My Code For A Digital Copy Of District 9 Won't Work, Sony Won't Help

Realizing that rampant movie piracy has as much to do with the way consumers want to watch a film with their unwillingness to pay for it, some home video studios include codes to transfer digital copies of the films along with Blu-rays.

Some Sony movies, such as District 9, have digital copies that will play on the PlayStation 3 and PSP, but that’s only if the code works. Aaron’s jumble of letters and numbers was invalid, and he can’t get Sony to cough up a valid code.

He writes:

Back in January of this year I bought a new copy of District 9 on Blu-ray from a local Blockbuster. An almost impossible to remove sticker on the cardboard sleeve told me that it came with a digital download of the movie for PC, Mac, or Playstation.

Fast forward a few months and I have a Playstation 3 and a PSP and I’d like to redeem my digital download. The card with the code says that it’s good until next year. Well right away my included code wont work. I try a couple of times because I’ve probably entered it wrong, but it still wont work. There’s no email address or website on the card so I Google around until I find a support address. Things are looking up at first and they give me a couple of new codes to try and neither work. With each email I offer more information in order to help them help me resolve the issue.

Eventually I give them the UPC code from the box and they tell me that they can’t find this code in their database, despite me being able to Google it. This is the point where they stop responding to my emails all together. I even contacted my local Sony office to see where I could go from there. They forwarded the email back to the US support email who then emailed me. I’m thinking “Great, they’re talking to me again!” But as soon as I respond they fall silent. This was weeks ago and I haven’t heard from them since.

I have to say that I’m very frustrated. Aside from a slight insinuation that I was trying to scam them, I feel like I’ve been left without recourse. They’ve failed to deliver an advertised product that I paid for. And when they feel like they don’t want to deal with me anymore they just ignore me. This is the system I’m supposed to give up my right to format shift for.

I’ve transferred enough digital copies to fill up a 250gb hard drive and have never gotten an invalid code. If you’ve been stuck with a bum code, especially from a Sony movie, how did you manage to fix the problem?

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