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?
Depends on what those $12 "buy" me. In Sony's case, "buying" meant "renting until Sony's license expires", which they could have displayed on the product page.
I very rarely re-watch movies within a few months. So if I buy one, I want to know that I can watch it again in one, 10 or 30 years (if the format can still be played). Which is not guaranteed even with blu-rays mostly thanks to DRM. But what I'd be buying is not having to think about any deadlines.
If I'm okay with a deadline, I might as well rent the movie for a weekend, in which case I expect it to be less than $12.
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
With digital you're hoping the 'store' keeps it in storage for you in perpetuity so you can redownload/stream it. If you buy a DVD and lose it you can't go back for another free copy. There's definitely an issue that the original license should allow you to always download and backup your copy DRM free so you will always have access but most people aren't going to do that. I bought lots of music/video content from iTunes over the years and rarely back it up. The fact I can just stream it/redownload it from them is very useful but it's also unreasonable for me to expect that Apple should be hosting my 99¢ purchase for the rest of time.
Ok, how long do you have to rip & copy the content as you desire? It is still reasonably a forever version. Before you bring up laws around keys, first consider that jaywalking in front of your house is illegal too. Again, it is reasonably a forever version.
Crossing the street in a residential neighborhood is legal in almost all of the world and increasingly legal in the US as well. Many major cities started with non-enforcement and some are rolling back jaywalking laws entirely.
Why should I pay to be treated as a criminal, when pirating is better in every way and costs nothing?
There is no option of "Pay for digital copy of show that permits format/time shifting and backup for as long as I want, with no DRM". Like GOG. Doesn't exist in the pay realm.
It seems like you're just adding more and more qualifiers until you can finally justify piracy to yourself. You can reasonably do what you want if you buy the disc. There's a good chance that's how the people you're downloading from did it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I have a cool 16 DVD/Bluray ripping rig. Even have scripts that convert ripped images into MKV's with all audio and subtitles, art, etc. Uploads into my Jellyfin.
And yes, I do buy VHS, DVDs, and Blurays. I have probably 3000 movies in physical format, and 10000 audio CDs. I also rip old VHS, which you usually cant find any torrents of. Again, I specialize in rare stuff you cant buy retail or find.
There's also illegal shows, like the old WKRP in Cincinnati. They licensed for TV only multiple songs. Pink Floyd and other artists refuse to license now. Nobody can legally sell them, even if you have the money. Piracy is the only way for the complete show.
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.
between this and their mucking around with game studios (no new PC versions of marquee titles like ghost of yotei etc, unceremoniously shutting down bungie and laying off artists/game devs prior to vestment etc), Playstation management is a disaster at the moment
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.
Buying a physical DVD means you own the item and have it in your hands.
"Buying" a streaming movie means that you enter into an agreement with an online service that promises to make your experience the rough equivalent of physical ownership. But to do that they have to solve a pile of problems, and solve those forever for as long as your purchase is valid.
Realistically, Sony will have service outages, they will have contract disputes, they may have data loss, security incidents, etc., all of which can make your "bought" content unavailable either temporarily or permanently. The real question is what type of agreement Sony had with StudioCanal.
None of this would ever affect your DVD. So the word "buying" wrt a streaming movie is easy to understand, but a bit misleading in practice. It's clear what Sony is signing up to provide; it's just hard to see how they can provide that consistently over the time period involved.
Consumers went wild over digital media distribution, because of its quality, its lossless copying, and the ease of reproduction and transmission. When CDs and DVDs appeared on the scene, I never dreamed that they would only be a temporary stepping-stone to intangible cloud downloads. But Napster happened.
The RIAA, MPAA, and entire industries were vehemently opposed to digital media (and recording in general) and fought digital distribution every step of the way, tooth and nail, until all the DRM and gatekeeping was in place.
Perhaps we were both on the wrong side of history?
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
For me it's usually just a cost thing. Some movies I just know I'm going to watch multiple times, certain ones even annually. Clicking buy generally already makes sense if you're going to watch it twice. Wouldn't buy it from the PS store though, it seems like such a niche outside their core business that I'd be worried they would pull exactly what they pulled here.
Kids and convenience. 99% of the movies I’ve bought from iTunes are kids movies. Some of them were watched over and over and over.
DVDs and Blu-rays I purchased from the same era required a) advance planning and b) care. To the second point, most of the physical media is now destroyed (scratched, stepped on, lost, or just degraded), but I still have access to the copy of Cars I bought almost 20 years ago from Apple.
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.
If you're going to watch it multiple times it's cheaper to buy than rent (especially if you see it on offer). With streaming you're relying that at least one of the providers has what you want and then you have to pay for a month to watch it if you're not already subscribed. I've also found streaming services are way more likely to censor older content.
> 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.
And time. I have archived some of my collection, but it does take a lot of time to rip the disks, test that they worked correctly. Then years later find out you did something wrong and there is no sound anymore, or you just got stereo and the surround mix is broken.
Streaming is so easy, don't need to find a disk. Load it, watch all the ads and warnings.
I have the technical acumen and money, but zero desire or time to spend ripping discs. It's far too easy to raid the "five dollar bin" at MoviesAnywhere (like I used to do at Wal-Mart and Best Buy).
Licensing issues like Sony's aside, the studios did MoviesAnywhere right. I can buy the disc (often used) and redeem the code, or buy digitally, and download/stream everywhere that matters to me and my family.
Its because of things like this that I self host all my media.
As an example why buy games from Steam when I can get them on gog.com DRM free and make them portable (without a setup or installation step on future machines)? So, I run my own Steam Store/Library like experience on a home server using Game Vault.
I use JellyFin for video. It works for music files, but I don't really like it for audio. So, I wrote my own music app that works in the browser/phone securely across the internet from my own server.
This is so much better than paying for subscriptions..
It's really nice - and it's not really the cost ... it's the avoidance of the rugpull.
I've spent WAY MORE on my hardware and setup in time, money, and DVDs than I ever would have for streaming services, but I know if it goes down, it's on me.
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.
I hate this phrase, it is not a good analog for the situation and it slanders piracy. I understand the idea behind it and I hate the streaming/renting/digital purchase model as much as the next guy.
If you don't want to pay for streaming own up to it, buy it on physical or steal it (make an illegitimate copy). But don't pretend you would pay for it if it was delivered in a different agreement.
Do you expect to keep driving a rented car forever? Even if the car is only available through rent?
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.
Selling something to customers without having the rights to it yourself is very clearly illegal. I wish some government agency had the guts to prosecute this.
Presumably at the time of sale they had rights to it. They lost it later, but should have at least had secured rights to people who bought the damn thing.
You don't always know that, you can have an open ended license with an option to get it revoked in the future with some notice period. I'd be pretty sure that PlayStation also had that in their terms and covered themselves legally for that option.
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.
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 very rarely re-watch movies within a few months. So if I buy one, I want to know that I can watch it again in one, 10 or 30 years (if the format can still be played). Which is not guaranteed even with blu-rays mostly thanks to DRM. But what I'd be buying is not having to think about any deadlines.
If I'm okay with a deadline, I might as well rent the movie for a weekend, in which case I expect it to be less than $12.
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
Not necessarily. What if the store didn't have to do that?
BluRay no, because your player's keys can be revoked when you pop in a new disc.
Which is the same constraint as pretty much any other physical item one might purchase. "reasonably a forever" is a reasonable description.
Wait what? How? How is that possibly legal?
In any other case: use MakeMKV
In most parts of the world it’s not illegal. That’s a seriously draconian law.
Why should I pay to be treated as a criminal, when pirating is better in every way and costs nothing?
There is no option of "Pay for digital copy of show that permits format/time shifting and backup for as long as I want, with no DRM". Like GOG. Doesn't exist in the pay realm.
I have a cool 16 DVD/Bluray ripping rig. Even have scripts that convert ripped images into MKV's with all audio and subtitles, art, etc. Uploads into my Jellyfin.
And yes, I do buy VHS, DVDs, and Blurays. I have probably 3000 movies in physical format, and 10000 audio CDs. I also rip old VHS, which you usually cant find any torrents of. Again, I specialize in rare stuff you cant buy retail or find.
There's also illegal shows, like the old WKRP in Cincinnati. They licensed for TV only multiple songs. Pink Floyd and other artists refuse to license now. Nobody can legally sell them, even if you have the money. Piracy is the only way for the complete show.
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.
Thank you, PlayStation Store"
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.
"Buying" a streaming movie means that you enter into an agreement with an online service that promises to make your experience the rough equivalent of physical ownership. But to do that they have to solve a pile of problems, and solve those forever for as long as your purchase is valid.
Realistically, Sony will have service outages, they will have contract disputes, they may have data loss, security incidents, etc., all of which can make your "bought" content unavailable either temporarily or permanently. The real question is what type of agreement Sony had with StudioCanal.
None of this would ever affect your DVD. So the word "buying" wrt a streaming movie is easy to understand, but a bit misleading in practice. It's clear what Sony is signing up to provide; it's just hard to see how they can provide that consistently over the time period involved.
The RIAA, MPAA, and entire industries were vehemently opposed to digital media (and recording in general) and fought digital distribution every step of the way, tooth and nail, until all the DRM and gatekeeping was in place.
Perhaps we were both on the wrong side of history?
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.
DVDs and Blu-rays I purchased from the same era required a) advance planning and b) care. To the second point, most of the physical media is now destroyed (scratched, stepped on, lost, or just degraded), but I still have access to the copy of Cars I bought almost 20 years ago from Apple.
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.
You answered your own question very efficiently.
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.
Streaming is so easy, don't need to find a disk. Load it, watch all the ads and warnings.
Licensing issues like Sony's aside, the studios did MoviesAnywhere right. I can buy the disc (often used) and redeem the code, or buy digitally, and download/stream everywhere that matters to me and my family.
As an example why buy games from Steam when I can get them on gog.com DRM free and make them portable (without a setup or installation step on future machines)? So, I run my own Steam Store/Library like experience on a home server using Game Vault.
I use JellyFin for video. It works for music files, but I don't really like it for audio. So, I wrote my own music app that works in the browser/phone securely across the internet from my own server.
This is so much better than paying for subscriptions..
I've spent WAY MORE on my hardware and setup in time, money, and DVDs than I ever would have for streaming services, but I know if it goes down, it's on me.
If hardware ever cheaper I will also run an instance of Project Nomad:
https://www.projectnomad.us/
If you don't want to pay for streaming own up to it, buy it on physical or steal it (make an illegitimate copy). But don't pretend you would pay for it if it was delivered in a different agreement.
Do you expect to keep driving a rented car forever? Even if the car is only available through rent?
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.
Don't defend theft/fraud based for billion dollar corporations. It's not a good look.