As always, the paying user has the worst experience. “Purchase” a show, can only watch on a certain console of a certain brand, no transfers, no backups, then it suddenly disappears from the library and nothing can be done.
If media companies insist on draconian DRM, then they should pay for full refunds to their loyal customers when one day they decide to delist that specific show.
It’s all Discovery shows. They ended the agreement to have their shows on the playstation network. It’s more than likely due to the Warner Brothers merger and them deciding to take all their toys away to try to force users onto HBO Max, but I don’t know the details here. There was probably nothing Sony could do. But if you paid for them individually via Sony then Discovery should honor that as they got paid at the time of the sale.
Wrong, Sony could issue full refunds to customers or ask WB the royalties back. Sony should had a clause in their contract with discovery that allowed them to host the video files indefinitely, if it was voided all the royalties to be refunded as a penalty fee.
When Google closed their digital magazine store, they let users download the PDF or to get a full refund.
Google again, closed stadia and everyone got a full refund even if all the devs were paid
When a game is delisted on Steam, Valve continues to host the files for previous customers.
But here no, they already got the money, they know that console users are used to just STFU, they saw that they can save a lot of money by deleting hundreds of TB of video content, and seized the opportunity
At least have the decency to do a partial refund where only the royalties paid to Discovery are kept. Or if not a money refund a store credit as goodwill. Or a prorated refund/store credit according to how many times it was viewed. Never viewed = full refund, viewed once, keep the price of a rental, and so on. Or force WB to transfer the license in another digital locker.
But no, nothing.
Had I purchased that video content just to see it disappear from my archive, I wouldn’t ever trust them anymore for future purchases and exclusively resort to piracy. (Well I do it already but this is an example) It’s a lose-lose situation for Sony and for WB. The rightholders do extensive campaigns “please pay for movies and show, don’t steal them”, then if someone believes them and *purchases" the video content, he is the one that will actually get something stolen
That, or Sony didn’t want to pay the fee to extend the licensing agreement. Sony has a history of screwing over their customers and being a cheap skate. (Removing Linux from PS3, releasing controllers without force feedback because they didn’t want to pay the license fee, installing root kit malware on PCs of buyers of their CDs)