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submitted 10 months ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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.

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[-] RememberTheApollo@lemmy.world 195 points 10 months 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.

[-] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 97 points 10 months ago

Oh no, here I go pirating again!

[-] evatronic@lemm.ee 13 points 10 months ago

Krombopulos Michael, the early years.

[-] Lettuceeatlettuce@lemmy.ml 8 points 10 months ago

Games, movies, TV shows, doesn't matter. I just love pirating!

[-] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 10 months ago

I haven’t paid for a movie, show, or song since… like 2005.

Games get my money, but I usually wait a couple years to make sure they’re good lawl

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[-] pastaPersona@lemmy.world 23 points 10 months ago

Welp time to start mass-buying dvd box sets and ripping the files, screw not owning shit you paid for

[-] CmdrShepard@lemmy.one 33 points 10 months ago

Don't even waste your time and just go directly to the high seas. You'll get all the same quality content several orders of magnitude faster.

[-] RememberTheApollo@lemmy.world 19 points 10 months ago

Personally I don’t mind paying for content I legit get to keep, so long as the cost is reasonable. Yeah, overpriced old movies or stuff you can’t find, sure. Hoist the flag, my friend.

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[-] AMillionMonkeys@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months 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 15 points 10 months 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 6 points 10 months 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".

[-] RememberTheApollo@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months ago

Ok, a technicality that still leaves the access removed. Regardless of whether they paid for it or the access to it.

[-] merc@sh.itjust.works 12 points 10 months 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 10 points 10 months 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.

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[-] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 74 points 10 months ago

I'd be a lot less bothered if the UI for services like Sony didn't use words like "buy" to describe what customers are doing when they pay for content. It would be a lot more honest to describe it as a rental for an indefinite time period. But of course then very few people would choose that option.

[-] jacksilver@lemmy.world 35 points 10 months ago

I agree, it feels like this is a place where the law or regulation needs to come in and enforce something like - rent vs lease vs buy.

The average consumer thinks "buy" means forever, and that's just not the case in these scenarios. It really is more like leasing it.

[-] RagingRobot@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago

Also that option is always like 4 times more expensive for no real reason

[-] kandoh@reddthat.com 72 points 10 months ago

If we break into people's homes and destroy their property, maybe they'll have to give us money to replace what was lost?

Why has no one come up with this business strategy before.

[-] ililiililiililiilili@lemm.ee 8 points 10 months ago

Planned obsolescence is the preferred method (and doesn't require breaking and entering).

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[-] FrankTheHealer@lemmy.world 72 points 10 months 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 50 points 10 months 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.

[-] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 18 points 10 months ago

I'm just surprised there are over 1,000 seasons of shows on discovery Channel... once you get past the gold mining, crab fishing, Mythbusting and sending people out into the wilderness naked, what's left?

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[-] ryven@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 points 10 months ago

I think WB is counting on people blaming Sony even though it seems like WB is the one who decided not to play nice.

[-] ultra@feddit.ro 47 points 10 months ago

If buying isn't owning, then piracy isn't stealing.

[-] pozbo@lemmy.world 40 points 10 months ago
[-] Rockyrikoko@lemm.ee 43 points 10 months 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

[-] EvilEyedPanda@lemmy.world 30 points 10 months ago

If paying for something dosent mean I own it, then piracy isn't stealing!

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[-] ElBarto@sh.itjust.works 31 points 10 months 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.

[-] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 7 points 10 months ago

Yeah, it's not like the Servarr application suite has made piracy literally easier than using streaming services.

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[-] Grass@sh.itjust.works 31 points 10 months 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?

[-] penquin@lemm.ee 29 points 10 months ago

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

[-] flop_leash_973@lemmy.world 26 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months 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.

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[-] executive_chicken@lemmy.world 18 points 10 months ago

Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Pirate’s Life for Me 🏴‍☠️

[-] samus12345@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months 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!

[-] snekerpimp@lemmy.world 14 points 10 months ago

You will own nothing and you will love it.

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[-] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 13 points 10 months 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.

[-] autotldr@lemmings.world 13 points 10 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


If you purchased any Discovery shows from the PlayStation Store, Sony has some bad news for you to discover.

The company recently announced that all Discovery content purchased on the PlayStation Store will be erased before 2024.

But there were users who had already purchased stuff from the PlayStation Store and, believe it or not, expect to be able to watch it when they want, since they paid money to buy (rather than rent) it.

Shows getting axed from user libraries include Wives With Knives, An Idiot Abroad, Evil Twins, and Body Bizarre.

But there are also plenty of more well-known titles on the list of purchased content being revoked, including American Chopper, Cake Boss, MythBusters, Shark Week, and Say Yes to the Dress.

That means there's a good chance numerous users will be affected by Sony's announcement.


The original article contains 332 words, the summary contains 138 words. Saved 58%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[-] AgentGrimstone@lemmy.world 12 points 10 months ago

Never buying a TV show or movie I can't download ever again. Never have, but still, never again.

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[-] thejml@lemm.ee 11 points 10 months ago

This is why anytime I buy content like this, I mirror it locally. DVDs, CDs, videos, music, whatever. GoG and Steam both allow local offline copies. Storage is cheap and not only can I continue to play these items if the store goes away, but I can also access them where and when I want thanks to things like Plex and Jellyfin.

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[-] Shadywack@lemmy.world 9 points 10 months ago

Thermocline trust inversion, perfect example of why customer trust continues to erode and corporations continually lose credibility. Albeit Sony's not the only bad actor here, it's the overall agreements in place that were poor to begin with between businesses. The end result is a negative customer experience with all involved brands.

When the industry fails like this, we go back to incentivizing torrents.

[-] kworpy@lemm.ee 9 points 10 months ago

Just let companies keep doing shit like this. They're only leading people down the path that is piracy.

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this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2023
648 points (100.0% liked)

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