mines still work. It’s the DVD players that are less reliable. But still I bought old Dell workstations that have one of those installed.

mapontosevenths2• 23 days ago

DVD was made with organic dyes that are susceptible to disc rot. For a brief time some cheap blu rays were as well.

Now though all blu rays are inorganic and should last about 100 years. Some can last closer to 1000 years.

geerlingguy• 23 days ago

I buy physical media, and immediately rip it to my Jellyfin library.

The disc goes into a big case logic cd case, and the digital file gets backed up to two other places so there's almost an infinitesimally small chance I lose access to the content.

hinata087• 23 days ago

these services are still ok for both suggestions and hard to find media

I let the Deezer bot surprise me OPM and I absolutely loved it

I also use it to listen to the Chinese rap, which would be a pain to get otherwise

Otherwise their human curated playlists are real good

But I agree with you, it's not how you "own" media. You only get the service to access media

gverrilla• 23 days ago

I never heard Chinese rap - what would you recommend?

charcircuit• 23 days ago

The real issue here are the terms of the deal that allow Sony to revoke access to content at any time. If Sony only purchases a 5 year license to use a movie, then that expiration date should be communicated to the customer ahead of time.

The idea that companies can take away games, movies, etc that you've paid for with the expectation you would have them forever is toxic for society.

ivolimmen• 23 days ago

They should drop the word 'buy'. There are several reasons your purchase will be gone at some point. There is no guarantee the company will not be bought by another company that reverses some policy or it goes bankrupt, etc.

xn• 23 days ago

Yes. If I have a 5-year lease on a building, I can sublease it to you for 5 years, but I can't offer to sell it to you.

smallmancontrov• 22 days ago

I like the idea of making the digital libraries call it "subleasing" if you don't own it and making them support ongoing access if they want a button that says "buy."

hinata087• 23 days ago

To the defence of Sony :

I was getting concerned, but if only StudioCanal movies are getting pulled as Sony doesn't need to pay for that, *it's but a loss*

The company was bought by the same tycoon who bought mainstream media to get frequencies, then replaced journalists with conservative anchors who ditch the news and rant about feminists and Muslims all day.

They were recently known for Bac Nord. It is honestly a very good cop movie, but that also outrageously rewrites a case in which dirty drug dealing cops were busted, in case some viewers are not willing to make the diff between reality and a good fiction

They made the headline around the Cannes festival this year, saying they should no longer work with woke movies.

Their case is getting embarrassing in France, as their owner is now the first (but not the only) purveyor of obscurantism for the masses

Waterluvian• 23 days ago

You can stop selling a product without taking it away from previous buyers.

hinata087• 23 days ago

it seems like it's not how the contract was written

Also, on previous commercial disputes, these french studios and media outlets held an all or nothing stance, often asking to be completely removed from the offering of ISPs if they can't get the money they want.

That's their way of getting what they want ; and as the ones who support this kind of move put it (so pretty much THEM) : you have the right to contract and do what you want with what you own

It's embarrassing enough for Sony or ISPs, it's highly visible to consumers, so they will not accept a middle point like you describe.

antx3• 23 days ago

Son your defrgument is... what? It's okay for them to rugpull as long as they are removing movies from a company which you don't support for... political reasons? Whew!

hinata087• 23 days ago

this company is also a king when it comes to pulling rugs

On their TV offering, in 2018 and 2022, they did pull the rug themselves by stopping to broadcast the free to air outlet which has #1 audience on the market, TF1, and this commercial dispute went to courts

Long story short, it's big business (not just inde studio does politics) and they're notoriously anything but victims at it

MSFT_Edging2• 23 days ago

Political reasons =/= actual bad actors.

The person you're replying to made a case that a person with outsized influence is creating media to stir resentment for attention and your conclusion is "political reasons".

The word "political" always ends up meaning "don't talk about reactionaries throwing rocks"

okokwhatever• 23 days ago

wtf dude?

nickpeterson• 23 days ago

I’ve bought a bunch of movies on appletv, and I think about how angry this would make me, but I’ve never looked into a decent backup solution. I’m not sure if the drm has ever been broken really, but I’d imagine some device could pretend to be an hdmi tv. Anyone ever backup their atv stuff?

8fingerlouie• 23 days ago

You don't really need to break the DRM in case of iTunes :

https://support.apple.com/en-us/121877

dom96• 23 days ago

This already happened in the iTunes era, didn’t it? My partner bought South Park episodes and songs and lost them all.

zenoprax• 23 days ago

Others have already backed up bit-for-bit copies on your behalf: you just need to download it from them piece by piece.

Bear in mind that you would likely be infringing on the rights of Apple since US law only permits backups for physical media.

cubefox• 23 days ago

I think they should be legally required to offer some sort of compensation for cases where they remove content you previously "bought". Like removing the DRM and letting people download their content, or offering refunds, or transferring the rights to a similar service (like Amazon Prime). Or when "buying" the content, they would have to notify the user that it will only be guaranteed to be available for some limited timespan x.

dominictorresmo• 23 days ago

This, IA and the files not be in my computer makes me defend piracy

My_Name• 23 days ago

Many people are using the words 'buy' and 'bought' here. That in itself shows people regard the interaction they had with the company as a purchase, not just temporary access that can be removed unilaterally on a whim.

IMO If you bought something and someone takes that away, THAT is the actual theft, and you have limited options to alleviate your loss.

Yo ho me hearties...

another-dave• 23 days ago

"That in itself shows people regard the interaction they had with the company as a purchase, not just temporary access that can be removed unilaterally on a whim."

and of course an end user believes it's a purchase when the companies explicitly say things like "Rent for £2.99 or Buy for £9.99".

If Sony want to market this as buying rather than renting a film, then I think that they need to either -

- negotiate a contract that "grandfathers in" availability for as long as the platform exists, even if they lose rights to sell to new customers - refund what it'd now cost to buy outright elsewhere if they're pulling the title (if they want, maybe pro rate that. e.g. count a purchase as 100 years of access to it. If I lose rights after 10 years, I get a 90% refund)

mschuster912• 23 days ago

The core problem is licensing deals. And it's not just limited to movies, but games. Even the biggest juggernauts can't get out of this, with patches removing soundtracks [1].

A CD or DVD? That will hold the soundtrack for all of eternity (or at least as long as the physical medium survives), but for digitally bought games, it's ridiculous that content I paid for can just get silently patched away.

[1] https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/868277-grand-theft-auto...

gosub1002• 23 days ago

A simple solution would be to make licensing deals only apply to new purchases.

mschuster912• 23 days ago

Yeah but that needs to be done by law.

everyone2• 23 days ago

If you pay for this shit you are a fool. I dont even torrent shit sourced from steaming cus its so heavily compressed, not worth watching. People are giving real money to these services and they wont even provide enough bandwidth for decent quality.. Another point in favour of torrents, we get as much bandwidth as we need, no data centres required, just people sharing.

kakacik• 22 days ago

If everybody does it, there won't be entire categories of content pretty soon and we all lose (ie high quality studio music recording, it won't get done on shoestring enthusiast budget unless you want llms to make up parts of songs, and forget those AAA blockbusters).

I am often pirating myself due to convenience and access to broader content or in case of games no bootloader crap on my PC, but see this as an issue of license owners rather than providers (in this case studio canal).

everyone2• 22 days ago

"forget those AAA blockbusters" fine, they suck ass anyway, the producers and money men meddling in the creative process results in shit. If youre subscribing to giant services like netflix or spotify or whatever practically none of the money is going to the talented creative people who actually make the stuff anyway.

I vote with my wallet and never support DRM and shit I deem unethical. I go out of my way to directly support stuff I want to see more of.. supporting artists I like on Patreon, bandcamp, buying directly from them, etc. Also when I support stuff like that I do actually get the files.

ChrisArchitect• 23 days ago

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48691346

ksec3• 23 days ago

We have so many of these discussions on HN already. Buy vs Rent. Digital vs Physical Ownership, Privacy etc. Yes we all have an opinion on that.

I am more interested in a physical media that can keep its data for 80+ years, 500GB+, half the size of credit card and cheap to manufacture.

At the moment, and looking at the pipeline of tech. There are none.

earth_tattoo• 23 days ago

Why so extreme constraints? Why does it have to be half the size of credit card? I a personal server with 64tb space (5x16tb hard drives in a raid5) for movies etc. Been running for 4 years no issue, and I hope to run it for another 50-60 years with occasional disk replacement.

reaperducer• 23 days ago

Why so extreme constraints?

Because he's not looking for a solution. He's looking for someone to argue with.

ksec3• 22 days ago

I am not looking a NAS replacement or NAS storage of my digital files. I am looking for replacement of Blu-Ray.

summarybot• 23 days ago

Sony, surely you mean you're going to mail them a physical Blu-ray copy of each one they own, right?

krater23• 23 days ago

I see no reason to pay this shit. When I need bad quality video streaming I just search for it on yandex.

braiamp• 23 days ago

This is a weird framing and only furthers that argument. No, if you give money for something, that something is yours. It will violating a bunch of fundamental contract law understanding if the ownership status of what you buy is ever questioned.

Lets use a book, since it illustrate how ridiculous such assertions are. Ask yourself this question: why do you buy a book? For the paper, for the ink or for the information that it contains? Obviously the valuable thing for anyone is the information, the message, the communication of the author with you. Nobody really cares how the information reaches you, but that it reaches you. It is what motivates your purchase. When people buy digital content, they aren't buying the digital zeros and ones, they are buying the content.

And yet the format you supposedly don't care about is exactly what determines whether you keep any rights afterward. Take the same text in a printed book versus an ebook. Same author, same copyrighted content, same money changing hands. Buy the printed copy and you can resell it, lend it, leave it to your kids, no permission asked, because first sale doctrine protects whoever owns a copy. Buy the ebook and the platform's license language quietly reclassifies you as a non-owner, so none of that applies. The format from which the content is transmitted and distributed is irrelevant to why you bought it, but apparently decisive for what you're legally allowed to do with it once you have. The individual would never have started the purchase process if it didn't expect to own a copy of said content.

This is where every "but it's digital, so it is different" fails to address, and I believe deliberately and maliciously, it implies that value only resides in the material plane without considering the abstract.

CJefferson• 23 days ago

I think what upsets me the most isn't that companies do this, it's that no government seems to have any interest in stopping them.

To me, it should be a fairly easy, short, and extremely popular law that if you say you are 'selling' someone something, with a time-frame extremely clearly specified in a simple way, at least the same size as the price (say), you can't take it back later without giving a full refund. If they want to offer a multi-year rent, call it rent.

piltdownman• 22 days ago

The US Government - the de facto licensing wing for the Western World - enables it as it positively impacts the US balance of trade in the exploitation of copyrighted works.

So long as lobbying by the Disney Corporation and others is allowed, the concept of the Public Domain is vilified to the point of felony; whereas the likes of Eldred v Ashcroft call it out for what it is - corporate welfare at the expense of public utility.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eldred_v._Ashcroft

hgomersall• 22 days ago

The trivial fix to this is to allow breaking of DRM.

spwa42• 22 days ago

The trivial fix is to put the US government for an impossible choice: "uncopyright" all Disney movies by taking the stories and make better versions of each and every one of their movies with AI.

NOT to do it once, but to create a mechanism to do it 100 times if necessary. Because, once, they can just cheat in a court case (sorry I mean "explain the impact this would have to the judge"). And make sure to publish the algorithm. And if there are 100 versions, with version 101 easily produced ...

Then the US (and other) governments have to choose: either say AI produced works are not copyright-free, which will be a VERY serious problem for AI, or rights holder companies become worthless.

Either of those represent incredible losses for the US government, as well as for other governments that also haven't behaved very well at all.

To some extent this has already happened: commercial music providers (for supermarkets and ...) have all switched to AI "totally not based on copyrighted works" songs.

_tyiueojdfg4• 23 days ago

Just in case, the same is eventually coming to Steam. After all, Gabe will not live forever. Just saying. Plan accordingly.

dada78641• 22 days ago

The piracy will continue until morale improves.

LennyHenrysNuts• 22 days ago

I remember when Amazon did something similar with the kindle maybe a decade ago, I was livid. I vowed never to own a Kindle and bought a Kobo and installed Koreader on it.

I hear this today, and now I just shrug. I'm past caring and I hate that.

Sony erases digital content from libraries

Related Stories