So Sanity, the largest movie retailer in Australia, has said Disney told them they are no longer releasing any physical media down under, GotG 3 will be the last Disney product to get a physical release. This matches up well with reports last month about Studios fully abandoning physical media and no longer even enforcing copyright on pirated dvds as long as they are physical, causing a new boom in piracy as it becomes the only way to actually get physical copies of media. Also matches up with the weird collectors release of WandaVision that comes without the show. Which has actually been happening with gaming for awhile now. Won't be long until it happens everywhere else too. https://thedigitalbits.com/columns/my-two-cents/072523-1400 https://www.mediaplaynews.com/indus...-so-many-disc-releases-the-majority-bootlegs/
Even though I haven't bought much physical media recently, I really hate this. The other day I learned Ubisoft will close your Uplay account (and your access to games you've purchased) if you haven't logged on for a long time.
Ubisoft back tracked, that's not happening now, but for how long? That's one of the advantages of digital media for the corporations. They can pull rights or change whatever they want. I had movies I'd bought disappear on Flixster when it was a thing and it took weeks of arguing before they even offered me alternative to replace them. The French Connection was just edited on all digital services, streaming and "bought". Unless you have physical, or a pirated copy, you're now stuck with the edited version. My google play movies I got in "HD" won't play in HD on TV anymore because Google decided people were using too much bandwidth during Covid and so now only give HD viewing options in phones (unless you play for YouTube premium).
It's a bit of a pain to do and a shame that you may have to do it in the future, but there is software and hardware that will allow you to burn media onto a DVD or Blu-Ray. I've done it in the past with various fan edits. But it is so much easier to order the stuff after it has already been created.
They haven't done physical media releases of TV shows in years, not even shows that air on network or cable TV. IE, the second season of Star Wars Resistance was never released on physical media, and I don't think any 20th Century Fox show has been released on physical media since that studio was bought out by Disney. I guess it was only inevitable movies would eventually have this fate befall them.
...anddddd that's exactly why I never got into the whole "digital copy" craze when it started some years ago. Once it became clear that there was no way I could download my own copy, I refused to pay a cent because I knew this shit would happen eventually. Don't even get me started. Hell, as a kid, I was always confused by Disney's whole "get these movies before they go back into the vault!" bullshit.
This is horrible news. Even if I haven't brought any physical media for a while. I have thought about it when I visit JB Hifi, but that isn't very often. As buying online is easier now. And also on Sanity, they use to be big here. Most of their stores are closed a few years ago.
We've been returning back to the days before VHS/DVD when shows were ephemeral and had potential to never be seen again once they aired. I think it's going to come back eventually on them if it hasn't already when the consumers no longer give a damn either. Why won't they pay $15/month for content we don't care about, spend low effort on, chop up and will vanish at a minute's notice?
Conglomerates gonna conglomerate. One more step on the path of their monopoly of the film industry. Plus, instant massive back catalogue for streaming, more than doubling their ownership of Hulu, getting Marvel rights back...
They've had the Fox back catalog for years. Still waiting on those shows to hit their platform.... The moment that acquisition was announced, I went into mourning. Disney doesn't do much with their own legacy film and television. I knew it would be the death knell for Fox.
That's because you're in the United States, where that catelog is on Hulu, which, via the Fox purchase, is also majority owned by Disney. Outside of the US the Fox catelog is on Disney+
Talk about missing out on $$$ They will change their mind or they will see a HUGE increase in piracy because people should be allowed the option to own TV and films on a disc.
They've already seen a huge increase in piracy, and the pirates are saying the studio's are letting them be. It was the 2nd paragraph and other link in my OP.
Well the way you have it right now, sans physical media, is that if you want to buy a copy from , lets say Amazon, its the digital version.. you still don't own it, you can't down load it to a format that is useful, they can change, edit, or even get rid of it at there leisure, and if you want to get rid of Amazon, or they toss you for some reason, you can't access your "Bought" movies. Now sometimes when you buy physical media, they give you an option of downloading a digital copy, and that one is generally "Yours"