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Sony Deletes 551 Movies PlayStation Owners Paid For

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Re: Sony Deletes 551 Movies PlayStation Owners Paid For

#261

Post by NoPicklez »

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…

From my experience with SD cards in mobile phone when I worked in a Telco, most customers didn't actually know how to use them. Because in many cases plugging in the SD card didn't magically increase the base storage of the device, they actually needed to know how to store things on it.

But that's a separate issue altogether

Re: Sony Deletes 551 Movies PlayStation Owners Paid For

#262

Post by ytoawwhra92 »

Schiendelman wrote: post #256
ytoawwhra92 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't seem fair to the people who have already paid for a product that will stop working.

I'm not sure I get this. A game costs about the same as watching a few movies - the cost per hour of entertainment is vanishingly low. For these long running games, the cost per hour of entertainment is down to pennies for these users. The same users who are still playing years later are also the ones who have gotten the most value for that same number of dollars already.

Do you genuinely believe that property rights diminish as the utility derived from property increases?

Re: Sony Deletes 551 Movies PlayStation Owners Paid For

#263

Post by Schiendelman »

ytoawwhra92 wrote: post #262
Schiendelman wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I get this. A game costs about the same as watching a few movies - the cost per hour of entertainment is vanishingly low. For these long running games, the cost per hour of entertainment is down to pennies for these users. The same users who are still playing years later are also the ones who have gotten the most value for that same number of dollars already.

Do you genuinely believe that property rights diminish as the utility derived from property increases?

That's how copyright and patent law both work, yes. That's why we have expiry. And we all know the current expiry system is arbitrary (and capricious).

Re: Sony Deletes 551 Movies PlayStation Owners Paid For

#264

Post by hodgehog11 »

Schiendelman wrote: post #260
hodgehog11 wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small like 30 people? I don't think so. Genuinely small studios are able to preserve their games for the long-term, so there is no excuse. AAA gaming isn't something that needs to be protected. Anything of sufficient magnitude and budget should be made responsibly or not at all. If a game is unable to exist without screwing over the user in a very legal sense, it has no right to exist. The requests of SKG are not onl…

I got my start at a game studio in 2001, after they were bought by Microsoft (and their game went from Mac to Xbox, if you get my drift). They're "big" now, but they regularly lay off large portions of their staff, because game development is boom and bust. I don't think what you say in your first paragraph follows. Are you really, really interested in learning more about why, with an open mind?

Absolutely! Happy to learn from an industry veteran; hard to argue with that pedigree (part of why I like HN). I figured you might have been, but wanted to push back a little because I think it is important.

Here is my impression. 2001 feels like it was still within a golden era of game development; "AAA" games of that time would have been made by smaller studios still, and budgets could be very large, but not catastrophically so. The industry was still expanding. Post-GFC, once graphics scaled, demands seemed to scale, and costs blew out. Games had to reduce risk as a consequence, become more consolidated, more live-service. But the model was never sustainable at that scale. The tech improved so that costs for basic games went down, but big-budget AAA live service costs went to the moon. Volatility skyrocketed, leading to rapid hiring-firing phases. Now it is at its most extreme and the AAA side of the industry is in crisis. Demands for long-term support could be the straw that breaks the camel's back, but it always seems like that back was going to break eventually anyway. What I hope is happening is that talent is falling into the hands of smaller publishers, but that might not be true. What I do think is that the nature of development may need to change so that studios are able to facilitate these requirements while remaining profitable. Some have shown it can be done, anyway.

That's my impression from a semi-outsider perspective. Happy to be corrected though.

Re: Sony Deletes 551 Movies PlayStation Owners Paid For

#265

Post by mort96 »

ChoGGi wrote: post #218
mort96 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just wish it was possible to buy decent ųSD cards. Even really expensive ones sold in reputable stores die all the time. Sure they work just fine if your goal is to write photos into it, never delete anything and get a new one once it fills up, but anything more write heavy typically kills my SD cards within months. SSDs last decades.

The one in my dash cam has been going for a year or two now. I pull video off it fairly regularly. It's the branded rove 4k one.

Maybe that one is specifically made to work for that application. Are you confident that you could go out and buy a replacement SD card in a general electronics store and get something which would be as robust?

Re: Sony Deletes 551 Movies PlayStation Owners Paid For

#266

Post by ytoawwhra92 »

Schiendelman wrote: post #263
ytoawwhra92 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you genuinely believe that property rights diminish as the utility derived from property increases?

That's how copyright and patent law both work, yes. That's why we have expiry. And we all know the current expiry system is arbitrary (and capricious).

Copyright and patent law aren't relevant to this discussion. We're talking about goods that are purchased and then later rendered unusable by the seller.

Re: Sony Deletes 551 Movies PlayStation Owners Paid For

#267

Post by munksbeer »

throwaway85825 wrote: post #130
hodgehog11 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[flagged]

Misleading misinformation. The EU laws come from direction set by the Council (elected representatives from the national parliaments). Then their chosen civil service (the Commission) formulate and propose those laws based on the direction set by the Council. Then the EU elected MPs vote on the laws.

That is not less democratic than how many countries operate.

Re: Sony Deletes 551 Movies PlayStation Owners Paid For

#268

Post by melevittfl »

azalemeth wrote: post #18
piltdownman wrote: post #8

Sony literally distributed a rootkit in the guise of DRM for Audio CDs back when piracy meant CD-R distribution. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk... Anyone remotely surprised at their history of utter contempt for the end-user need only remind themselves of SVP Steve Heckler's remarks to conference attendee's in 2000 "The industry will take whatever steps it needs to protect itself and pro…

I haven't bought a single Sony product since then. I used to have a Sony walkman, clock radio, buy classical Sony CDs (or their sub brands), etc, nearly got an original PlayStation. I wrote a letter to them after the rootkit fiasco saying they've lost a consumer for life. Didn't get a real response. Wrote to them last anti DRM day. Didn't get a response. Really, this is the only power one has in capitalism -- don't b…

Same for me. I have boycotted Sony since the rootkit fiasco.

I’m also still angry that, even though intentionally hacking a computer system is a criminal offence, not a single Sony employee was prosecuted or even arrested. Sony committed a crime on a massive scale that any individual would have been convicted of and spent years in jail for. They did it knowingly and for financial gain. They should be behind bars.

Re: Sony Deletes 551 Movies PlayStation Owners Paid For

#269

Post by holgerschurig »

throwaway85825 wrote: post #130
hodgehog11 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[flagged]

You are both rigth and wrong.

First, the EU parliament isn't a "fake" parliament. You just claimed this, without any reasoning, so I'm free to just claim the opposite. The members of this parliament are freely elected and they can decide out on their own whim, without consulting the executive. So really they are one of the 3 legs, the legislative.

However, the "EU is a fake democracy" is maybe correct.

The thing is that one should never confuse the EU with some sovereign country, like the Unites States of America. Or with a federal state like the Federal Republic of Germany. The origins of the EU aren't based in some idea of nationality. They are based in trade: how to make trade easier, how to create a common market. It's much more similar to the "Hanse" than than to a modern national state.

And as such, comparing the EU with a national state is futile.

It's actually astounding that this trade club got so many democratic institutions, like the EU parliament or the EU court of justice. A lot of other trade agreements only have fully undemocratic arbitration tribunals.

Also, "the EU cares about" is silly. The EU is a body of many members. The member states think not in unions (just think of "Visegrad members"). This list here isn't even complete:

- Council of the European Union headed by Antonia Costa - EU Commission headed by Ursula von der Leyen - EU Parliament headed by Roberta Metsola - European Central Bank headed by Christine Lagarde - European Court of Auditors headed by Tony Murphy - Court of Justice headed by ... no idea

So one part can "care" about a thing, while another part does not. One must have lived under a rock to not know how e.g. the Commission often wanted some Orwell-1984 laws, again and again, and the EU parliament or the EU court of justice dismissed them. So no, the EU isn't a uniform body. And any claim in that direction is therefore inherently false.

Re: Sony Deletes 551 Movies PlayStation Owners Paid For

#270

Post by melevittfl »

Grombobulous wrote: post #176

We’re all familiar with all the ways this sucks, of course, so I’ll discuss something else: The fact that someone like Sony can’t negotiate a contract that provides perpetual re-download rights to customers is embarrassing. I doubt that would have cost any money. No movie studio would have objected to the idea that the original buyer gets to keep the non-transferable media forever. I guess they just didn’t think of i…

Of course they could have negotiated that. They didn’t just forget. They choose to not pay whatever additional cost Studio Canal would have wanted for a perpetual license.

Knowing that, they turned around and deceived people into buying something by false representation. Sony are crooks and have been crooks for a long time.

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