PlayStation, Warner Bros. Discovery Reach Licensing Agreement Allowing Users to Keep Purchased Shows

There are still a few days before Christmas, but Sony and Warner Bros. Discovery are teaming up to give out early presents to PlayStation owners. Reversing an earlier announcement, Sony and WBD agreed to a new licensing deal that will prevent titles like “Deadliest Catch,” “MythBusters” and 1,300 other Discovery shows from being deleted from PlayStation libraries.

• Sony announced in early December that Discovery shows would be deleted from PlayStation libraries starting in late December.
• The titles were to be deleted thanks to an expired licensing agreement, even for users who had actually bought the shows from the PlayStation store.
• The new licensing agreement will keep those titles on PlayStation platforms for at least 30 months.

Why Were WBD Shows About to Be Deleted from PlayStation?

The root of the problem that was to cause those thousands of WBD shows’ deletion from PlayStation libraries was an expired licensing agreement. It was a rude awakening to users who had purchased episodes or seasons of titles like “Cake Boss” and “Naked and Afraid,” an thought that transaction meant they owned the content outright, no matter what.

The incident is a good reminder about the state of digital rights management. Most of the time, purchasing a show or movie on a digital platform does not grant the buyer ownership rights in perpetuity, and their content is essentially at the whim of the platform they bought it on, the studio that created it, or both.

Will New Deal Keep WBD Shows on PlayStation Forever?

That impermanence is demonstrated once again in Sony’s new licensing deal with WBD. The deal will keep WBD titles on PlayStation platforms for almost three years, but if that deal expires as the last one did, owners could be faced with the disappearance of their titles once again.

“Similar to other services, we do not own the licensing rights to TV/movie content that was previously available for purchase on PlayStation Store,” PlayStation said when announcing the deal. “However, we’ve worked with Warner Bros to update our licensing agreements, ensuring that consumers will be able to access their previously purchased content for at least the next 30 months.”

To be clear, the new licensing agreement is an undeniable win for PlayStation owners who have purchased WBD titles. But it’s also a definite reminder that while the ability to make digital purchases of TV and movies is convenient, there are definite trade-offs, the largest of which is that the user does not outright own the content they just bought.

Users who don’t own a PlayStation or didn’t purchase Discovery titles but are interested in watching them can stream them with a subscription to Max or discovery+.