[Infowarrior] - Wal-Mart axes short-lived movie service

[Richard Forno]

...but as we see elsewhere with DRM-crippled products, if the vendor shuts
down, no matter what sort of "graceful exit" they might offer customers you
run the risk of losing 'your' product if it can't reauthorize or validate
itself.   Yet another reason NOT to have DRM.   Great way to voluntarily
screw yourself for the benefit of the clueless and greedy entertainment
industry.

-rf


Wal-Mart axes short-lived movie service

http://www.electronista.com/articles/07/12/27/wal.mart.axes.videos/

Wal-Mart has shut down its fledgling movie service with virtually no
announcement, according to user reports. Visitors to the official site are
greeted with a message that the site has shut down as of December 21st and
redirects users to information about the closure. Videos and other content
remain playable but will still include the copy restrictions of before,
which prevent the videos from transferring to non-purchasing computers but
allow their use on as many as three portable media players that support
guarded Windows Media content. No refunds are available and customers will
have to visit a Wal-Mart store to buy more videos, the retailer warns.

The shutdown comes just 10 months after the opening of the store in February
and is the result of poor sales despite the shop remaining in a beta
(testing) state, Wal-Mart and its content system provider Hewlett-Packard
say. While Wal-Mart is not directly responsible for shutting down the store,
sub-par income for HP has forced an early termination of the backbone behind
the service and left Wal-Mart with little choice, according to a Wal-Mart
spokesperson.

An end to Wal-Mart's store dashes the early hopes of movie studios. The
video download site was the first to sign all major Hollywood production
houses to its catalog, potentially supplying the retail chain with an edge
over Apple's iTunes Store and other services that have unsuccessfully
negotiated licenses for key studios or else are limited to older titles.
Wal-Mart is rumored to have been instrumental in blocking some deals with
Apple to shelter its lucrative physical video sales, which account for a
large portion of all video revenues in the US.

The firm's efforts to sell videos online are winding down just as word has
surfaced that Apple may be opening an iTunes movie rental service that would
enlist at least 20th Century Fox and would likely involve Disney as well,
playing on Apple chief Steve Jobs' membership on the Disney board of
directors. Wal-Mart's store has only allowed purchases since its opening and
may have suffered from this decision as a result.