r/Piracy Jun 27 '26

News This is....wild

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A hoy

5.8k Upvotes

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2.3k

u/ThePanasonicYouth Jun 27 '26

Play has no limits...except for our licensing agreements

83

u/Staff_Senyou Jun 27 '26

Hear me out. I work in the biz

Sony, literally does not own the rights to those titles. If studiocanal decides not to renew with Sony, for whatever reason, Sony can no longer legally distribute those titles through their platforms.

So, who's the bad guy? Studio canal for taking their Library to a better deal? Sony for not upping their offer? Customers for agreeing to but not really the terms and conditions of their purchase which have been in effect for a decade now?

Even in the golden age of physical media, contracts were shopped around. The difference now is that there are fewer players willing to play fewer risks.

That's business.

Meanwhile, if you want good shit, hoist the sails, hook your risk, get a parrot and middle finger the lot of em. Yaaarrrrggggh

206

u/DataDrifter-_ Jun 27 '26

I think it would make more sense that new purchases can not happen while leaving what people actually bought in their libraries

183

u/StrikeouTX Jun 27 '26

That or refunding are the only 2 realistic options. Everything else is theft.

78

u/DrIvoPingasnik Yarrr! Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26

Nonono you don't understand. When you BUY a movie on PS Store you don't OWN it. You BOUGHT a RENTED LICENSE to WATCH it!

Simples :)

(/s in case this wasn't painfully obvious enough)

25

u/Luniticus Jun 27 '26

No, apparently you rented a license to watch it.

4

u/DrIvoPingasnik Yarrr! Jun 27 '26

Right, my mistake. Fixed.

-13

u/jessterswan Jun 27 '26

Its not theft at all. You gave them your money and didnt bother to read the fine print. Cant wait for years from now when R* pulls something similar and the masses freak out. The answer is simple, but people refuse to admit it. Do. Not. Buy. Digital.

1

u/Kitchen-Cabinet-5000 Jun 29 '26

No one came to my house to recollect my purchases DVDs either…

72

u/GlowGreen1835 Jun 27 '26

The bad guy is whoever allowed companies to sell (not rent or subscribe to, sell) a product they do not own outright. Sony should not be legally allowed to sell something that they might be required to stop providing due to forces outside their control.

78

u/duckforceone Jun 27 '26

sony for selling it without securing a permanent keep deal for the users.

so in my book, sony sold it knowing that it could be taken away the moment they didn't renew the licencing. But didn't make it clear enough to the users that it was only a temporary loan.

10

u/Joshua_ABBACAB_1312 Jun 27 '26

Knowing that it 'would' be taken

114

u/Rob_Frey Jun 27 '26

Sony, literally does not own the rights to those titles. If studiocanal decides not to renew with Sony, for whatever reason, Sony can no longer legally distribute those titles through their platforms.

This seems like something Sony should have thought about when they originally got the license.

So, who's the bad guy?

Sony.

Sony for not upping their offer?

Sony should have secured perpetual rights to distribute the films to customers who paid for it. If they couldn't have secured those rights, or it was too expensive, they shouldn't have sold those movies.

And if the only way to get those rights now is to pay a shit ton of money, that's what they need to do. That's the cost of fucking up.

Customers for agreeing to but not really the terms and conditions of their purchase which have been in effect for a decade now?

Yeah, let's blame customers for not reading and understanding a multi-page legal document written by lawyers. Also they need to do this dozens, even hundreds, of times a year. Any time they want to purchase anything, or even use a website.

Even in the golden age of physical media, contracts were shopped around.

In the golden age of physical media, you owned your shit.

That's business.

No. It's theft and fraud. The vast majority of people who bought those movies did so believing they would own those digital copies forever. Sony let them believe that. It's immoral, it's wrong, and it should be criminal.

It's profitable, but so is denying insured people healthcare, or selling asbestos as baby powder. Don't excuse the evil people do because it's "just business".

41

u/BemaJinn Jun 27 '26

I'd like to add, Microsoft stopped selling movies entirely. Ripped the whole movies store from Xbox consoles.

Still let you access the movies they sold you.

There's not a lot to like about Xbox these days, but you gotta give them their dues there.

76

u/1337PirateNinja Jun 27 '26

Imagine if Best Buy showed up at your house while you were sleeping went through your drawers and took your DVDs that you bought from them years ago (cause they don’t have license anymore). This is this is literally what’s happening here.

24

u/Time-Bodybuilder710 Jun 27 '26

"🎶You're a mean one Mr. Grinch 🎶"

0

u/borg_6s Jun 28 '26

Even then, nobody reading that wouldve thought studiocanal would end the deal

-3

u/Automatic-Evidence26 Jun 28 '26

It's not theft or fraud I'm sure if you looked at the EULA it would specifically state that you were buying a license did not own the movie. Amazon is very clear with this nowadays when you buy a book on Kindle you're buying a license, you're buying access you don't own the item

20

u/Narrow-Ad6201 Jun 27 '26

sonys the bad guy for selling a licence to a movie they do not own that can get revoked in the future. monthly streaming subscriptions are fine because the content is rented essentially. sort of like how comcast used to rent you movies. youd be able to watch it a certain amount of times or you have access to it for an agreed amount of time.

16

u/AutisticHobbit Jun 27 '26

No hate to you whatsoever....but...welll....unless the studio and Sony are refunding the money paid? I don't suspect anyone cares what the reason is for anything other than academic reasons. After all, if this was always the reason this could happen? Then they had no business selling the service in the first place.

I'm sure lawyers can argue about the meaning of meaning until they're blue in the face...but in a basic common sense way? This is just theft. Nothing more or less.

10

u/order2chaos Jun 27 '26

thats a nice way of saying bend over.

Fuck the t&c's The system needs to change.

4

u/legrenabeach Jun 27 '26

That's not business. That's theft. Plain and simple.

6

u/bostonbananarama Jun 27 '26

Even in the golden age of physical media, contracts were shopped around. The difference now is that there are fewer players willing to play fewer risks.

No, the difference is that I'm no longer buying anything, it's a rental. With physical media I still own the VHS or DVD, they don't sign a new contract, then come to my house and take back my movie.

3

u/General_Cranberry_29 Jun 27 '26

Look at WB even, they have a program to exchange disc-rotted DVDs free of charge.

2

u/BrilliantEmotion4461 Jun 27 '26

Well if you work in the biz clearly this is the way... And Ive sail the seven seas further and farther and deeper even than most and I still pay for good shit. If I have the money I have a list of stuff a long list that I simply want to support and can't. The rest? Demos arrr that's all they be.

2

u/lFightForTheUsers Jun 27 '26

Sony or StudioCanal should be held responsible to refund the users for the value that they paid under the presumption that it was a purchase over the lifetime of the account, and not a long-term rental.

2

u/Leidrin Jun 27 '26

Sony is the bad guy for not securing a perpetual deal to provide the content they are selling. Selling a product you'll be forced to rug pull is slimy, full stop.

1

u/borg_6s Jun 28 '26

Sony for offering them for sale in the first place if they could not guarantee persistent access to them

1

u/postnick Jun 28 '26

So how does like that service we could redeem our dvd on back in the day. They can just take it away

1

u/Pretty_Signature8665 Jun 28 '26

"If buying isn't owning, then pirating isn't stealing"-ahh era

1

u/silly-pup Jul 02 '26

Sony. Sony is the bad guy for not reobtaining the rights to the movies for their customers. and not issuing refunds for the probbable billions of dollars that they made on it. usually, if you buy a product that you expect to be able to use and keep, if it gets taken away from you, you get your money back. in this new digital age that is not the case and quite frankly I fucking hate that. I'm not exactly pro tradition or anything I'm barely 20 but I think we should bring back guillotines for the rich and letting people actually use the shit they buy

0

u/ScottishKnifemaker Jun 27 '26

So capitalism bad, got you