Apple did it to apps I bought years ago, Microsoft has done it with Live Arcade games I can no longer redownload, and Nintendo closed their online stores to consoles they stopped supporting. The only store I can think of at the moment which doesn't seem to fuck people is Steam (perhaps Epic but it's too new to cast opinions on).
And don't forget shit like Flexplay. The no-return rental DVD that self-destructs after ~48 hours. How ecological. Thankfully it was discontinued in 2011.
How? It would need an internet connection to revoke it, and you can't write to the Blu-ray disc can you? In other words, you could just turn off internet connection from the player?
I had to change my email/account with google and couldn't port the apps in the gplay store. This was mostly due to having a google domains that did many years ago, but still didn't get any solution when I explained that to the google customer service. It was clear to me that is not worth wasting a penny there.
Sony should invent a way for people to buy a movie, own it, and be able to store it on a shelf or something. Maybe we can even lend them to friends or start a library.
And to think the joke back in 2013 was that it was Microsoft who so fervently defended the right to "not allow people to sell, lend or share their games", while Sony was just "With our console, you can"
You could even like, use a really high frequency of laser rays so that you can pack as much data on that blue disc! Maybe we could trademark this. I'll call it High Definition DVD.
Ok, but why would I want to store digital media on a shelf? IMHO not having physical media cluttering up my physical space is a big advantage of online purchases. That, and being able to acquire new stuff at any time, day or night, without even leaving home.
This is the unfortunate reality of current intellectual property. Anytime you don't have a copy of something directly in your possession, either as a physical object like a BluRay, or digital file(s) on digital storage only you control, you don't really own it. You're just borrowing it, or more strictly speaking, you're purchasing the right to access it until the agreement between the creator company (i.e., WarnerDiscovery) and the hosting company (i.e., Sony) expires.
When issues like this come up, there are right ways and wrong ways to handle it. This is an example of a wrong way. Google's handling of the Stadia shutdown was an example of the right way. Any game you purchased on Stadia was refunded to the original payment method, not store credit, at the price you paid giving you the ability to reacquire the game on another platform and/or in another medium. They even refunded in-game purchases of things like premium currency (e.g. silver in Destiny 2, or crowns in Elder Scrolls Online) which was a great bonus because you got that whether you had spent the in-game currency or not so it was essentially free.
Personally, I'd like protection like what Google offered to be legally mandated for the purchase of streaming content. Sony has little choice in the matter if WarnerDiscovery won't renew the streaming license. Legally, they must revoke access to the content, but currently they can choose to not compensate users who lose access to the content through these legal machinations and that's what I have a problem with.
This is as good of a time as any to tell you guys that future Oscar winning movie, Barbie, is now also available on Blu-Ray and DVD, physical copies that you'll always have if you want to watch it again.
Blu-Ray discs can carry mandatory software updates that change the functionality of playback devices, add “protections” against “piracy”, and could potentially revoke licenses of content on other discs.
Media companies are prepared to screw you over regardless of wether or not you but content from them. I do believe in paying for content, but I don’t trust any modern distribution to last, so I have a couple backups of all the media I’ve ever purchased. And for formats that make it difficult to back up, I sail the seven seas.
Hard disk drives will last even less. The lubrication will dry up and the disk will seize way before the 25 year mark.
Bluray is a fine back up media, I use them for stuff on my NAS that I cannot lose like precious pictures of family and friends. Not all of us live on am abandoned salt mine with perfect temperature and humidity for long term tape storage.