Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sony Deletes 551 Movies PlayStation Owners Paid For

reclaimthenet.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 313 posts

Re: Sony Deletes 551 Movies PlayStation Owners Paid For

#151

Post by gosub100 »

not_a_bot_4sho wrote: post #102
someonebaggy wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Pirate Bay is considered one of the worst pirate sites now. Of course, if you can find what you want, then you can, but any piracy community will recommend against it due to nonexistent moderation (eg. against viruses), poor navigation, and lack of uploads due to them not issuing new uploader accounts for several years now.

> The Pirate Bay is considered one of the worst pirate sites now I'm curious. What are the best sites nowadays? Still torrents, right? I used to be in the know but switched to legit things a while back so I wouldn't have to explain how dad is getting Bluey episodes.

Yts for movies

Re: Sony Deletes 551 Movies PlayStation Owners Paid For

#152

Post by acdha »

nullsmack wrote: post #45

We need some kind of modern equivalent to the old proposed Digital Media Consumer's Rights Act but which protects people's rights to digital media they buy. These should never be sold and then taken away with no compensation like this. We need a law that forces companies to treat digital files the same as a physical purchase. They can't take it away and have to allow people to resell and loan out as well. And in case…

I’d go with a simple proposal: if you use the word “buy” the seller is required to refund buyers if the seller’s action removes access (unlike, say, losing access to a CD or DVD after the disc is scratched).

The most likely outcome is that they’d change their storefronts to use the word “rent” but that’s a good outcome (it encourages buyers to accurately understand what they’re paying for) and it would allow other options like releasing an old game without DRM prior to killing servers.

Re: Sony Deletes 551 Movies PlayStation Owners Paid For

#153

Post by zekyl314 »

I try and get around this by purchasing a DVD / Blu-Ray and ripping it down to my media server, but not always successful ripping them. It would be nice if you bought a digital movie, you could click download instead. Then you wouldn't lose it when their licensing agreements change / end.

Re: Sony Deletes 551 Movies PlayStation Owners Paid For

#154

Post by acdha »

Buttons840 wrote: post #143
Danii27 wrote: post #84

The honest product description would be: "You are purchasing a revocable license to stream this content at our discretion, for an unspecified period, subject to change without notice." Nobody would buy that. So they say "buy" instead, and courts have largely let them get away with it. Until legislation actually forces the word "buy" to mean ownership, this will keep happening.

I disagree. People would still buy that. There's a dangerous path where the companies are required to describe these transactions as "rentals", but that wont actually solve anything. If we require clearer advertising, we're going to end up with a world where everything is very clearly a rental, and there simply is no option to purchase. People will still buy the $40 "rentals" because it's their favorite movie and the…

I think it’d be helpful as a price anchoring tool: people think rentals are worth less and accept greater restrictions because they’re paying less. I don’t think you’d see nearly as many people paying $40 for a time-limited rental and that downward pressure would be healthy.

Re: Sony Deletes 551 Movies PlayStation Owners Paid For

#155

Post by acdha »

RajT88 wrote: post #123

I am fine with "renting" a streaming movie, as an analogue to analog - going to Blockbuster and renting a movie. But I not for a single second trusted "buying" digital goods, and I was quickly proved right. The first digital purchases getting yanked story must have been close to 20 years ago at this point. I still buy CD's and books and game discs when the digital DRM-free equivalent cannot be had.

> But I not for a single second trusted "buying" digital goods, and I was quickly proved right. The first digital purchases getting yanked story must have been close to 20 years ago at this point.

More like 30 years but your terminology is slightly off: I have music I bought in the 90s which still works fine because they sold it as MP3s without DRM and I was able to make my own backups. There’s nothing wrong with digital goods as a concept but we should be consistent in how we talk about it: if it involves an outside service, it’s a rental no matter how the seller describes it. If you can make your own copy and survive a corporate bankruptcy or merger, then it’s a real purchase.

Re: Sony Deletes 551 Movies PlayStation Owners Paid For

#156

Post by mfkp »

NoSalt wrote: post #15

Ever since Apple, Microsoft, Google, etc. started offering "free" online storage for photos, ever since streaming started to be popular, I have ALWAYS extolled the virtues of µSD card slots in phones and owning your own media (i.e., purchasing CDs and DVDs). Many people would give me a hard time about this, calling me a Luddite, but I will never lose access to my photos, music, or movies ... unless it is the end of t…

Highly recommend setting up your own photo hosting and backup. People love Immich, but ente.io is also great! Much better than trusting your photos to a single microSD card which may die at any moment.

Re: Sony Deletes 551 Movies PlayStation Owners Paid For

#157

Post by kibwen »

mmh0000 wrote: post #21
eska wrote: post #6

It should be illegal to have others purchase what you as a company only licensed and therefore aren’t legally allowed to sell.

What's funny is that Sony has done this before![0] I've had a personal boycott against Sony products due to this. "The feature was controversially removed by Sony since system firmware update 3.21, released on April 1, 2010.[2] A class action lawsuit was filed against Sony on behalf of users, but was dismissed with prejudice in 2011 by a federal judge. The judge stated: "As a legal matter, ... plaintiffs have failed…

Likewise, I've avoided all Sony products since the rootkit scandal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...

Re: Sony Deletes 551 Movies PlayStation Owners Paid For

#158

Post by pipes »

hodgehog11 wrote: post #110
nullsmack wrote: post #45

We need some kind of modern equivalent to the old proposed Digital Media Consumer's Rights Act but which protects people's rights to digital media they buy. These should never be sold and then taken away with no compensation like this. We need a law that forces companies to treat digital files the same as a physical purchase. They can't take it away and have to allow people to resell and loan out as well. And in case…

Not sure if you know this, but this is literally the Stop Killing Games movement. Despite the recent apparent setback as reported in the news, the organisers are in talks with EU MPs that are writing sweeping legislation to address this sort of thing across all digital mediums. You only need legislation like this to hold in one major market to make a big difference.

I think this is going to have unintended consequences if it goes through: funding game development is a very very high risk investment. Adding this type of regulation adds further cost and complication, which makes it an even less attractive investment. Which will result in less monetary and creative risk taken.

Even just open sourcing part of project is expensive. Legal and technical.

Re: Sony Deletes 551 Movies PlayStation Owners Paid For

#159

Post by kibwen »

Shalomboy wrote: post #114
Fire-Dragon-DoL wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kinda. On Steam I can still play games I bought 18 years ago. Still walled garden, but they act way better.

Valve is in a funny position now. They lived long enough to see every one of Sony and XBOX's moats dry up by being pro-consumer where possible, but with Steam as the leader of a fungible game distribution market it may no longer make good business sense to continue to act so benevolently. We've reached a sort of gaming singularity where nearly every video game can be run on any hardware you choose or be streamed over…

One point in Steam's favor (not to suggest that Valve is above reproach) is that it doesn't impose any DRM. If games have DRM, that's the publisher's decision.

Re: Sony Deletes 551 Movies PlayStation Owners Paid For

#160

Post by TheGRS »

acdha wrote: post #152
nullsmack wrote: post #45

We need some kind of modern equivalent to the old proposed Digital Media Consumer's Rights Act but which protects people's rights to digital media they buy. These should never be sold and then taken away with no compensation like this. We need a law that forces companies to treat digital files the same as a physical purchase. They can't take it away and have to allow people to resell and loan out as well. And in case…

I’d go with a simple proposal: if you use the word “buy” the seller is required to refund buyers if the seller’s action removes access (unlike, say, losing access to a CD or DVD after the disc is scratched). The most likely outcome is that they’d change their storefronts to use the word “rent” but that’s a good outcome (it encourages buyers to accurately understand what they’re paying for) and it would allow other op…

I agree, the "buy" on a streamable product implies that as long as the company is solvent and they have the same overall streamable products available, then your "purchase" should always be upheld.

In a an ideal world, if you bought the title then you'd have the ability to download it locally. I understand the licensing is a main driver of taking titles down, but these agreements are completely opaque to the customer at the time of purchase.

Post reply on HN