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Comment by giancarlostoro | Hacker News Reader

They should at least make an effort to let you sync them into MoviesAnywhere which is supposed to solve the "I have this on iTunes, but not Android TV" problem by unlocking it across platforms if you sync your accounts. They should really let you permanently keep movies on defunct platforms as part of your standard MoviesAnywhere movie collection.

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The announcement only seems to have been sent to users in the UK and MoviesAnywhere is a US only service. Also StudioCanal are ultimately the rightsholder who would need to join MoviesAnywhere, and they are not members.

(I am a bit surprised they didn't bung Google and StudioCanal a bit of money to move them to Google Play to avoid the bad publicity though.)

Movies Anywhere works by aggregating the active digital access licenses you have participating partner services. The problem here is Sony won't be able to give any active digital access licenses for these movies to users after September 1st, let alone one which allows them to transfer that through Movies Anywhere.

It's typical "you own nothing" logic to the point the companies selling you that also don't even own it.

Sure, but its also run and operated by the rights holders, which they never even needed to do.

It's more "streaming/delivery operators which also have some of their own licensed content":

- Disney -> Disney+/Hulu

- Universal/NBC -> Peacock

- Warner Bros. -> Max

- Lionsgate -> Lionsgate+

- Sony Pictures -> The Sony services relevant to the article (note: the Sony services sell more than just Sony Pictures content)

They never needed to, but it actually makes them more money because a revenue share model through Movies Anywhere makes sense. StudioCanal does not sell streaming/delivery services directly to consumers, a revenue share model between streaming providers would not make them more money, and Sony would have no influence on StudioCanal doing so anyways.

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