<
https://www.techdirt.com/2024/02/21/here-we-go-again-sony-disappears-digital-content-that-was-pitched-to-customers-as-forever/>
"And here we go again. We’ve had many, many posts over recent years discussing
how, in the digital age, you often don’t actually own what you’ve bought. And
before the comments section gets filled with perplexed but rather educated
folks talking about how the all these cases involve products in which the terms
of service clearly outline that this is a license and not an actual product
being bought, just stop. We all know that barely anyone reads a ToS these days
and the confusion and anger that occurs in the public is proof of it. So
clearly companies are not doing nearly enough to inform their customers of what
they are actually purchasing. And if you think that problem is easily solved by
staunchly insisting that Nancy down the street steep herself in legalese, then
you’re completely divorced from reality.
Which brings us to Sony. Late last year we discussed how when Sony’s deal with
the Discovery network ended, it caused a bunch of content to simply disappear
from PlayStation owners who bought the content in the PS Store. Due to
something completely outside of the public’s control, people who bought
content, or thought that’s what they were doing, suddenly lost that content.
Without refunds. Or an apology.
And now it’s happening all over again, due to Sony’s acquisition of Crunchyroll
all the way back in 2021. Sony-owned Funimation is shutting down its app and
website in April, with the company converting Funimation accounts to
Crunchyroll accounts instead. All good right? Well…
Funimation, a Sony-owned streaming service for anime, recently announced
that subscribers’ digital libraries on the platform will be unavailable
after April 2. For years, Funimation had been telling subscribers that they
could keep streaming these digital copies of purchased movies and shows, but
qualifying it: “forever, but there are some restrictions.”
But soon, people who may have discarded or lost their physical media or lack
a way to play DVDs and Blu-rays won’t have a way to access the digital
copies that they were entitled to through their physical copy purchase.
Funimation’s announcement is roughly as tone-deaf as it gets. They explain all
of these libraries won’t carry over to Crunchyroll because that platform
doesn’t support Funimation’s digital content and then makes some vague comments
about how Crunchyroll is continuously looking to make itself better. Which,
whatever, because that doesn’t change the fact that a bunch of people bought a
bunch of digital content that was pitched mostly as being theirs “forever” only
to have it all nuked into oblivion as a result of a Sony acquisition. Good
times."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
