In the second half of August, PlayStation accounts started receiving an email titled "PlayStation Terms – Copy for your records." It was not the usual one-line "we've updated something, click here" notice. Sony pasted the full text of four documents into the message: Terms of Service, Code of Conduct, End User License Agreement, and Privacy Policy. People who had not turned a console on in months got it too.
Nothing in those documents was new. That is the part Sony would like you to stop at. The timing is the story. The company had just spent July telling everyone that new PlayStation games stop coming on disc in January 2028, and the week the emails landed a fan blackout protest was trying to make that decision expensive. Dropping the EULA on people in that window is either tone-deaf automation or a lawyer making sure the record shows you were told.
Licensed, not sold
The line that blew up is the one that has sat in the EULA for years. For European accounts it is in section 1.4: "The Software is licensed to you, not sold." You get a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, personal license to play the game on the hardware it was meant for. You cannot rent it, gift the account, or treat the library as property you can hand to someone else.
Store buttons still say Buy. Your brain still says you own it. The contract says you have a permission slip that Sony can condition, suspend, or fold when the account goes away. That gap is exactly why the disc cutoff stung. A Blu-ray in a drawer does not care about section 1.4. A Store tile does.
The 36-month inactivity clock
Buried in the same paperwork is a quieter threat, and it is easy to overstate. In the UK and European Terms of Service, Sony may start closing an account that has not been used for at least 36 months. They say they will email the address on file and give you six months to log in or ask them to keep it open. After that, account closure is described as irreversible. Purchased games, DLC, trophies, and saves tied to that account go with it.
That clause is not in the US terms. It has existed in Europe in some form since the PS3 era — 18 months, then 24, then 36 in 2019. There is no well-documented wave of Sony actually wiping long-dormant libraries. Treat it as a real contractual power that has mostly stayed on the shelf, not as a countdown Sony is running this month.
If you have an old UK or EU account on a dusty PS4, the practical move is boring: log in once. That resets the clock. Do not assume a relative can inherit the library. Digital PlayStation games do not transfer.
What this does to your playtime record
PS Playtime, your PS5 Games tab, and Wrap-Up all read the same PSN activity database. That database is attached to the account, not to a disc, a console, or a receipt in a drawer. If the account is closed, the hours close with it. There is no export, no family-share handoff, no "restore my history on a new PSN ID."
The emails did not change how tracking works. They made the dependency obvious. Your hours only exist for as long as Sony is willing to keep serving that profile. After 2028, when new games have no physical backup, that is the whole library, not just the metadata.
Related: the 2028 end of PlayStation discs and hidden games and privacy.