Sony warns purchased Discovery TV shows will be deleted from libraries, then reverses

What happened

In early December 2023, Sony notified PlayStation Store customers that, "due to our content licensing arrangements with content providers," purchased Discovery TV seasons and episodes would be removed from customers' video libraries at the end of December 2023. The notice covered hundreds of shows; a list published on PlayStation's site named more than 1,300 seasons.

On December 21, 2023, Sony announced that, following an updated arrangement with Warner Bros. Discovery, the purchased content would remain available to customers; press coverage of the arrangement reported a term of at least 30 months.

Consumer impact

• No refunds were offered during the period when deletion was announced.
• The reversal restored access but did not change the underlying terms: purchased video remains removable when upstream licenses lapse.

Why it matters

This case documents the mechanism plainly: a licensing lapse between two companies, neither of them the consumer, was sufficient grounds to delete "purchased" content from paid libraries. It is one of the most-cited incidents in coverage of California AB 2426.