As significant problems start to occur surrounding streaming services, physical media has made an increasingly important comeback.
Physical media refers to items like DVDs, CDs and records that are digital storage for media such as movies and TV shows. According to an article from Stat Significant, “in the first half of 2023 physical media sales in the U.S. decreased to $754 million, down from $1.05 billion during the same period in 2022” yet sales have been up “almost 6% in the third quarter of 2023 compared to 2022 and up 20% year over year at the end of 2022”.
One of the reasons for this recent surge of physical media is because of the phenomenon of lost media. A new concept cultivated by the internet, lost media can be described as, “Media which is lost to the general public, that is media was intended to be viewable or at some point was viewable to the public, but no longer is.”
In regards to streaming services like Netflix and HBO Max, many shows and movies including original content have been removed and have left consumers unable to access specific content digitally from any platform on the Internet. Tax write-offs, low viewership and refusal to pay residuals are all reasons streaming services remove content from their platform.
Unfortunately, by removing media streaming services they are taking away the exposure, time, effort and money that people spent years of their lives working on. Creating lost media to cut corners is an incredible disservice to cast and crew members who will never see their work interact with the world.
The problem of lost media also goes hand in hand with the recent discourse with PlayStation. In 2023, a Forbes article written by John Archer came out about the famous gaming brand announcing that customers will no longer be able to “watch any or previously purchased Discovery content and the content will be removed from the digital library”.
Essentially, even though the customer bought the rights to the media they were reminded that a streaming service could revoke their ownership. Once again, consumers are faced with the notion that “buying” something digital does not make it officially yours.
Depending on the terms and conditions or the license that they own, companies can rip away your right to own digital content. Piracy has become an increasing issue as a result to these changes.
“Film piracy increased by 38.6%, and visits to piracy websites for TV content grew by 8.8% in 2022 when compared with 2021” said one article by Muso magazine.
An increase in piracy is not only because people are impatient to wait for a particular movie or show to release, but it ties in with other problems that consumers face such as being unable to share passwords and paying high prices for streaming services.
The lack of accessibility will continue to negatively impact the revenue of everyone involved in filmmaking, independent films from being produced, the economy of the industry and the overall quality of future projects.
The potential to rediscover lost media in physical editions presents a positive alternative for people who value media accessibility. The importance of physical media is an opinion shared by many others on the internet.
“More importantly, physical media would keep artists’ works where they should be: out in the open, where they can be easily accessed and purchased by anyone, and where they can keep their creators financially stable” one blog writer named Chris said.
DVDs offer special features that consumers won’t find on streaming services such as interviews, behind-the-scenes and humorous side stories of your favorite characters. Physical media creates the same at-home experience streaming services have and can even eventually be something worth passing down to future generations.
Having physical media is a great way for people to own their favorite movies and TV shows without the stress of having a company take it away from them.
