Sony PlayStation users get the unexpected news that movies they’ve paid for are to be removed from their accounts. More here. If you’re one of the people that, entirely reasonably, went onto the PlayStation Store to buy a digital copy of, say, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and expected permanent access to it? Well, you’re already ... Physical media | PlayStation removes access to 500 paid-for digital movies
Sony PlayStation users get the unexpected news that movies they’ve paid for are to be removed from their accounts. More here.
If you’re one of the people that, entirely reasonably, went onto the PlayStation Store to buy a digital copy of, say, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and expected permanent access to it? Well, you’re already probably very aware just how that plan is going.
Sony wrote to its PlayStation customers over the weekend who’d bough one or more of 500 movies or TV shows from its online store, to inform them in no uncertain terms that they’d cease to get access to their purchases.
A note was sent to affected customers telling them that as of 1st September 2026, ‘due to our content licensing arrangements, you will no longer be able to watch any of your previously purchased Studio Canal content and the content will be removed from your video library.’
Sony then helpfully supplied a link to the list of affected titles, and you can find that here.
At no point in the communication is there any kind of apology. At no point in the communication is their mention of whether customers will be refunded or what recompense they are entitled to. Just that the films and TV shows they’ve bought legally in good faith are being taken away from them.
To use an analogy from days of old, it’d be like buying a DVD from your local shop, and because the shop owner had changed suppliers, them breaking into your house and removing the film.
It’s outrageous that this can happen, of course, and the tone of the communication is piss poor as well. Buying films via digital services relies on a simple confidence that you’ll always get access to what you’ve legally purchased. Sony PlayStation’s move doesn’t just undermine that for one company, it undermines things full stop.
As always, we and many others can’t tap the physical media sign hard enough. It remains as true as always: if you want reliable access to your favourite movies, get them on disc. If you don’t, as had been proven again, you’re absolute at the whims of big corporations deciding to spend their billions elsewhere.
Hopefully this resolves quickly. Because right now, it stinks.
