PlayStation To Delete A Ton Of TV Shows Users Already Paid For::Sony says Mythbusters and more Discovery TV shows are going away whether you bought them or not
The irony is that I feel like I own my pirated content more than any of the digital content I’ve actually purchased in the past.
Piracy gives you freedom, whereas paying for content just deprives you of your money
Feel? Without question you have ownership in a way legal distributors no longer allow for. Physical media aside of course, but even that has a hassle to it that pirated content circumvents.
There is simply no downside to having a collection of movies, tv shows and music on your HDD that no one can take away and plays in any modern operating system hassle free.
Buy Blu-ray’s then.
I’m occasionally buying used Blu-rays from eBay, ripping them using MakeMKV, putting the content on my Jellyfin server and sharing it with my friends and family over Tailscale. Works like a dream and no one can do anything about it. https://youtube.com/watch?v=RZ8ijmy3qPo
Can you ELI5 why you need/use Tailscsle on your setup?
Because allowing access to your VPS/homelab without VPN is like having a one night stand without a condom. You might be ok one time but eventually your gonna wake up with a nasty virus
To make the server accessible via internet, it’s a VPN service.
You could do it without tailscale too, but using it makes things extremely easy.
How much are you paying for tailscale?
Nothing. It’s free for 3 users with a limit of 100 devices. The traffic isn’t relayed through Tailscale servers, instead, Tailscale just orchestrates the peer-to-peer connections.
That’s where all the good pirated content comes from
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Well whoever is taking them away should reimburse the clients if they were not made aware that they didn’t own the show but were just renting it.
These behaviors are dangerous and shouldn’t be legal. You press « buy », you own the product, not the right to watch it for a few years.
Slowly turning the whole world into pirates…
Thanks for pointing that out, it is Discovery’s decision. For their part though, Sony is still at fault as they didn’t demand perpetual use rights for content sold on their store, or at least a full refund for the customer.
This. Offer a refund. Discovery caused the problem, but Sony enabled it.
Sony isn’t in a position to demand refunds, though. Discovery pulling their content means there’s no negotiation happening.
As for demanding perpetual use rights, yes, that’d have been nice, but that wouldn’t have been granted and then that content wouldn’t have been in the store at all. No company will ever sign an agreement to license their content in perpetuity like that.
That’s the crux of the issue with digital content. When it was physical media, companies had no choice but to release their media with perpetual licenses because there was no means of revoking it later. They weren’t compelled into doing this, they had to because the only other option was not releasing that media at all. Digital content has removed this issue for them, and they have no reason to ever willingly go back to the old method of content distribution.
This is something that has needed regulation for a very long time. If there’s no incentives for companies to do something, it won’t happen, unless they’re forced to do it.
This is absolutely Sony’s fault. Sony owns the platform, Sony took the money, Sony signed the terms and agreements with Discovery that let them pull the content users paid for.
I blame Discovery too, but you’re right that Sony is to blame. They have an army of lawyers to go over the terms of the agreements. The buyers don’t. When I push the button that says buy, that should mean I own it. Not that I’m renting it for some unspecified period of time.
I don’t care who’s at fault for this massive scam
At best you could say Sony didn’t know you thought you now own the car they were actually lending you. They probably spelt it out this could happen in their legal codex but that doesn’t negate the fact they took your money or they made a system wherein they can deny you from using what you paid for. Sony takes part in this degeneration of ownerships.
If it’s not something that lets you straight download and keep a native, non-drm video file, then you never owned it.
This is what I wrote on the other thread about the same article. The question is, on what possible grounds are they allowed to revoke licenses for completed sales?
Someone in legal on Sony’s side fucked up.
They should issue refunds. Whether they will or not though…
They will ALMOST CERTAINLY. But my point is this doesn’t really help… Let’s say a game I really like, I dunno Wreckfest (substitute you own idc) gets yanked from Steam. Here is my 24.99 EUR back. Okay fine, fair enough (it isn’t but whatever), where can I buy the game again? Well REALLY you can’t, you can either buy gamepass forever (Until it gets yanked from there again), or you can go and hunt down a rare an expensive Xbox physical release.
So have I been reimbursed for my loss? No, because the 24.99 is no substitute for the game I had and wanted.
In the case of Steam, something I bought was pulled from the store, but it’s still in my library, and I can still redownload it. Even though it can’t be found by people who didn’t buy it anymore. This seems to be the general Steam strategy.
No, it’s also Sony’s fault for not making a contract that says “bought means bought forever”. Sony isn’t making contracts like that where they can get screwed over later. Just making them that way when it affects you.
This seems illegal unless Sony reimburses everyone for the removed content.
It should be. But I would be extremely surprised if everything in the terms of service isn’t worded something like “you’re buying a license to view this content that can be revoked whenever”.
It is, and IIRC you don’t even “own” a movie even if you physically have it. You own the physical disc, not the content on it. Granted, it’s a lot harder for Sony or Discovery to come kick down your door and take your copy of Ice Road Truckers so you have to rebuy it…
I wouldn’t be surprised if the TOS says “We reserve the right to change this agreement at any time in any way without notice and you agree to be bound by all future versions of this agreement”
There’s a line in the EULA when you purchase digital media that says they can revoke your access to it at any time that they see fit. Look it up for yourself.
If you don’t own it when paying for it then you aren’t stealing it when pirating it.
Woah.
this is an ad for piracy, right?
I stopped piraring when I graduated college and streaming started to be wonderful. It is now a bleak hellscape that is more expensive than ever. Time to buy 20tb of hard drives and install Jellyfin I guess :(
Welcome back to the high seas.
Some of us never left …
Heh, I’m about at capacity with my 20 tb of storage. I think I’m getting myself a Synology NAS for Christmas. I’ll probably spend a couple grand on the device and the drives, but it’s totally worth it to own everything. No regrets.
Amazon gifted me one a loooong time ago. Useful for storage but apps aren’t supported on older models really.
That makes sense. Currently I have my raid split, so 10tb are primary media storage and 10tb are backup. My plan is to set my internal raid to be entirely media storage and use the Synology as just a simple network backup system. This will at least double my storage, good enough for now.
Amazon does the same thing. You don’t own digital content you pay for, you’re renting it.
This is why I buy the physical copies of shows/movies I like and just pirate the rest
Dont trust these guys to not screw you over
Yeah personally I only ever use points or rewards to buy digital media. Rarely do I ever pay actual money.
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NOT OK
OK UNDER THE LICENSE YOU AGREED TO SO IT’S YOUR OWN FAULT
– Sony
It’s an abusive relationship - “look what you made me do”
I’ve pretty much switched to streaming and paying for content. This makes me question that decision. This just makes the pirates look right.
I went back to mp3s and flacs for my music a few years ago. And quickly followed that up with my own Plex server. Two of the best decisions I’ve ever made. If you’re remotely tech savvy it takes no time at all and having every tv show, film, music, video that has ever released on all of my devices at any time within seconds is pretty sweet, for near-free
I’ve switched to streaming and don’t “buy” anything. If content isn’t available on those few streaming sites I’ll try a different provider but I will not “buy” (eg rent for more money).
It’s all a word game though. I think I actually do have one movie on Amazon. Enough people were over and wanted to watch it that we felt the larger rental fee (“buy” option) was worth it.
ComiXology is an interesting example of this. They have a shitty UI and an odd attempt to emulate the “collector” experience (obviously I think it’s horrible). It’s like a bad drug trip of skeuomorphism. I quickly decided we’d never “buy” anything there either.
“Buying” media with drm is a mistake.
I buy books from audible sometimes, but I immediately rip the drm out. Use Plex to store your movies and TV shows, it does music ok too now.
Give Jellyfin a try too. I switched to that from Plex after I realised they were trying to charge me money to use hardware transcoding on my own hardware.
Give Jellyfin a try too.
Unless your main TV client is a Playstation. Client support is Jellyfin’s biggest weakness, and why plex is more popular.
What about DLNA? It works on my 7 years old LG TV.
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Yeah, I’ve heard of jellyfin, but don’t really know anything about it… How is it different?
I’m likely to stay with Plex though, because I have 3 friends with Plex servers and we’re all sharing content. It’s pretty fantastic, when I don’t have something, usually one of my friends does have it. If jellyfin doesn’t support content sharing, it’s a huge no-go, but just convincing my friends to switch over would be pretty challenging.
Can you please link a good guide on ripping the drm out?
Looks like enshittification of the internet is really kicking in. Decentralized platforms, and piracy needs to be the new normal
Not enshittification. Just a corporation following through on the inevitable result of these one sided EULAs everyone “agrees” to.
It’s been “kicked in” for years.
I remember a long time ago buying the first iPhone model. Eventually, Apple released an update that added an “App Store” that allowed you to download third party apps.
Google released a preview / trailer for a new app called Google Goggles. It was like something from the future, and I wanted it more than anything. However, months and months later, it still hasn’t showed up on the App Store.
Eventually, Google released a statement saying Apple was blocking them from releasing it because it competed with Apple in some way, or some shitty thing like that.
It was then that I realized I had paid about $700 for a brand new device which I thought I had owned, but actually did not. I then switched to Android and never purchased an iPhone again.
This has been happening for a long time.
I wonder if the studios understand how much they are going to be shaking confidence in digital purchases by doing this. I know I’m going to think twice before I pay money for another digital copy of a movie or TV show.
Maybe they are fine with that? As in they prefer the streaming deals / subscriptions, specially if they have their own platform.
That’s almost certainly what’s really happening. They regret selling media to you permanently so now they’re trying to claw it back and make you pay them again.
That is literally always what is going on.
Seeing how many scandals the big media companies have been in and literally nobody cares because the world is horrible and all we have left are these artificial dopamine sinks they call franchises which we desperately cling onto despite fully knowing that we are making rich assholes who caused all this even richer, don’t hold your breath.
I am even over Netflix, let alone relying on digital purchases, lol, when BLM happened they pulled 2 episodes of community and as we all know since then, no black people have been brutalized by police in the US, true heroes Netflix are…
I know about the dungeons and dragons episode - which other one did they pull?
oh I guess it’s just 1 episode, but that’s one more than should have been removed
Remember, kids: When you pirate a show, you’re intentionally abusing the cast and crew by withholding revenue from them! (Even though the majority of them do not make royalties from it and even those that do make peanuts compared to how much money the publisher just pockets.)
But also remember, kids: When the publisher decides to strip you of a show that you paid their explicitly specified “forever price” for, that’s 100% their right and they would never do anything without the complete and uncritical backing of the people who made the show. And if you have any negative thoughts about that, you’re also intentionally abusing the cast and crew by wanting to watch it when they have clearly spoken through the publisher that they definitely never want you to watch them again, and their only wish is that their media legacy will be randomly erased from people’s access at the drop of the corporate hat.
It’s all about creators here at our humble multi billion dollar publishing company and digital rights brokerage!