Outrage as platform to remove 551 films users have paid for

Customers in the United Kingdom will no longer be able to watch previously purchased movies and shows from a production company after a platform erased 551 titles from its library.

Sony recently informed its PlayStation customers in the UK that it will be scaling down its digital store.

In a legal notice, Sony said that affected customers will lose the ability to stream titles such asPaddington, Paddington 2, Pan’s Labyrinth, Rambo 3, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas ‘due to our content licensing agreements’.

As of September, the Japanese company will remove any titles that UK users bought from their library, as reported by gaming news outlet PlayStation LifeStyle.

It means that users will not be able to view paid content from distribution company StudioCanal.

This comes after Sony pulled 314 StudioCanal titles from libraries in Germany and Austria in 2022.

Sony also deleted people’s Funimation digital libraries after it decided to merge the anime streaming service with Crunchyroll.

It serves as a reminder that customers do not own the content they purchase digitially, despite those arguing that companies such as Sony should offer refunds if they remove purchased content.

Still, however, it could still be possible that Sony could make a deal with StudioCanal by September 1, or even after, that would allow users to keep watching the content they bought. 

The same situation happened with Discovery, when Sony said it would have to pull 1,318 seasons of their shows from customers’ librariers.

Just a few weeks after the announcement, Sony then said it had updated its licensing arrangements and it would not pull the content.

Metro has contacted Sony for comment.