Here We Go Again: Sony Disappears Digital Content That Was Pitched To Customers As ‘Forever’

And here we go again. We've had many, many posts over recent years discussing how, in the digital age, you often don't actually own what you've bought. And before the comments section gets filled with perplexed but rather educated folks talking about how the all these cases involve products in which the terms of service clearly outline that this is a license and not an actual product being bought, just stop. We all know that barely anyone reads a ToS these days and the confusion and anger that occurs in the public is proof of it. So clearly companies are not doing nearly enough to inform their customers of what they are actually purchasing. And if you think that problem is easily solved by staunchly insisting that Nancy down the street steep herself in legalese, then you're completely divorced from reality.

Which brings us to Sony. Late last year we discussed how when Sony's deal with the Discovery network ended, it caused a bunch of content to simply disappear from PlayStation owners who bought the content in the PS Store. Due to something completely outside of the public's control, people who bought content, or thought that's what they were doing, suddenly lost that content. Without refunds. Or an apology.

And now it's happening all over again, due to Sony's acquisition of Crunchyroll all the way back in 2021. Sony-owned Funimation is shutting down its app and website in April, with the company converting Funimation accounts to Crunchyroll accounts instead. All good right? Well...

Funimation, aSony-ownedstreaming service for anime, recentlyannouncedthat subscribers' digital libraries on the platform will be unavailable after April 2. For years, Funimation had beentelling subscribersthat they could keep streaming these digital copies of purchased movies and shows, but qualifying it: forever, but there are some restrictions."

But soon, people who may have discarded or lost their physical media or lack a way to play DVDs and Blu-rays won't have a way to access the digital copies that they were entitled to through their physical copy purchase.

Funimation's announcement is roughly as tone-deaf as it gets. They explain all of these libraries won't carry over to Crunchyroll because that platform doesn't support Funimation's digital content and then makes some vague comments about how Crunchyroll is continuously looking to make itself better. Which, whatever, because that doesn't change the fact that a bunch of people bought a bunch of digital content that was pitched mostly as being theirs forever" only to have it all nuked into oblivion as a result of a Sony acquisition. Good times.

Here again, we see that people don't actually own what they've bought, much to their confusion.

Funimation's support page for digital copies (which, as of this writing, says it hasn't been updated in four years) notes that Funimation's idea of forever includes restrictions and links to Funimation's Terms of Use. Thosetermsstate that Funimation can without advance notice... immediately suspend or terminate the availability of the Service and/or content (and any elements and features of them), in whole or in part, for any reason." It also says that the Funimation website, apps, service, and all of its content are owned by Funimation and its partners.

So even if you, understandably, thought you were buying a forever" digital copy, the wordy truth is that you never really owned it. Yet, it wouldn't be surprising to hear that someone relying on digital copies to preserve their purchased media didn't properly understand (or read) those terms before discarding their physical copies.

Thanks for the money, suckers! Hope you enjoyed the years-long forever!