Redbox Revokes Access To All Previously Purchased Content After Bankruptcy

Redbox, the DVD kiosk company, recently went out of business after its parent company Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy earlier this month after a string of financial hardships. However, customers were still able to purchase access to movies and TV shows through their app. But when the company went belly-up, so did access to the content and rewards, leaving customers fuming.

One patron on a Roku forum page commented:

Yup apparently they just decided to screw everyone. I’ve lost probably $10k in movie ownership thinking they wouldn’t do anything like that. That it would be YouTube not Redbox who would do it. The bad part is that I’m sick enough that I wasn’t paying attention.

An angry Redditer also posted: “Anyone else mad about this ??? Time to back charge your debit or credit card for all your recent purchases on the Redbox app!!! I hope they shutdown there card processer due to all of the back charges!!! What about all the people that lost Redbox points!!!

“Goes to show the danger of buying streaming media it can just disappear one day with no refund!! People should demand access to there purchased movies and tv shows that they made on the Redbox app !!! Time to backcharge for all these movies !!! Imagine if everyone did that!!!,” the commentor added.

A former employee at Redbox explained in a detailed post on Reddit what happened and why the company was the financial predicament that it was in.

Tech repairman and right-to-repair advocate Louis Rossman explained in a video how this is yet another example of how consumers are having their products stolen, and the concept of purchasing and owning something is now quickly become a thing of antiquity.

Rossman pointed out how Sony’s PlayStation did something similar at the tail end of 2023, where Sony revoked access to content owned by Discovery. Sony wrote: “due to our content licensing arrangements with content providers, you will no longer be able to watch any of your previously purchased Discovery content and the content will be removed from your video library.” The company provided a huge laundry list of programs that were no longer accessible.

As Rossman pointed out, buried away in PlayStation’s Network Terms of Service and User Agreement is a paragraph that basically says owning and purchasing products does not actually mean the customer owns and purchased the products.

Use of the terms “own,” “ownership”, “purchase,” “sale,” “sold,” “sell,” “rent” or “buy” in this Agreement or in connection with PSN Content does not mean or imply any transfer of ownership of any content, data or software or any intellectual property rights from SIE, its affiliates or its licensors to any user or third party.

PlayStation says

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AUTHOR COMMENTARY

“You’ll own nothing and be happy.”

When companies such as Sony have to put into quotations that you are “buying” a product, it only goes to show that they don’t really think you have the right to something you bought. ‘You don’t own anything, you just lease and rent it, and we can renege on the contract at our discretion.’

I don’t watch Hollywood movies or am a gamer, but we need to recognize the ramifications of these decisions by these companies – that they are making it very clear that whatever you buy is not actually yours.

This is the underbelly of why everything has become digital or requires constant internet and WiFi access. As the old saying goes, ‘you don’t hold, you don’t own it.’ With digital, you don’t hold it, so you never truly have the product or service within your grasp. And companies love all this digital stuff because they can vastly cut their production costs which allows them to widen their profit margins. This is by design.

Gaming Firm Ubisoft Says Quiet Part Out Loud About Future Of Owning Things: Get ‘Comfortable With Not Owning Your Game’

That’s the brave new world we live in. Everything is becoming a subscription, a lease, a layaway, a consignment, a buy now, pay later, full strings attached love affair.

Isaiah 44:22 But this is a people robbed and spoiled; they are all of them snared in holes, and they are hid in prison houses: they are for a prey, and none delivereth; for a spoil, and none saith, Restore. [23] Who among you will give ear to this? who will hearken and hear for the time to come? [24] Who gave Jacob for a spoil, and Israel to the robbers? did not the LORD, he against whom we have sinned? for they would not walk in his ways, neither were they obedient unto his law.

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[7] Who goeth a warfare any time at his own charges? who planteth a vineyard, and eateth not of the fruit thereof? or who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock? [8] Say I these things as a man? or saith not the law the same also? [9] For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? [10] Or saith he it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written: that he that ploweth should plow in hope; and that he that thresheth in hope should be partaker of his hope. (1 Corinthians 9:7-10).

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