By end of next month, it’s been revealed that Sony will remove the ability to view Studio Canal movies that users purchased through the PlayStation Store.

This new information comes from their German webpage, which has this legal notice:

“As of August 31, 2022, due to our evolving licensing agreements with content providers, you will no longer be able to view your previously purchased Studio Canal content and it will be removed from your video library,” the notice reads.

Those who purchased these movies will no longer have them available to watch through the PlayStation Store. This is a decision that will assuredly draw ire from customers who bought movies such as Django, John Wick, The Hunger Games, and Saw.

Back in March of 2021, Sony had announced they would be shutting down the movies section of their storefront, where the official shutdown would occur on August later that year.

At the time, Sony had promised that users who had purchased any movies would still have access to them after the shutdown.

Given this news, that promise has now been broken – even if it is just on Studio Canal, there are a large number of popular titles affected with this move.

This news also harkens back to Sony’s recent updates to their PS3 and PS Vita consoles. The latest updates for the older consoles removed features, such as easily transferring games and saves between the two, when it was once considered a selling point.

The loss of purchased films through the PlayStation Store will once again fire the discussion on what is truly considered “owned” in the world of digital.

This is Niche Culture. In this column, we regularly cover anime, geek culture, and things related to video games. Please leave feedback and let us know if there’s something you want us to cover!