PlayStation is erasing 1,318 seasons of Discovery shows from customer libraries | The change comes as Warner Bros. tries to add subscribers to Max, Discovery+ apps.::The change comes as Warner Bros. tries to add subscribers to Max, Discovery+ apps.

  • @RememberTheApollo@lemmy.world
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    1541 year ago

    So they’re taking shows away from people who have already purchased them and moving the shows to other services in order to try to make potential customers subscribe to more services?

    Fuck those guys, especially for ripping off people who already paid for the content.

    Here we go again. Instead of being forced to subscribe to shitty bundles of cable channels in order to get the channel you do want, we’re being forced to subscribe to multiple shitty services to get the shows we want.

    This industry is a one-trick pony. Literally giving the worst service they can to force people to subscribe to more services.

    • @merc@sh.itjust.works
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      81 year ago

      Fuck those guys, especially for ripping off people who already paid for the content.

      If either side cared about good customer service, they’d find a compromise. Either Sony would pay for the purchases and make it available under the new home at whatever the new sales-channel is called. Or, Warner Bros. Discovery would switch the licenses and make it available themselves.

      Of the two options, Warner Bros. Discovery doing that would make the most sense. For them, it would have zero cost. They’d lose out on the potential to re-sell the same content to people twice, but they’d keep potential future customers happy by doing that. Especially true for people who had bought a few seasons of a show but hadn’t finished it. They’d be incentivized to purchase future seasons using the new store.

      The fact that neither side is willing to make these concessions shows just how little they care about their customers. They deserve all the copyright infringement they’re about to see.

    • @meat_popsicle@sh.itjust.works
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      61 year ago

      Agreed. Streaming services always seemed like gilded cages to me. You can only see what they allow you to see - piracy or old-school Netflix DVD delivery gives you all the options. The promise of being able to stream any content at any time, with the producers and people involved being able to get compensated fairly and justly, just isn’t reality with these ghouls running the show.

      The model (in the current form, of artificially restricted licensing) seems like less a way to curate a media catalog, but more like a way to curate the subscribers and culture.

      • @kaitco@lemmy.world
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        11 year ago

        piracy or old-school Netflix DVD delivery gives you all the options.

        Netflix cancelled their DVD service in September. In an entirely unrelated move, I have recently cancelled my Netflix service…

    • @AMillionMonkeys@lemmy.world
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      01 year ago

      ripping off people who already paid for the content.

      They didn’t pay for the shows. They paid for access to the shows. That’s all anyone gets these days.

      • @merc@sh.itjust.works
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        91 year ago

        They didn’t pay for the shows. They paid for access to the shows.

        And, if they had made that completely clear, there would be less of an issue. If the “Buy” button was replaced with “Rent, Long Term” then maybe people would be less annoyed that their long-term rentals were now being forcibly returned. But, labelling the button “Buy” makes them more money.

        • @barsoap@lemm.ee
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          31 year ago

          “long term” is still indefinite and therefore unconscionable. “For at least 10 views” or “For at least 5 years” would work.

          Another option would be Sony not entering unconscionable contracts with WB. They can because they’re gigantic and be laughed out of court if they tried to argue that their legal department didn’t spot the issue but their contract should have said that anythnig that gets licensed indeed gets licensed in perpetuity: That is, WB could say “don’t sell any new licenses any more”, but they couldn’t say “all licenses are now invalid, how you fulfil your contracts with your customers maybe buy boxsets”.

    • @brygphilomena@lemmy.world
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      01 year ago

      Kind of.

      You don’t have yearly contracts and it’s a lot easier to start and stop a particular service at any time.

      It’s weird to see this take when I remember streaming started out that this was what was heralded. You could pick and choose what streaming services you wanted and you could change them easily. You didn’t have to buy the sport package or pay the built in royalties of sports teams if you didn’t watch sports.

      • @RememberTheApollo@lemmy.world
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        11 year ago

        For now. However, I’m going to pick at something you mentioned about switching when you want - sure, but most services offer a discount for a year’s subscription. I don’t think it’s an insignificant amount of people that might buy in on that. Switching becomes irrelevant when the service already has your money.

        Also, services are separating popular shows, unbundling for lack of a better word, to other platforms to force people to subscribe to more services. Effectively that’s making you pay for shows you don’t want (like your sports reference) to get the shows you do.

  • @TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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    641 year ago

    Fuck Warner Bros and Sony PlayStation for this.

    But it’s not just them, it’s an entire industry. If you pay for media and you don’t get it physically in full, or the ability to download it in a DRM-free portable format, remember that you don’t own it. Only do it in the knowledge that some day you will not have it anymore.

    There are other options available for you. BluRays, piracy.

    • @Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
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      111 year ago

      People need to start paying creators to make stuff for the public domain and refuse to pay to access anything that everyone doesn’t have access to.

      I’ve given Wikipedia money, I’ll never pay for Netflix.

      • Flying Squid
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        21 year ago

        Considering how much it costs to make the average movie or TV show, a Patreon isn’t going to cut it. If you want a guy talking in front of a microphone with a producer and a writing team of two, sure, you can pay the creators for that. It’s not something most people will want to watch in replacement of the entertainment they’re used to.

        • @Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
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          11 year ago

          The maths are pretty clear though, we know consumers have the money needed to pay for blockbusters and that they don’t mind giving it over to view entertainment because that’s where the companies get the money from - in fact we know that there is excess because a large portion goes to shareholders as profit.

          Collectively we could combine community creation, open source tooling and creator funding to make things on a far larger scale than any marvel movie, I don’t really think we should tbh but funding reasonable ventures, tools and resources is something we absolutely can and should be doing.

    • 𝔼𝕩𝕦𝕤𝕚𝕒
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      1 year ago

      People were so happy MultiVersus happened, failing to realize the sheer acquisitions and monopolistic behaviour it takes to own so many IPs. How, when weaponised, it commands so many big names.

      And now it’s not working for people, because they’re pulling the shows from PS.

  • @FrankTheHealer@lemmy.world
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    611 year ago

    Fuck this shit.

    If buying isn’t owning. Piracy isn’t stealing.

    This is so anti consumer, I’m surprised the EU hasn’t stepped in to stop it yet

  • @DontMakeItTim@lemmy.world
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    391 year ago

    Maybe I am underestimating the amount of people buying seasons of TV shows on PlayStation, but this seems like a lot of PR pain for very little potential upside.

    • @Rockyrikoko@lemm.ee
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      321 year ago

      If this isn’t theft, then the inverse isn’t either. Raise your flags, it’s time once again to sail the high seas

        • @chitak166@lemmy.world
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          11 year ago

          It never was.

          You’re copying, not stealing. When you steal something, it is gone from the person you took it from. When you copy something, both of you have it.

          “Piracy” being stealing is exactly the same as “stealing” someone’s ideas. It’s a lame excuse so people richer than us can be even richer.

  • @AWittyUsername@lemmy.world
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    261 year ago

    This is Warner Bros being the bad guys, but also Sony for not refunding people. Either way it doesn’t matter consumers lose out, all the more reason to pirate.

    • @mightyfoolish@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I see where you are coming from. The original version of streaming Netflix was the answer to piracy. Good price and had all the content one wanted. Was also easy to use. The streaming wars proved competition isn’t always the answer (I think this is the first time I’ve ever said that). Without that version of Netflix, the answer to piracy is gone…

      • @User_4272894@lemmy.world
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        31 year ago

        Competition is the answer, though. The problem is companies ended up competing the wrong way. If I could watch “The Office” on any streaming platform, suddenly they’re all in competition to create a better platform (quicker loads, different pricing models, integration with different devices, etc). By limiting shows to only certain platforms, sure, you’re creating an easy way to differentiate between platforms, but you’re letting the competition stagnate as you just create cable TV with extra steps: minimal choice, minimal ease of use, minimal cost upside.

      • @chitak166@lemmy.world
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        01 year ago

        Why should we care if corporations find the ‘answer to piracy’?

        What’s better for them is worse for us. Are you invested with them? If not, then you would be a textbook useful idiot to lower your standards so they can have even more.

  • The Barto
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    241 year ago

    Streaming services: if we take the shows they purchased away from them, then they HAVE to subscribe to our service! There’s nothing they can do if they want to watch their shows, piracy is soooo 2008.

      • @brygphilomena@lemmy.world
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        11 year ago

        The caveat is that it’s still mostly just for moderately tech savvy individuals. It’s easier for the people who have the knowledge to set it up, have access to decent trackers, a VPN, newsgroups, and hardware to run the suite on.

        Piracy isn’t hard, but there is a barrier of entry that most people won’t overcome.

  • @penquin@lemm.ee
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    231 year ago

    Im still trying to understand why this is legal. Is there more to the story that I’m missing?

    • @Gigan@lemmy.world
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      261 year ago

      Technically, when you buy a show or a movie you’re buying a license to watch it. That license can be revoked at any time. This is true for physical and digital copies, it’s just impossible for companies to revoke the license when you have a physical copy.

      • @penquin@lemm.ee
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        81 year ago

        Now how is THIS legal? Wtf? So, basically you buy a car, pay it all of and the dealership can just come to your house and take it? This is basically the same. I paid for something to own. It should be mine forever.

  • @Grass@sh.itjust.works
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    211 year ago

    Damn. Maybe we shouldn’t have downloaded cars. It’s only fair that the capitalist collective should be able to delete our vhs and DVDs etc in return right?

  • @flop_leash_973@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Keeping the money and yanking back the content it was used to purchase will surely entice those people to sign up for that Max/Discovery+ subscription.

    Only an out of touch corporate stooge would see a logical through line there.

    • @chitak166@lemmy.world
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      01 year ago

      surely entice those people to sign up for that Max/Discovery+ subscription.

      That’s the sad part. It will. These people already have more money than sense, or else they wouldn’t be subscribing to streaming services at all.

    • @samus12345@lemmy.world
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      41 year ago

      We download torrents, we use VPNs

      Drink up, me hearties, yo ho!

      Copyright law can kiss our rear ends

      Drink up, me hearties, yo ho!

  • @Touching_Grass@lemmy.world
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    111 year ago

    PlayStation is erasing 1,318 seasons of Discovery shows from customer libraries | The change comes as Warner Bros. tries to add subscribers to Max, Discovery+

    2 sentences, 5 names of different entities

    • @merc@sh.itjust.works
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      61 year ago

      Two companies though, one with multiple business units under various names. Warner Bros. Discovery owns Warner Bros., HBO Max and Discovery.

  • Optional
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    91 year ago

    So AOL bought Warner Brothers and initiated a paroxysm of “new media” hype way back in the 1900s. They had no fucking clue what to do so they sold it. AT&T bought it more recently and pretended like a technology company should own content until they too realized they had seriously fucked up.

    Now right-wing “libertarian” David Zaslav is in charge of “Warner Brothers Discovery” and he could not give a flying fucking shit about content unless it’s time to destroy wokeness at CNN again, which he’s all about.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/15/magazine/david-zaslav-warner-media-discovery.html

    I’m starting to think Warner Brothers is cursed. Like, Monkey’s Paw cursed.