This is the best summary I could come up with:
Funimation, a Sony-owned streaming service for anime, recently announced that subscribers’ digital libraries on the platform will be unavailable after April 2.
For years, Funimation had been telling subscribers that they could keep streaming these digital copies of purchased movies and shows, but qualifying it: “forever, but there are some restrictions.”
But in addition to offering video streaming, Funimation also dubbed and released anime as physical media, and sometimes those DVDs or Blu-rays would feature a digital code.
For people lacking the space, resources, or interest in maintaining a library of physical media, this was a good way to preserve treasured shows and movies without spending more money.
It also provided a simple way to access purchased media online if you were, for example, away on a trip and had a hankering to watch some anime DVDs you bought.
Regarding refunds, Funimation’s announcement directed customers to its support team “to see the available options based on your payment method,” but there’s no mention of getting money back from a DVD or Blu-ray that you might not have purchased had you known you couldn’t stream it “forever.”
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Piracy sites are now very often the best archive sites; if you are into old and/or obscure films very often your only choice is to go to piracy sites. Same used to be the case for music with what.cd - what an amazing musical archive that was. I still miss what.cd. Until corporations figure out a way to offer such archives, piracy will continue to grow as more and more content becomes unavailable because these corporate digital libraries are being taken away.
I still miss what.cd
Isn’t there a site called redacted that is meant to replace it? I remember failing the interviews for it.
Yeah, weirdly enough I just found it after remembering how good what.cd was. I have seen that the interview asks about transcoding… so yeah… might have to do some learning 'fore I have a go at an interview. I guess if the bar to entry is high then that is probably a good thing. I think I only got into what.cd because I met someone who had an invite.
I failed the interview because even though I got all the answers correct I had their interview prep page open in another page and when they gave me the chance to come clean about it I lied instead 😬
You could try Orpheus, I managed to join today. It’s even got a what.cd skin so you can pretend you’re home again. https://interview.orpheus.network/
Looks great. Thanks.
Oh no! That’s good to know though, thank you. I will study a page a day and do the interview in a week or so, this will stress me out no end, I’m sure. 😅
what.cd was the best.
Corporations will never offer such archives, as they’re a money losing proposition. In some cases IP and copyright law is even such that content can’t be realistically archived and provided.
Yeah, I think the same. Good news for piracy… but sad that people will have to rely on trackers that can disappear at any time and without warning. Mind you copyright does expire… but I have no idea how that would work. Project Gutenberg for media with large file sizes would be expensive to run… but then storage may continue to get cheaper. But yeah, it won’t be a corporate that will be offering a solution.
Copyright expires long after unprofitable content has been all but lost forever, something like 100 years after the death of the original creator. It used to be a far shorter period, but US corporations with big profitable IP holdings keep bribing lawmakers to extend it, and force its enforcement outside of the US as well. The concept of being able to sell copyrights is also quite silly if you ask me.
So unfortunate Gutenberg and similar libraries can only have really old stuff as things stand.
If purchasing something doesn’t mean you own it, then piracy isn’t theft.
If you weren’t allowed to back up a copy of it, you never owned it.
If someone sells something to you and then takes it back later, that is theft.
Sony is shit for doing this, however if you buy streaming content thinking you’re going to have access to it forever you’re kidding yourself. Businesses will supply streaming content for as long as it’s profitable to do so. When that profit evaporates so does your content.
That image choice by Ars Technica was no coincidence.
Don’t get it.
This is huge and not like what happened last month.
Last month they removed access to “Deadly Dentists | Season 1” and similar shows that are also broadcasted 24/7 everywhere on TV, so not too many people “purchased” them.
But for anime the chance that a big fan is losing access to a massive collection of titles paid thousands of dollars is much higher.
Sony didn’t learn from the backlash that happened less than two months ago???
I’m waiting for the class action lawsuit on this.
Their TOS most likely forbids class action suits. It most likely requires individual or “small batch” arbitration that benefits Sony.
Only if you file suit and the court finds it enforceable. Sometimes they say you can sue anyway.
I’m not aware of that ever happening. It may have, but every case that I’m aware of has ended quickly with the court enforcing the TOS that users “voluntarily” deciphered and agreed to.
One clear example in the US is “warranty void if removed” stickers. It was found that “contract” violated consumer protection laws, so companies are required to prove the customer broke it in an attempt to repair it, instead of just proving the customer attempted to repair it.
Provide the case? I’m very interested to see this.
They learned that the backlash was easily ignored, most likely.
