Aka, due to their mistake. When Sony originally signed an agreement, they should have insisted on a perpetual license for anything already in the customer's library.
I was initially inclined toward some minimal sympathy for Sony here, but I see no good faith reason why they'd sign a licensing agreement which allows the other party to do this.
A friend and I were talking about this. What would you pay for it?
When iTunes + came out, you had 2 options, you could buy a song for $0.99 or you could be the plus version for more, I don't remember but it was like $1.35 or something. Plus had a higher bit rate and it wasn't encrypted.
Suppose you could buy a movie for $12.00, how much would you pay for the forever version? $30?
I feel like you're kind of making this more complicated than it actually is, either because you're overcomplicating it or because you're trying to tee up some rhetorical point, but the answer to your question is really quite simple and objective: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=movie&rh=p_n_format_browse-bin%3A...
You don't need to ask a hypothetical, the market has an answer.
To the extent your reply is "but that's not exactly what my question is", my point is that the market is already pricing all sorts of situations and the market would have no problem pricing just one more possibility into the already complicated market. Including "piracy", and people like me who are treating the vast majority of DVDs and BluRays as just a delivery mechanism for streams rather than "discs".
Why should it be variable, if we talk about digital media? Storage and content streaming is cheaper than embracing a whole logistic (producing DVDs/BlueRays, packaging, shipping).
But here we are again: if you buy something digital, you just pay for a "usage license", you don't own anything at all. After all these years or decades, I am still surprised that people expect to own digital content, forever
A mistake suggests that it's accidental and they didn't mean it. To the extent a corporation can know things, they knew exactly how this was set up. This is fraud.
Why do people buy movies digitally anyway? I can understand digital movies (they are convenient) but renting or streaming seems far more reasonable. If you truly want to own a movie as I suspect people who buy them digitally do, the only way to ensure that is to buy it on DVD/Blu-ray and rip (or redeem the digital code version that often comes with modern releases, though those tend to have DRM). Even then, why do people buy from the playstation store? I could maybe understand that when the Vita was still around, but nowadays it seems like an odd choice
Yes, it doesn't sound like a wise decision given what we know about the usual practices of those services. But the average consumer is not as savvy as us HN users.
I would not blame someone for expecting to own permanent access to the content if they purchase it. This only happens because big Sony and such are not held accountable of their actions, they are the one to blame.
> Why do people buy movies digitally anyway? I can understand digital movies (they are convenient) but renting or streaming seems far more reasonable. If you truly want to own a movie as I suspect people who buy them digitally do, the only way to ensure that is to buy it on DVD/Blu-ray and rip
You're forgetting there's a slice of people who want to "own" a movie library but don't have the technical acumen to rip and/or (more importantly) host (consider that you'd have to stand up a Jellyfin server and have a good amount of HDD space -- I personally have 50TB).
Again, it's not _that_ hard in general but daunting enough and with high enough startup costs to dissuade a lot of people.
I don't consider anything digital as being bought unless I own it free and clear, unencumbered of any encryption. Not interested in anyone's "digital locker" or storage scheme. I have 20 years of music bought digitally through iTunes and Amazon. I can still play them to this day without needing to check-in with a licensing server. That is ownership. That is why I don't buy encrypted movies.
I think Heinlein said, "You do not truly own anything that you can't carry in both arms at a dead run."
I think something similar applies to digital media - you don't truly own anything that's not stored in bits on a hard drive that you can pick up and put in your pocket.
I have to wonder what small claims court judges would think of it. Get a few hundred cases filed across the US and the travel expense for Sony could be significant.
If it was a real sale, then they could not do this remote control/deletion at a distance.
Shit I buy at Walmart can't be physically taken away from me later on. Its legally mine.
This? Its fraudulently sold as a "sale" but is really an indefinite rental with the terms of "fuck you I'll do what I please when I please".
And on top of fraud, I'd also throw in the CFAA as well, a criminal statute. Its established law that if I set a timebomb in software at $company where if I'm fired/laid off, that's criminal access. No boilerplate from some shitty clickwrap can excuse criminal law.
> due to our content licensing agreements
Aka, due to their mistake. When Sony originally signed an agreement, they should have insisted on a perpetual license for anything already in the customer's library.
I was initially inclined toward some minimal sympathy for Sony here, but I see no good faith reason why they'd sign a licensing agreement which allows the other party to do this.
A friend and I were talking about this. What would you pay for it?
When iTunes + came out, you had 2 options, you could buy a song for $0.99 or you could be the plus version for more, I don't remember but it was like $1.35 or something. Plus had a higher bit rate and it wasn't encrypted.
Suppose you could buy a movie for $12.00, how much would you pay for the forever version? $30?
I feel like you're kind of making this more complicated than it actually is, either because you're overcomplicating it or because you're trying to tee up some rhetorical point, but the answer to your question is really quite simple and objective: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=movie&rh=p_n_format_browse-bin%3A...
You don't need to ask a hypothetical, the market has an answer.
To the extent your reply is "but that's not exactly what my question is", my point is that the market is already pricing all sorts of situations and the market would have no problem pricing just one more possibility into the already complicated market. Including "piracy", and people like me who are treating the vast majority of DVDs and BluRays as just a delivery mechanism for streams rather than "discs".
If I buy a DVD, it costs a fixed price.
Why should it be variable, if we talk about digital media? Storage and content streaming is cheaper than embracing a whole logistic (producing DVDs/BlueRays, packaging, shipping).
But here we are again: if you buy something digital, you just pay for a "usage license", you don't own anything at all. After all these years or decades, I am still surprised that people expect to own digital content, forever
Terminator 2 is currently $8 for a bluray on amazon. $10 for a DVD. This is reasonably a forever version.
Right now, I won't pay a fucking cent.
I'll pirate it off of Usenet or Torrents.
I get a strictly better experience if I pirate. Whereas I'm treated like a criminal and sold a much worse experience if I pay.
So, fuck paying. I'm not going to pay for abuse.
A mistake suggests that it's accidental and they didn't mean it. To the extent a corporation can know things, they knew exactly how this was set up. This is fraud.
Why do people buy movies digitally anyway? I can understand digital movies (they are convenient) but renting or streaming seems far more reasonable. If you truly want to own a movie as I suspect people who buy them digitally do, the only way to ensure that is to buy it on DVD/Blu-ray and rip (or redeem the digital code version that often comes with modern releases, though those tend to have DRM). Even then, why do people buy from the playstation store? I could maybe understand that when the Vita was still around, but nowadays it seems like an odd choice
Convenience is 99% of the answer.
Plus, when "renting" a movie costs $3.99, and "buying" it costs $5.99, there's not a particular reason to not click the "purchase" button.
I "bought" a few digital kids movies because kids want to watch them over and over and I didn't want to deal with handling physical media.
Yes, it doesn't sound like a wise decision given what we know about the usual practices of those services. But the average consumer is not as savvy as us HN users. I would not blame someone for expecting to own permanent access to the content if they purchase it. This only happens because big Sony and such are not held accountable of their actions, they are the one to blame.
I don't own any way to play physical disc media anymore, and for the handful of movies I watch multiple times (so far 2), it made sense to buy them.
I only buy through Amazon Videos, with the logic being Amazon is going to be around awhile.
> I only buy through Amazon Videos, with the logic being Amazon is going to be around awhile.
Sony will be around a while too, but as you've just seen here, it's not about how healthy the company hosting the video files is.
> Why do people buy movies digitally anyway? I can understand digital movies (they are convenient) but renting or streaming seems far more reasonable. If you truly want to own a movie as I suspect people who buy them digitally do, the only way to ensure that is to buy it on DVD/Blu-ray and rip
You're forgetting there's a slice of people who want to "own" a movie library but don't have the technical acumen to rip and/or (more importantly) host (consider that you'd have to stand up a Jellyfin server and have a good amount of HDD space -- I personally have 50TB).
Again, it's not _that_ hard in general but daunting enough and with high enough startup costs to dissuade a lot of people.
I don't consider anything digital as being bought unless I own it free and clear, unencumbered of any encryption. Not interested in anyone's "digital locker" or storage scheme. I have 20 years of music bought digitally through iTunes and Amazon. I can still play them to this day without needing to check-in with a licensing server. That is ownership. That is why I don't buy encrypted movies.
I think Heinlein said, "You do not truly own anything that you can't carry in both arms at a dead run."
I think something similar applies to digital media - you don't truly own anything that's not stored in bits on a hard drive that you can pick up and put in your pocket.
Discussion: "PlayStation Is Deleting 551 Movies from Customers' Accounts" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48691346 26-jun-2026 208 comments
I have to wonder what small claims court judges would think of it. Get a few hundred cases filed across the US and the travel expense for Sony could be significant.
And this smells of fraud.
If it was a real sale, then they could not do this remote control/deletion at a distance.
Shit I buy at Walmart can't be physically taken away from me later on. Its legally mine.
This? Its fraudulently sold as a "sale" but is really an indefinite rental with the terms of "fuck you I'll do what I please when I please".
And on top of fraud, I'd also throw in the CFAA as well, a criminal statute. Its established law that if I set a timebomb in software at $company where if I'm fired/laid off, that's criminal access. No boilerplate from some shitty clickwrap can excuse criminal law.
Time to start jailing Sony execs and the like.
"Purchased".
"I buying isn't owning, piracy isn't stealing."
silk road... torrent...
I get the latter, but were you also looking to buy some drugs?
You expect them to sit through "Big Ass Spider!" sober?