PlayStation is erasing 1,318 seasons of Discovery shows from customer libraries | The change comes as Warner Bros. tries to add subscribers to Max, Discovery+ apps.::The change comes as Warner Bros. tries to add subscribers to Max, Discovery+ apps.

  • RememberTheApollo@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    189
    ·
    10 months ago

    So they’re taking shows away from people who have already purchased them and moving the shows to other services in order to try to make potential customers subscribe to more services?

    Fuck those guys, especially for ripping off people who already paid for the content.

    Here we go again. Instead of being forced to subscribe to shitty bundles of cable channels in order to get the channel you do want, we’re being forced to subscribe to multiple shitty services to get the shows we want.

    This industry is a one-trick pony. Literally giving the worst service they can to force people to subscribe to more services.

        • NOT_RICK@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          10 months ago

          No need, search for movie web and use it on a vpn for all the media you want for free

      • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        10 months ago

        I haven’t paid for a movie, show, or song since… like 2005.

        Games get my money, but I usually wait a couple years to make sure they’re good lawl

    • pastaPersona@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      19
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      Welp time to start mass-buying dvd box sets and ripping the files, screw not owning shit you paid for

      • CmdrShepard@lemmy.one
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        29
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        10 months ago

        Don’t even waste your time and just go directly to the high seas. You’ll get all the same quality content several orders of magnitude faster.

        • RememberTheApollo@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          13
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          10 months ago

          Personally I don’t mind paying for content I legit get to keep, so long as the cost is reasonable. Yeah, overpriced old movies or stuff you can’t find, sure. Hoist the flag, my friend.

        • Transporter Room 3@startrek.website
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          10 months ago

          I have every season of Stargate SG-1 on DVD, and unfortunately one disc already has an unplayable scene due to scratches, but for the most part it’s in-tact.

          No streaming service has the HD wide-screen versions available for streaming, and their subtitles are very… Summarizing. In sections.

          I have a laptop with a USB connected dvd player, and I’ve been slowly converting the discs to my digital library, but holy shit is this a slow process.

          I literally could have been done with every season and special feature of all three shows and the movies in the time it took me to rip the first season alone.

          Buuuuut I don’t currently have a Very Pontoony Nautical vessel soooooo… I can’t go sailing right now.

          • CmdrShepard@lemmy.one
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            2
            ·
            10 months ago

            Are you ripping and encoding them with Handbrake? You can at least speed it up a bit by just ripping them with MakeMKV and then leaving them in the full quality format to skip the long encode. This will take up more HDD space but save a ton of time comparably.

    • meat_popsicle@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      10 months ago

      Agreed. Streaming services always seemed like gilded cages to me. You can only see what they allow you to see - piracy or old-school Netflix DVD delivery gives you all the options. The promise of being able to stream any content at any time, with the producers and people involved being able to get compensated fairly and justly, just isn’t reality with these ghouls running the show.

      The model (in the current form, of artificially restricted licensing) seems like less a way to curate a media catalog, but more like a way to curate the subscribers and culture.

    • brygphilomena@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      Kind of.

      You don’t have yearly contracts and it’s a lot easier to start and stop a particular service at any time.

      It’s weird to see this take when I remember streaming started out that this was what was heralded. You could pick and choose what streaming services you wanted and you could change them easily. You didn’t have to buy the sport package or pay the built in royalties of sports teams if you didn’t watch sports.

      • RememberTheApollo@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        10 months ago

        For now. However, I’m going to pick at something you mentioned about switching when you want - sure, but most services offer a discount for a year’s subscription. I don’t think it’s an insignificant amount of people that might buy in on that. Switching becomes irrelevant when the service already has your money.

        Also, services are separating popular shows, unbundling for lack of a better word, to other platforms to force people to subscribe to more services. Effectively that’s making you pay for shows you don’t want (like your sports reference) to get the shows you do.

    • AMillionMonkeys@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      arrow-down
      15
      ·
      10 months ago

      ripping off people who already paid for the content.

      They didn’t pay for the shows. They paid for access to the shows. That’s all anyone gets these days.

  • TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    81
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    10 months ago

    Fuck Warner Bros and Sony PlayStation for this.

    But it’s not just them, it’s an entire industry. If you pay for media and you don’t get it physically in full, or the ability to download it in a DRM-free portable format, remember that you don’t own it. Only do it in the knowledge that some day you will not have it anymore.

    There are other options available for you. BluRays, piracy.

    • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      People need to start paying creators to make stuff for the public domain and refuse to pay to access anything that everyone doesn’t have access to.

      I’ve given Wikipedia money, I’ll never pay for Netflix.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        10 months ago

        Considering how much it costs to make the average movie or TV show, a Patreon isn’t going to cut it. If you want a guy talking in front of a microphone with a producer and a writing team of two, sure, you can pay the creators for that. It’s not something most people will want to watch in replacement of the entertainment they’re used to.

        • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          10 months ago

          The maths are pretty clear though, we know consumers have the money needed to pay for blockbusters and that they don’t mind giving it over to view entertainment because that’s where the companies get the money from - in fact we know that there is excess because a large portion goes to shareholders as profit.

          Collectively we could combine community creation, open source tooling and creator funding to make things on a far larger scale than any marvel movie, I don’t really think we should tbh but funding reasonable ventures, tools and resources is something we absolutely can and should be doing.

    • 𝔼𝕩𝕦𝕤𝕚𝕒@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      People were so happy MultiVersus happened, failing to realize the sheer acquisitions and monopolistic behaviour it takes to own so many IPs. How, when weaponised, it commands so many big names.

      And now it’s not working for people, because they’re pulling the shows from PS.

  • FrankTheHealer@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    71
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    10 months ago

    Fuck this shit.

    If buying isn’t owning. Piracy isn’t stealing.

    This is so anti consumer, I’m surprised the EU hasn’t stepped in to stop it yet

  • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    69
    ·
    10 months ago

    I’d be a lot less bothered if the UI for services like Sony didn’t use words like “buy” to describe what customers are doing when they pay for content. It would be a lot more honest to describe it as a rental for an indefinite time period. But of course then very few people would choose that option.

    • jacksilver@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      31
      ·
      10 months ago

      I agree, it feels like this is a place where the law or regulation needs to come in and enforce something like - rent vs lease vs buy.

      The average consumer thinks “buy” means forever, and that’s just not the case in these scenarios. It really is more like leasing it.

  • kandoh@reddthat.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    66
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    10 months ago

    If we break into people’s homes and destroy their property, maybe they’ll have to give us money to replace what was lost?

    Why has no one come up with this business strategy before.

  • DontMakeItTim@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    49
    ·
    10 months ago

    Maybe I am underestimating the amount of people buying seasons of TV shows on PlayStation, but this seems like a lot of PR pain for very little potential upside.

    • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      17
      ·
      10 months ago

      I’m just surprised there are over 1,000 seasons of shows on discovery Channel… once you get past the gold mining, crab fishing, Mythbusting and sending people out into the wilderness naked, what’s left?

    • ryven@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      10 months ago

      I think WB is counting on people blaming Sony even though it seems like WB is the one who decided not to play nice.

    • vitamin@infosec.pub
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      10 months ago

      It says 1,318 seasons, so that’s like 100 people buying thirteen seasons of Shark Pilots or Junkstore Wars or whatever. So, you’re definitely right it’s bad PR over almost nothing, but I think Discovery should be taking the heat, not Sony. They made the call to cancel those licenses.

      • BreadstickNinja@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        10 months ago

        Um, what? You think removing 1,318 seasons of shows only affects 100 users? They’ve been selling these since the PS3 era and it’s hundreds of millions of devices.

        …did you possibly think it meant 1,318 total purchases? 😂

        • vitamin@infosec.pub
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          4
          ·
          10 months ago

          It says it right there in the title. They sold seasons, that is how many they sold. Do you think Discovery has 1,318 total shows?

          • BreadstickNinja@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            edit-2
            10 months ago

            1,318 seasons means 1,318 seasons, not 1,318 total sales. Click on the notice in the article for a list of all the seasons of different shows if you still don’t understand.

            Each season could have been bought by 100 people, or by 1,000 people. Seasons of popular shows like Mythbusters might have been bought by millions of people. We have no idea how many customers are affected since it doesn’t list that information.

            Bro your reading comprehension is something else.

    • Rockyrikoko@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      44
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      If this isn’t theft, then the inverse isn’t either. Raise your flags, it’s time once again to sail the high seas

        • chitak166@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          10 months ago

          It never was.

          You’re copying, not stealing. When you steal something, it is gone from the person you took it from. When you copy something, both of you have it.

          “Piracy” being stealing is exactly the same as “stealing” someone’s ideas. It’s a lame excuse so people richer than us can be even richer.

  • penquin@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    31
    ·
    10 months ago

    Im still trying to understand why this is legal. Is there more to the story that I’m missing?

    • Gigan@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      29
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      Technically, when you buy a show or a movie you’re buying a license to watch it. That license can be revoked at any time. This is true for physical and digital copies, it’s just impossible for companies to revoke the license when you have a physical copy.

      • Justin@lemmy.jlh.name
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        19
        ·
        10 months ago

        Not the same in the EU as far as I know. Digital goods have to uphold a certain standard.

        • TheRealKuni@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          33
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          10 months ago

          Unfortunately we don’t all live in civilized places like the EU. Some of us live in “shithole countries,” like the United States.

        • CmdrShepard@lemmy.one
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          7
          ·
          10 months ago

          This might only affect US customers as these studios typically create separate licensing deals in each country. An example is when the new Star Trek shows began airing, everywhere in the world got to watch it on Netflix while US customers had to subscribe to CBS All Access (now Paramount+).

      • penquin@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        ·
        10 months ago

        Now how is THIS legal? Wtf? So, basically you buy a car, pay it all of and the dealership can just come to your house and take it? This is basically the same. I paid for something to own. It should be mine forever.

  • The Barto@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    29
    ·
    10 months ago

    Streaming services: if we take the shows they purchased away from them, then they HAVE to subscribe to our service! There’s nothing they can do if they want to watch their shows, piracy is soooo 2008.

    • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      10 months ago

      Yeah, it’s not like the Servarr application suite has made piracy literally easier than using streaming services.

      • brygphilomena@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        10 months ago

        The caveat is that it’s still mostly just for moderately tech savvy individuals. It’s easier for the people who have the knowledge to set it up, have access to decent trackers, a VPN, newsgroups, and hardware to run the suite on.

        Piracy isn’t hard, but there is a barrier of entry that most people won’t overcome.

  • AWittyUsername@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    28
    ·
    10 months ago

    This is Warner Bros being the bad guys, but also Sony for not refunding people. Either way it doesn’t matter consumers lose out, all the more reason to pirate.

    • mightyfoolish@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      edit-2
      10 months ago

      I see where you are coming from. The original version of streaming Netflix was the answer to piracy. Good price and had all the content one wanted. Was also easy to use. The streaming wars proved competition isn’t always the answer (I think this is the first time I’ve ever said that). Without that version of Netflix, the answer to piracy is gone…

      • StenSaksTapir@feddit.dk
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        10 months ago

        Netflix was in competition with piracy. They competed mostly on two parameters: price and convenience, but catalog is also a secondary or tertiary parameter.

        Piracy is kinda free unless you pay for newsgroups, seedbox or straight up membership. It’s also inconvenient for most people. The catalog is basically unlimited if you know where to look.

        Paid streaming or digital purchases wins on convenience, but at a greater price and with a limited catalog.

        With older content constantly being bounced around different services, aggressive anti-shsring measures and continually rising prices, paid streaming is becoming less and less attractive, as we’re slowly sliding back to the times of cable TV, albeit video on-demand this time around.

      • User_4272894@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        10 months ago

        Competition is the answer, though. The problem is companies ended up competing the wrong way. If I could watch “The Office” on any streaming platform, suddenly they’re all in competition to create a better platform (quicker loads, different pricing models, integration with different devices, etc). By limiting shows to only certain platforms, sure, you’re creating an easy way to differentiate between platforms, but you’re letting the competition stagnate as you just create cable TV with extra steps: minimal choice, minimal ease of use, minimal cost upside.

      • chitak166@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        10 months ago

        Why should we care if corporations find the ‘answer to piracy’?

        What’s better for them is worse for us. Are you invested with them? If not, then you would be a textbook useful idiot to lower your standards so they can have even more.

  • Grass@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    29
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    10 months ago

    Damn. Maybe we shouldn’t have downloaded cars. It’s only fair that the capitalist collective should be able to delete our vhs and DVDs etc in return right?

  • flop_leash_973@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    25
    ·
    edit-2
    10 months ago

    Keeping the money and yanking back the content it was used to purchase will surely entice those people to sign up for that Max/Discovery+ subscription.

    Only an out of touch corporate stooge would see a logical through line there.

    • chitak166@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      10 months ago

      surely entice those people to sign up for that Max/Discovery+ subscription.

      That’s the sad part. It will. These people already have more money than sense, or else they wouldn’t be subscribing to streaming services at all.

  • zipzoopaboop@lemmynsfw.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    20
    ·
    10 months ago

    Maybe more people would subscribe to discovery if the content wasn’t so fucking abysmal. There’s like 2 good shows on there, Mythbusters and how it’s made

    • samus12345@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      10 months ago

      We download torrents, we use VPNs

      Drink up, me hearties, yo ho!

      Copyright law can kiss our rear ends

      Drink up, me hearties, yo ho!