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- demigod, on 10/12/2007, -1/+95Read some stuff of people trying it out on /. and they got the same results. Over priced, invasive player, drmed to all heck, etc...
To me it looks like the MPAA is attempting to make things has difficult as possible to sell online so people wont so they can go to the gov and say "Look! We tried to allow d/ling online but they dont want it! They just want to pirate our stuff! We want more laws!"
This is a really horrible service with heavly DRMed content for really no value. The movies are the same price as a DVD is most cases without the extra's and you cannot play it in your DVD player. - steelmaverick, on 10/12/2007, -12/+75GOGO BitTorrent!
- ngageguy, on 10/12/2007, -2/+45Sorry Amazon, you don't get to install any special software for me to play a movie. You want to DRM it, fine, but if it doesn't play in WMP, then forget it.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+43"allows the MPAA to keep the analog hole closed"
Ironic, since the MPAA is so great at keeping a particular hole very open ... and sore. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+39Correct program name: FairUse4WM
- cmister, on 10/12/2007, -4/+41Tom just doesn't realize that he is under suspicion - probably a thief.
If your not a thief, well you may be one tomorrow, or the day after. Until you're willing to plant that chip in your head that allows the MPAA to keep the analog hole closed, you will always be considered a potential thief/terrorist/pirate. - reddevil3, on 10/12/2007, -2/+29You can use FairPlays4WM to remove the DRM. I tried it on the free $1.99 download they allow and it worked.
- cheez, on 10/12/2007, -2/+29how many times do we have to say this. there is no such thing as usenet
- fascfoo, on 10/12/2007, -6/+32NERD ALERT!!!
- strictnein, on 10/12/2007, -1/+23The point is that we should be able to watch the content we buy using any means we damn well please. Who cares if it's stupid?
- airencracken, on 10/12/2007, -2/+22I don't think so. There will always be people fighting this trend. Myfairtunes is one example.
- ismith, on 10/12/2007, -8/+26Agree with BitTorrent.
BTW, the movies cost millions to make because the actors are overpaid. I seriously don't think an actor should get as much as they do per movie. - Waterrat, on 10/12/2007, -5/+21 What I suspect is this is just a taste of how things will be a few years down the road...
(Or sooner,depending on how DRMed Vista is.)
I see this whole DRM thing as a train wreck in slow motion...And since the consumer has no real power to fight the corp's, in the end, they will win...And they know it.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+15When will these companies realise that they have to stop treating all of their clients as if they are untrustworthy.
Thats all DRM is for, to let big bloated companies treat their users and customers like criminals. Just look at the HDMI crap with the HD dvd standards. Even though they say they won't degrade the quality over component cables, you can bet that this will soon be the case, all it will take is 1 studio to do it, and then the rest will all rush to do the same.
Obtaining free music/TV/movies off bit torrent is different, the downloaders haven't had to pay anything for it, it is in effect worthless/costless to them and so there is no incentive to keep it private, whereas when you buy media from a paid-for service like amazon or apple, you have paid good money and are much less likely to share it freely (even if you could).
I wish that just one company would 'get it', then the others might follow and we could all stop being criminals.
If they don't trust us, they should make these download services available to us in the first place! - macslut, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16My iPod has a large screen monitor attached to it right now in my bedroom. When I take it in my living room there's a widescreen tv. On my boat there is a smaller TV and hotel rooms usually have a mid-sized TV that I can attach my iPod to.
Apple is most likely going to announce movies on iTMS on Tuesday. Have you visited their TV offerings lately? It's totally exploding. In a couple of years every movie that comes out after the theater release will be available via iTMS. In 5 years more movie titles will be available on iTMS than are available on DVD.
Yes, there are HUGE implications for this. - notpip, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14it gets better. the flick _rumor has it_ was $20 on the unbox site... AND $15 ON DVD FROM AMAZON... they've apparently realized that they're complete retardeds and marked the unbox version down to $15, which is completely worth it for a piece of crap like that.
barf. - positron, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13"And since the consumer has no real power to fight the corp's, in the end, they will win."
That is just plain lame defeatism. No power to fight the "corp's" you say? And who is it exactly that the corporations get their money from? Wanna fight corporate power? Stop giving them your freakin' money! - reddevil3, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11My bad. Btw, I tried uninstalling the software and it does ask you to log in first. I had to allow the software net access through my firewall and only then it uninstalled.
- marianosf, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12I downloaded a couple of episodes of CSI and used FairPlays4WM to remove the DRM. It only takes a minute to do so. At the end I got a "friendly" WMV file. No loss in quality whatsoever and I can watch it anywhere I want to.
- Arbitrary, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Unbox Unworks in my case. I was able to get a refund of a rental price from Amazon after I explained that they cannot claim to not allow a return of something they never delivered. I was never able to watch my rental once and after it had downloaded about 1/3 it deleted the file after telling me I had no more licenses.
- krinthekuz, on 09/16/2008, -6/+17dear amazon, and whoever the ***** wants to get into the COMD (commercial online media distribution) business,
i refuse to pay for drm'd files. i can go to torrent networks and get it for free, and you can't stop me (really you cant). until you cut the drm, and make your pricing realistic, ***** off. i'm not paying $20 for even a divx avi where the dvd new is $15, and used is $5. maybe $6 at most, if it's a good movie. get ***** real.
piracy is the consumer's negotiation. - Zuhaib, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11*sigh* You can put me in the same camp as people who cant get this damed amazon un-boxed to work!
Like everyone else, at first i thought it used a simple WMA DRM which i thought ok, not bad But AFTER i bought the movie it turned out i needed to download this downloader/player. Ok whatever, except i am getting an error stating it cant get DRM update. Humm interesting, this is on a Windows Xp x64 system, nothing fancy. And no mater what i do, it wont even run, so i cant even download or watch what i bought. Needless to say, i am going to demand a refund or my credit card company is getting a call to stop this.
I can live with some DRM, when things work. iTunes works great for me, i have yet to run in to a major DRM issue with it, it lets me burn the cd's i want and 5 computer/devices work for me. But the whole 24 hours to watch a video once you start watching it is just stupid, have these guys have not heard of netflix's? Even blockbuster is now giving you a longer rent time! - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+14Not many actors get an insane amount of money for a flick.
- deadbaby, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11Don't blame the actors. There's a lot more to it. Most non-headliners aren't making huge money. The stars are indeed making big bucks but they're a major selling point for movie. A movie with Tom Hanks is going to make more money than a movie with John Doe 99% of the time. The stars make the studio money so they get paid more.
The real reason movies are expensive is the massive complexity of producing a movie. You have the writer(s). director(s), set builders, lighting, sound, travel costs, camera costs, film costs, music license rights, music composers, promotion/advertising, computer graphics, editing, assistants, food, electricity, etc, etc, etc. All this stuff adds up. Watch the credits on a modern film someday -- every person you see is drawing a salary and the typical movie shoot is months, not weeks. On top of all that, if you film in the US you have to pay union wages for everything. - bking, on 10/12/2007, -2/+11This is what happens when companies race to beat others to the punch. I'm guessing that this wasn't slated for release for a while, but Amazon got scared when they learned about the "showtime" event.
"motion-sensing PS3 controller" ring a bell? - alloneword, on 10/12/2007, -6/+15I have a few thoughts on iTunes.
I can't play them on my portable media player, Zen Vision:M.
I can't burn them to DVD.
It highjacks all my settings and takes over file associations.
There still isn't a better option than ripping DVDs, or torrents.
At least Unbox do provide a portable format, and a higher resolution version that is better for watching on a larger screen.
(Watch the Apple fan boys burry this) - Elric1977, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11Windows Only, bleh, they certainly don't make it very clear until you are JUST about to sign up. What company does that these days?
Anyways, if I can't play it on my iPod, what's the point in downloading it, I am certainly not going to sit with my laptop on my lap to watch an entire movie. - franksmith, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9I thought unbox would be some kind of mess like this... but I am glad this article will have kept me from wasting my time in case I got too curious for my own good.
Thanks for posting! - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11good thing no one is forced to use it.
- Lewie, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10"Not many actors get an insane amount of money for a flick."
True. When Brad Pitt or Tom Hanks (both great actors) goes for $20M a film, the rest get squat. No matter how good they are, no one deserves multi-millions a year. A surgeon or scientist deserves that money way more than an actor. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8While I'm all for artists securing their work from being ripped off by spotty little squirts that have no intention of paying for anything in life, this seems too restrictive for me.
At a bare minimum I would need to burn to DVD. No DVD, no dice. - meshgiath, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10This is absolutely PATHETIC. I never use these type of services, but it looks like amazon is either
a) using spyware embedded in their proprietary "player" to send whatever info of yours they want back to amazon.com for whatever monetary gain (names, addresses, etc...)
or
b) they're just slack-assing on getting decent programmers for their new service.
Either way, it's sad and pathetic and I would NOT expect this from amazon. I hope they fix this VERY soon. - siMac, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6"At least MS DRM works with everything else."
Except Macs. - kylebrothert, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7here's my story:
It wouldn't download my show. Now it says that I've used all my license keys. I called amazon, and they were temporarily unable to access my account.. so no help there.
If you're letting customers test an unfinished product for free, that's fine. But TELL THEM first! - Spaceboy492, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I bought an AV cable for my creative zen vision:m, to watch on TVs instead of the 2.5 inch screen. There's also an AV cable for the iPod.
- livestradamus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Not saying that I do but- with moves like these it seems like they want more of us to download, illegally.
- h3xley, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6uh, no.
http://www.rjamorim.com/test/multiformat128/plot18z.png - moisie, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Anyone who uses Gay as a negative is just an idiot. Even if you were to view homosexuality as wrong it's still just a lazy description.
- guytoronto, on 10/12/2007, -13/+17"I chose a Star Trek episode called "The World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky," because it's one of my favorites."
The episode is called "For The World Is Hollow and I Have Touched The Sky" - inkswamp, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Pretty remarkable, assuming this report is typical and accurate. There are one or two companies out there with the power, vision and resources to put up a pretty good fight for Apple's dominance in the new download market and Amazon was one of them. That they have done such an mind-blowingly bad job is almost hard to believe and disappointing. Despite being a very happy Apple customer, I was sort of hoping Amazon would do good with this. Without competition, iTunes stands to become the Microsoft of download services which I don't view as a good thing. I would like to see at least one competitor (not Microsoft, btw) get their footing and give Apple a good run for their money.
Maybe Amazon will examine this closely, be honest with themselves where they have failed and rework it before it's too late. I have a feeling that once Apple gets into this, as with music and TV shows, they are going to own the market. Amazon needs to get this straightened out fast if they want any chance at it. - 1310nm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Agreed, DVD burnability is the killer feature. Lemme do that and maybe we can do business sometime. It's easier to wait on my Blockbuster queued rentals right now.
How many people's wives or girlfriends would honestly put up with watching a movie on a laptop? Mine is quite fickle in that regard. - Kelmon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4By virtue of the fact that you can't burn a downloaded film to DVD and then play it in a standard DVD player, Unbox is a no-no even if I wasn't running a Mac. Besides, at present the infrastructure isn't there to make purchasing/renting films online as digital downloads more convenient than simply buying through mail order or simply visiting your local store. As best as I can see the concept isn't implemented well and is a bit before its time.
- pennyfan87, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Dont worry....we love you too Veronica and Molly.
And of course the newest member of the show, Remy. - dcmjzero, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4""At least MS DRM works with everything else."
Except Macs."
and linux. and anything that isn't windows plays for sure compliant. how again is this different from apple? - pennyfan87, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Yay Tom!!
BOL Forever!! - Shorties, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5I love that program, I wish MS would realise its a uphill battle, them (And the MAFIAA) vs the consumers. A Consumer wants to play the media they legally purchased anywhere they want, no amount of DRMing is going to change that. Maybe instead they should come up with a scheme that tags the media so that if it does end up on some file sharing network it can be linked back to the original person, call it Fair DRM, Doesn't restrict the consumer, doesn't increase P2P problem for the MAFIAA.
- albybum, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4I downloaded the "Serenity" episode of Firefly since they had that 1.99 discount just to try out the service.
I had some trouble logging into the service to download my video, but that is the only problem I have had yet. When I chose to maximize the video, it opened fullscreen in Windows Media Player.
The DRM sucks, but that is the fault of the MPAA and the crappy copyright law, not Amazon. If Amazon didn't agree to the DRM scheme, the studios wouldn't have given them the rights to sell/rent any content.
I would consider buying more tv-show content, but the movies are too expensive for restricted digital downloads. - Trel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3This site is confusing me,
He needs to disable the service. The author is skipping a step. I'm not saying Unbox is good or bad, but when a program installs both a service and a startup object, both need to be disabled to disable it.
I know you want to rip on Amazon's thing and I agree with that, I'm not saying they're good or bad, I'm saying the author is doing what he's trying to do wrong.
Why is this resulting in getting dugg down? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Horrible service. GO GO Apple movie store!
- Hegemony, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4The restrictions are unreasonable. Consumers shouldn't just turn a blind eye to arrogance on this level. Amazon seems to think they can do what ever they want... and lots of people will probably fall for it. Many people don't know enough about computers to know what DRM is. Or that Amazon might delete all their purchased content if they do certain things.
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