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Sony Video Store DRM restricts downloading

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On September 22, 2008, 3:13 PM EST

With the fight against DRM focusing so much on PCs, it is easy to forget that the sophisticated consoles of today are also susceptible to it, especially as they all look to provide access to online services. Those who use the PS3 to watch movies are finding out very quickly just how bad and frustrating DRM can be, discovering that Sony has been enforcing very restrictive rules on videos purchased through the Sony Video Store.

As it turns out, the movies can be downloaded only a single time. After that, you're out of luck. A single extra download can be achieved by contacting Sony directly, which they have the gall to call a “courtesy.” This means quite plainly that if you should upgrade the hard drive in your PS3, have the console replaced or need to temporarily make room on the unit, you're basically abandoning any “ownership” you had of those movies in the first place.

As the article states and many of us are aware, this is more evidence that the entertainment industry is not content letting you “buy” content – you may pay a “buy” price but you are renting it at best, all thanks to DRM.

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User Comments (4)

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BMfan
on September 22, 2008
3:26 PM
And think this will help with piracy,if i pay for something i want to know that it belongs to me. So i guess if you want something and you want to keep it buy bandwidth rather and download it. The same thing happened with spore, that i can understand it's EA but this Sony.

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BMfan
on September 22, 2008
3:26 PM
And think this will help with piracy,if i pay for something i want to know that it belongs to me. So i guess if you want something and you want to keep it buy bandwidth rather and download it. The same thing happened with spore, that i can understand it's EA but this Sony.

Reply

rmdl51
on September 22, 2008
6:50 PM
Honestly I don't think the people who create or enhances DRM have a little fault on this, the problem is the consumer. People need to be DUMB to pay a "buy" price for a "rental". This people is getting riped off, but they don't seem to care as long as thousands of people buy all this content and let them get robbed by Sony, Microsoft, Apple and all those DRM supporters.If everybody just buy from retail stores and then rip their own movies and stream it to the PS3 (or whatever console/system you have) their little gold mine would be over, If I purchase a movie once, I don't want to pay again for the same movie ever! so why making this rich guys even richer? why throw away your hard earned buck like this? The DRM is no way to fight piracy, They are losing a lot of money with piracy, but this is like saying "piracy robs us then we'll rob our customers" and that's so wrong. The day DRM is no more on the media I'll think about buying downloads, in the meanwhile I'll just go to the store get my stuff and do whatever I want with it because it belongs to me, I don't care what the RIAA says about it, once I pay for my movie/music cd I want to rip it on all 3 of my computers at home I want to play it on my ipod also my cel phone I want to make a copy to play it on my car stereo without scratching my original and that should be legal because it's for my personal use and I'm not being lucrative with the media.

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BMfan
on September 23, 2008
4:43 AM
Sorry for the double post

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