The death of physical media might take cancel culture to a whole new level!

Are there favorite movies you just love to watch over and over again? A TV show that’s kind of like comfort food you can always go back to and binge watch? Fans of “Friends” and “The Golden Girls” always talk about how they can always unwind from life’s stresses by going back and watching a good marathon session of back-to-back episodes. For me they’re Sylvester Stallone and Clint Eastwood movies. I think I could put on a one man show theatrical production of every “Rocky” and “Rambo” movie where I would play every role and recite all the dialogue perfectly. From television it has the be “Columbo,” the greatest mystery series ever, in my opinion. But if you rely on streaming services to watch your old favorites rather than purchasing them on physical media like DVDs, Blu Rays, or 4K discs, you better think again about whether or not those films and TV shows will always be available at the push of a button.

 

Now sure, you say, you are familiar with how streaming services rotate shows and movies in and out. But that’s not a problem for you because you purchased digital downloads of your favorite entertainment. You own them. They’re in your account in Netflix or Hulu or Paramount+ or whatever streaming service you’re using. 

 

Well, no so fast! One day you might want to re-watch and old favorite, only to find that it’s gone forever.

 

I was recently interviewed for this Fox Business News story about the rapid movement to replace physical media with streaming and some of the legal details of streaming that many people might not be aware of. These legal details could seriously limit access to media content in the future. 

 

As the article details, retailers have started moving away from selling physical media. Sometime early next year Best Buy will no longer be selling discs. Other retailers might follow suit. So, if the only place you can access films and TV shows—or music for that matter—is a streaming service, you will be left at the whims of when those streamers decide to make the content available. And, more importantly, the article explains, “buying” those movies, TV shows, and music might not offer you unlimited access to your content either. Because when you pay for that content, you are actually paying for a license to play that content on your own devices. Those movies don’t belong to you the same way that your DVD or Blu Ray does. The copyright holder of that content has the right to withdraw that content any time they like. You could one day log into your Netflix or Amazon Prime account, looking to watch one of the favorites you purchased, and find it gone from your digital collection. It is perfectly legal.

 

Or if that favorite old film does not completely disappear, it could suddenly alter. It could become much more politically correct! Remember the recent controversies over the publishers censoring Roald Dahl’s books and several of Ian Fleming’s original James Bond novels? Imagine that happening to old movies and TV shows because they don’t have enough minority characters in them, or because white actors are playing characters of color. Imagine dialogue suddenly changing. Or, given the fast-advancing state of artificial intelligence technology, you might see all of this old content altering into whatever fits current attitudes and fashions. It’s America’s version of China’s cultural revolution under Mao looming over us, where our entire cultural history stands to be wiped away to please the unsilent politically correct fringes who seem to be offended for a living and can’t make it through a day without throwing tantrums about being oppressed by TV shows, commercials, books, or Internet memes.

 

But read the article…and fear for the future.

 

And buy your favorite movies, TV shows, music—and books, for that matter—in physical media if you can.