It’s not the responsability of Customers to make sure what Sony’s chose contractual relationships elsewhere are - Sony can engage in whatever contractual relationships it ways whichever way it wants (and thus maximize their profits), but if it breaks one it has to pay the penalties for it, quite independently of why.
In fact it would basically make it impossible to Trade if a purchaser had to track all contractual relationships of each supplier, then of the supplier of the supplier and so on, which is why Contract Law neatly isolates each Contract relationship from all the rest and legal responsability stops at the 2 parties that engaged in a Contract (including the implied Contract in a Retail Sale) unless very explicitly stated in the contract.
So, have customers in this case entered into a Contractual Relationship where Sony gets to pull the plug whenever it feels like for any reason (which are probably invalid contractual conditions for retails customers in plenty of countries, though probably not the US which has near-zero consumer protections) in which case the problem is of the customers, or have they not in which case Sony is the one with the responsability (probably of refunding their customers) and it’s up to Sony to exercise whatever contract clauses they had with WB and claim compensation from them for their own breach of contract, if Sony had such clauses in their contract (if not, it was their own choice, so tough luck).
Throwaway4669332255@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Sony choose to not offer refunds. Sony knew the contract when they agreed to sell the content. When something gets pulled from steam I can still download and install it.
atrielienz@lemmy.world 6 months ago
How much of that money is their to refund? A portion of that sale went to WB? Why is WB not being asked to give a refund?
Aceticon@lemmy.world 6 months ago
Sony entered in a contractual relationship with their customers and by Law the responsability ends there.
If you pay somebody to build you a garden shed and after 5 months of nothing happenning you complain and the builder can just say “sorry, the fly-by-night wood supliers whe paid for the wood just took of with our money, so you’re not going to get a shed and we’ll keep your money” and that’s alright?!
Imagine what would it do to Trade and Business in general if any supplier could legally screw a customer over because they themselves chose to to engage a fishy entity as their own supplier who screwed them, so they just passed on that loss legally to all their costumers.
No, the way things work is that each contractual relationship is isolated from all others, so Sony got full freedom to chose what kind of contract they signed with WB and what contract they “signed” with their retail customers (note that retail sales are implied Contracts and there are legally mandatory implied clauses in any contracts with retail customers, covering for example legally mandated guarantees periods) - likely profiting a lot by chosing the short-term commitment with WB rather than one that tied WB for, say, 20 years - and any mismatch of obligations that might arise from that is entirelly the responsability of Sony.
Sony got to keep the profits from their own choices of licensing contracts and now it’s up to them to make up for the losses derived from the consequences that choice, on other contracts were they themselves were acting as the supplier.
atrielienz@lemmy.world 6 months ago
You should go read the licensing agreement. For all the companies, not just Sony because like I said before they all have done this. WB would sue Sony into the ground for breech of contract if they didn’t remove those shows. They’re doing what they are legally obligated to do. I’m not advocating for letting sony off the hook here. I’m saying this will continue to happen every time a license holder decides to cut out the middleman and make their own streaming service, and unless you hold those license holders accountable it will keep happening because it is legal.