Sony to Erase 551 Paid-For Movies From PlayStation Libraries, No Refunds

On September 1, Sony will strip 551 StudioCanal films and shows from the PlayStation Store libraries of customers who bought them outright — titles including Terminator 2, Total Recall, Rambo, and The Deer Hunter. The company’s only explanation is that its content licensing agreement with the distributor has lapsed, and it has said nothing about compensating buyers. These weren’t rentals: the storefront displayed a “buy” button, charged full price, and dropped the films into a library marketed as the customer’s own — a library Sony can now empty because the terms of service buyers accepted on setup already granted it that right.

The pattern extends beyond video. Take-Two confirmed that the November boxed edition of Grand Theft Auto VI will contain only a download code tied to a buyer’s account, with no disc — meaning the $80 purchase can’t be lent, resold, or installed offline. CEO Strauss Zelnick had earlier denied that physical copies would be held back, but the released plan keeps the box and drops the disc entirely, which also kills the secondhand market and hands the publisher lasting control over access.

The throughline is that “ownership” of digital and even boxed media is collapsing into accounts and servers controlled by a handful of companies. The word “buy” still sits on the button, but what it actually confers keeps shrinking, and consumers who never signed the upstream contracts are the ones who lose access when those deals change.