StudioCanal movies and TV shows will stop being shown in Germany and Austria next month.
Sony is taking down access to hundreds of movies and TV shows from its PlayStation Store next month. This means that people who have paid for movies and shows like “Paddington” and “The Hunger Games” won’t be able to watch them anymore. Users in Germany and Austria will not be able to watch StudioCanal movies, according to legal notices posted on the sites for those two countries.
The end will happen on August 31, exactly a year after Sony stopped letting people buy movies and TV shows through its digital store. Sony said at the time that its customers will still be able to access the content they had already bought. Notices on the PlayStation website say that the change is due to “evolving license agreements with content providers,” and that purchased content will be taken out of customers’ video libraries.
Variety says that 314 titles in Germany and 137 titles in Austria will be affected by the change. Some of the movies that are affected are Chicken Run, John Wick, La La Land, Logan Lucky, Saw, Shaun the Sheep Movie, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. It’s not clear if customers who were affected will get refunds.
We’re used to the idea that TV shows and movies can disappear from streaming services over time, making them inaccessible to subscribers. However, this happens much less often with services that let you buy digital copies of titles. That doesn’t mean it never happens, though. When Flixster Video shut down, Pocket-Lint reported that some titles didn’t work with the Google Play migration process that was supposed to keep them available to UK customers. Apple has been sued in the past for using the word “buy” for digital titles to which it reserves the right to take away access.