Consumer rights lost in the digital media age are unlikely to come back

July 19, 2026 — 4:30pm

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From books and music to movies and video games, entertainment over the past 20 years has increasingly moved from physical media formats to digital files delivered over the internet.

But while digital distribution is often more convenient, and certainly more popular in 2026, the removal of a physical option is bad news for consumers – and nothing is likely to be done about it.

Earlier this month, Sony announced that it would cease production of PlayStation discs after next year. Video games on its platforms will be available only online after that. Yet as with movies and music, physical game discs are preferred by those who like to maintain a visible collection, who prefer not to be signing up for online accounts and subscriptions, who want to buy or sell used copies, or who worry that non-transferrable ephemeral licences will lock them out of their purchases in the future. Examples of this happening are already fairly frequent.

Last week, an Xbox user in Europe took to social media to complain that he had lost access to his entire digital library of games – which he said had cost him thousands of dollars to buy – after Microsoft effectively deleted his account following a hacker taking control of it. He was advised to start again and told that restoration was impossible, although Microsoft did eventually restore his purchases after the story went viral.

In September, Sony will remove 551 movies from users’ digital libraries, even if they paid full price to buy them, due to its content licensing agreements with distributor StudioCanal. We’ve also seen digital libraries wiped out due to platform mergers, and individual titles removed from purchasers after service or server shutdowns.

It is extremely rare for any of these examples to include an offer of a refund or replacement. Because the purchaser never actually owned anything.

Consumer law falls short

Part of the problem is that many of the benefits we enjoy with physical media – the ability to hold it, sell it, keep it forever – are there purely by........

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