[whywhywhywhy]

> as Sony just decided to yoink over a thousand seasons—that's right, seasons, not episodes—of Discovery shows from the PlayStation Store

Didn't realize Sony owned Discovery, oh wait they don't. So it's actually Discovery who's licensing caused Sony to be legally obligated to remove the shows.

Sucks if you bought it but yeah just like the games in your Steam library you never actually owned it, you merely licensed it.

[jefftk]

Sony shouldn't have sold shows to their customers without first negotiating contracts with the rightsholders ensuring Sony wouldn't have to renege.

[BizarroLand]

And really, Netflix screwed the pooch on this one right at the start by not making licensing rights irrevocable.

They could have said, "we'll pay $0.XXX per stream" and media companies would have said, "yay, more money for old crap we don't care about any more" and that would have been that.

But because they didn't make it irrevocable, companies have been rug pulling customers ever since

[BobaFloutist]

Content I have bought and downloaded should be as irrevocable as a book on my bookshelf.

"Licensed" is a made up word. Did I buy it? It's mine. Did I rent it? It's no longer mine after the rental period is over. End of story.

[wilsonnb3]

Licensed isn't any more made up than buy and rent, all words are made up.

Being able to articulate what exactly you are allowed to do with something you buy is a useful legal fiction, much like property rights, contracts, and all of the other useful legal fictions we enforce on the world.

[BobaFloutist]

It would all be fine if instead of "buy", the big yellow button said "License indefinitely, revocable at any time by us or by the people licensing it to us for any or no reason. If you download it, we reserve the right to reach into your device and delete it when we're done licensing it to you."

But people would probably be less likely to push the button, so I guess it's better to lie to customers about what they're paying for.

[CaptainFever]

It doesn't matter whose fault it is. Companies are still stealing from the customers.

[pierat]

> Sucks if you bought it but yeah just like the games in your Steam library you never actually owned it, you merely licensed it.

If you're lied to about a "sale" and it's really just a shitty rental, we have a different word for that: FRAUD.

And the action that Sony hacked devices and removed said content? It mirrors the individual form of this ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38614624 ), which is "horribly illegal". I argue it pales in comparison to Sony's actions.

[thomastjeffery]

If you want a story about Sony and lawsuits for hacking devices, here it is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OtherOS

[thfuran]

It shouldn't be legal for a transfer of a revocable license to be described as "buying".