Sony is erasing digital libraries that were supposed to be accessible “forever”::Casualties afoot as Sony merges Funimation with 2021-acquired Crunchyroll.
If buying isn’t owning then piracy isn’t stealing
And the Zoomers all go, “lol y u got all those things on disk graddad? nobody does that anymore get with it.”
Yeah, okay. Sure.
But I’ll tell you what, I put my Steamline Pictures dub Laserdisc of Castle of Cagliostro in the machine, or whatever the hell, and it just plays. Every time.
But if you sell me something and then forcefully take it back, that actually is stealing. It will never happen because somewhere in the TOS they had wiggled in a clause to invalidate it, but morally Sony owes the users a refund for everything they are taking back.
I would never pay to purchase a digital copy of a show. Either get physical media or pirate it. Anything else is just a long term rental.
Could this be the basis for a lawsuit? I mean everyone had to know that this platform wouldn’t last forever, but it’s not as if they’re shutting down completely. Seems like they could easily port this feature over to the new platform, they just choose not to. Is that breach of contract?
The secret is that despite everything on the website saying “buy” to the end user when they’re putting in their credit card information, somewhere 18 pages down in the TOS you agree to when making an account there is a provision that they reserve the right to revoke access at any time. It’s not truly owning content, it was never YOUR contract. It’s theirs.
The courts should not tolerate hidden clauses in pages of legalese that literally no one, not even lawyers reads. If you have a misleading claim advertised that the buyer is more likely to see, then your hidden clause is invalidated.
They’re less than shutting down. Funimation was where these shows are. Sony owns Funimation, and funimation bought crunchyroll. Funimation is switching their name to crunchyroll because it has more positive name recognition.
So funimation is essentially claiming that Funimation purchases will be null and void after funimation chooses to change its name to crunchyroll.
Also, since crunchy and fun were competitors and they were allowed to buy themselves into a near monopoly, they’re upping the subscription prices.
I guess you shouldn’t expect any tech company to provide anything “forever,” as forever for them, and the fine prints, mean totally different things than what you and I think it is.
There’s plenty of room on the high seas for everyone.
