Playstation deleting TV shows from users personal libraries

Last Updated on December 15, 2023

I recently wrote an article about how people should stop buying digital copies of their favorite content in favor of returning to physical media. I warned readers that one day, the digital vendor you use may opt to delete copies of the films or TV shows people bought from their digital libraries, and sure enough, Playstation is doing exactly that this week. As reported by Forbes, Sony is being forced to delete a ton of Warner Bros/ Discovery content thanks to a licensing issue. It’s being purged even if you bought and paid for this content. The content is pretty much all from The Discovery Channel and includes titles as sophisticated as “Best Funeral Ever.” 

While this doesn’t sound like a huge loss, the fact remains that people bought and paid for this content. It should not be removed, and, at the moment, Sony doesn’t seem to be offering any refunds to the people who opted to buy these shows. It’s further evidence that when you purchase something digitally, you don’t own it.

Here’s a full list of what’s being removed.

Sony issued the following statement regarding their content purge:

“Due to our content licensing arrangements with content providers, you will no longer be able to watch any of your previously purchased Discovery content and the content will be removed from your video library.”

But what’s next? As the issue seems to be related to WB/Discovery, does that mean people who bought classic Warner Bros titles through the PlayStation Store may wake up one day to discover that some of their favourite movies are no longer available? Indeed, Christopher Nolan was right when he warned people to buy Oppenheimer on disc, lest some streaming service decide to steal your copy… literally. 

Has anyone reading this ever had a digital copy of something vanish from their libraries? Let us know in the comments.