Jul 23, 2026 · 10 min · 4 segments
Sony made two disturbing announcements recently—first, it is removing over 500 StudioCanal movies from its online PlayStation Store, so that people who bought those titles will no longer have access…
The first one I found reported in Ars Technica on June 29th, and the article, uh, reports that Sony recently informed its PlayStation customers in the UK that they won't be able to watch movies from the StudioCanal library that these customers supposedly purchased.
Um, what? I thought I bought those, and now I can't watch them anymore? Well, apparently not.
As of September 1st, the people who bought those titles will no longer be able to stream them, and that includes over 550 titles from the PlayStation Store.
[lip smacks] Uh, these titles include things like Paddington, Paddington 2, Pan's Labyrinth, Rambo 3, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the best Terminator movie in my opinion.
Um, [lip smacks] and they say that it was due to their content licensing agreements, one of the banes of online media if you ask me.
Uh, so as of September, Sony will remove these titles that the UK users presumably purchased, uh, from their PlayStation library.
Now, it's possible that Sony may make a deal with StudioCanal by September 1st, uh, or even after, that would allow these users to keep watching the content that they bought.
Uh, this happened apparently in 2023 when Sony said it was gonna pull over 1,300 seasons of Discovery shows from customers' libraries.
A few weeks later, after the announcement, they said, "Oh, we're not gonna do that anyway.
Uh, we updated our licensing agreement with Discovery." You see this all the time, uh, streamers who suddenly stop carrying a channel or another channel or announce that they're going to and then, "Oh, never mind, we made a new agreement." Uh, I suspect maybe those announcements are in, uh, to make a bargaining position that will, uh, facilitate a new agreement.
Whatever it is, I hate it because you presumably bought this content, and particularly in the case of streaming, you know, TV shows or whatever, I still don't like it, but if you bought something and it's yours and it's taken away from you, that's wrong.
Uh, apparently Sony already pulled 300, over 300 StudioCanal titles from libraries in Germany and Austria.
Uh, and more recently, Sony deleted people's Funimation digital libraries after it decided to merge the anime streaming service with Crunchyroll.
[sighs] So, what the heck is going on here? Uh, as the, uh, Ars Technica article points out, it's a reminder that we don't own the stuff that we purchase digitally, which really burns my bacon.
[lip smacks] Uh, instead, digital rentals and purchases are apparently merely long-term licenses that are only as valid as the streaming service says they are.
It's one reason I support physical media, and I know I'm in the minority probably there, but I prefer to own something free and clear and forever.
Not to mention that physical media is often higher quality, at least in terms of video content, which is what we're talking about here.
The first one I found reported in Ars Technica on June 29th, and the article, uh, reports that Sony recently informed its PlayStation customers in the UK that they won't be able to watch movies from the StudioCanal library that these customers supposedly purchased.
Um, what? I thought I bought those, and now I can't watch them anymore? Well, apparently not.
As of September 1st, the people who bought those titles will no longer be able to stream them, and that includes over 550 titles from the PlayStation Store.
[lip smacks] Uh, these titles include things like Paddington, Paddington 2, Pan's Labyrinth, Rambo 3, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, the best Terminator movie in my opinion.
Um, [lip smacks] and they say that it was due to their content licensing agreements, one of the banes of online media if you ask me.
Uh, so as of September, Sony will remove these titles that the UK users presumably purchased, uh, from their PlayStation library.
Now, it's possible that Sony may make a deal with StudioCanal by September 1st, uh, or even after, that would allow these users to keep watching the content that they bought.
Uh, this happened apparently in 2023 when Sony said it was gonna pull over 1,300 seasons of Discovery shows from customers' libraries.
A few weeks later, after the announcement, they said, "Oh, we're not gonna do that anyway.
Uh, we updated our licensing agreement with Discovery." You see this all the time, uh, streamers who suddenly stop carrying a channel or another channel or announce that they're going to and then, "Oh, never mind, we made a new agreement." Uh, I suspect maybe those announcements are in, uh, to make a bargaining position that will, uh, facilitate a new agreement.
Whatever it is, I hate it because you presumably bought this content, and particularly in the case of streaming, you know, TV shows or whatever, I still don't like it, but if you bought something and it's yours and it's taken away from you, that's wrong.
Uh, apparently Sony already pulled 300, over 300 StudioCanal titles from libraries in Germany and Austria.
Uh, and more recently, Sony deleted people's Funimation digital libraries after it decided to merge the anime streaming service with Crunchyroll.
[sighs] So, what the heck is going on here? Uh, as the, uh, Ars Technica article points out, it's a reminder that we don't own the stuff that we purchase digitally, which really burns my bacon.
[lip smacks] Uh, instead, digital rentals and purchases are apparently merely long-term licenses that are only as valid as the streaming service says they are.
It's one reason I support physical media, and I know I'm in the minority probably there, but I prefer to own something free and clear and forever.
Not to mention that physical media is often higher quality, at least in terms of video content, which is what we're talking about here.
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