Next month, Sony will stop allowing users who have paid for titles like Paddington and The Hunger Games to access hundreds of movies and TV episodes on its PlayStation Store service. Legal notices issued on the two regional websites state that the shutdown affects StudioCanal film users in Germany and Austria.
On August 31st, exactly one year after Sony stopped allowing customers to buy movies and TV shows through its online store, the shutdown will go into effect. When this statement was made, Sony assured its customers that they would still have access to previously acquired content.
PlayStation Store Pulling Access to Purchased Studiocanal Movies Next Month https://t.co/NIaZFJD4JK
— Variety (@Variety) July 7, 2022
While it’s become common knowledge that TV episodes and movies may eventually be removed from streaming services, making them inaccessible to subscribers, this is considerably less typical for services that allow you to purchase content digitally. In the past, same actions were taken by Apple and legal arguments have been made in the past against Apple’s usage of the word “purchase” for digital titles to which Apple reserves the right to remove access.
The shutdown is an important reminder that, even if you purchase a title digitally, your ownership often still rests on a retailer’s survival and the existence of the appropriate license agreements. Physical purchases are still your best option if you want to ensure ownership in perpetuity, however this is not always possible with title becoming less and less available for physical purchase.