Robert Hamer
Friendly reminder that tomorrow, Sony will delete all of the Studio Canal titles from their Playstation Store, removing the access anyone who paid for them once had:
From September 1, 2026, due to our content licensing agreements, you will no longer be able to access your previously purchased content from Studio Canal, and it will be removed from your video library.
Thank you,
PlayStation Store
How many titles does this effect? Over five hundred. That’s right — over half a thousand films will **poof** vanish from your PlayStation Store library if you bought them from there, including…
● Carol
● Every season of Gomorrah
● Both seasons of The Young Pope
And so, so so many more titles. Gone tomorrow. All because of some convoluted IP licensing rights feud. But you’re probably not concerned about this, right? Because you “bought” those digital titles and so will have them permanently stored? Nope! They’re going to vanish from your possession all the same. This is what happens when we transition to an economy wholly dependent on digital assets and everything being stored in “The Cloud:” you do not actually own anything. You just rent it out in a digital space you rent out owned by one of the eight or nine companies currently holding up the entire economy right now.
But at least you get a refund, right? That’s what happens when a company takes back ownership of something you purchased, right? You’d think so, back when things made sense, but here’s the neat part: you never actually owned those movies in the first place! Ever! You were just leasing them the whole time. And who are you to say otherwise? It’s not like you control the source code those digital copies are stored in!
I really need people to understand that this is not just some inconvenience to you as customers. I mean, it is that, but this is a reflection of something much worse. Remember when I lamented the video game industry’s disinterest-bordering-on-hostility towards preservation, which is a major contributor to the entire medium being disrespected by the general public as a “lesser” artform? That is the future of movies if we are not vigilant. If we just passively accept this stuff as much a new normal we have to get used to, if we don’t raise a big stink about these shenanigans whenever a film distributor pulls them, they will make this worse. You will only be able to access the cinema of the past if your overlords feel like making it available to you. You will pay for the privilege of temporarily enjoying what is “in season,” and what the distributors feel comfortable with you watching.
And yes, that does mean investing in and financially rewarding those who still sell and make available physical media. It is not looking good for those who believe in film preservation. But that does not mean we should just sit here and quietly take this.
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