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Google Video Store Shutting Down
babbling writes "Google is going to close the Google Video Store, leaving users who bought videos that used Digital Restrictions Management without their purchases. The users of Google Video Store will be compensated with Google Checkout credit, but it seems they will be out of luck if they don't happen to be Google Checkout users."
"Do no business"
Yet another example of where DRM harms the consumer. This has happened now with Microsoft and their music service among other examples and now Google with their video service. Once companies (and governments) stop thinking of all their customers and citizens as criminals, we might start getting somewhere. This is not about business protection, it is about providing services that protect and enrich peoples lives that are being selected voluntarily. You (companies and governments) do not have a *right* to me as a customer or a citizen, but you exist at the customers or citizens pleasure. Once we manage to get that concept across, garbage like DRM will go away.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Oh wait, it's not. And, I doubt someone that used Google Video Store would have a huge objection to using it. Did anyone actually use Google Video Store anyway?
leaving users who bought videos that used Digital Restrictions Management without their purchases
That'll teach them to never buy non-pirated videos in the future!
Virtual Betting on Facebook for non-geeks.
... from buying services (a gift certificate or classes or something) from a brick-and-mortar store that then closes? This happens all the time. We arrived to arrange our first cooking classes at a store around here to find bulldozers disassembling the place. It was a bummer, but there wasn't anything we could do about it (and I expect the owners of the place would have preferred to be profitable enough to stay afloat and honor our gift certificate). I just don't think there should be any special expectation that because something is digital and/or a subsidiary of a larger, healthier company that it exist forever.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
In an announcement today, Linus said that he is closing down the Linux kernel.
Any users who are currently running this kernel are to reformat their machines.
Linus said the DRM* built into the kernel will ensure this occurs.
*DRM is based upon the honour system, operators are forced to stop using it.
liqbase
It's not like they really promoted it or anything
From day one it seemed like some form of filler and not some serious venture.
perpetually dwelling in the -1 pits
If you happen to read TFA, you will notice that there is no mention of DRM.
Simply because this is not a DRM issue. This service offered to WATCH video on demand, not download it.
Once the service stops, there is no way to continue watching information you don't have (you might call that the ultimate DRM...)
In the end, it's about people who have been drawn to an service which cannot guarantee them what hey might think it does. It is not a DRM issue, it's a "customer thinking before he buys" issue. Google has every right to close its store and people should have thought about that.
Now, the fact that Google will provide refunds only through Google Checkout, now that seems pretty unfair to me.
That's not a nick, that's my NAME.
Buy DRM locked music from Microsoft? Surely there is no possible risk. They even labelled it "PlaysForSure", so I know I'll still have access to it in a few years. Oops, you old music doesn't work on the new media player, and your new music doesn't work on your old media player.
Buy DRM locked movies in the form of silver access to DIVX disks? A giant chain like Circuit City won't screw you. Unless they decided it's no longer profitable and take your access away.
Love your EV1 electric car and would happily pay to own it? Too bad, the manufacturer wants it back and would rather destroy the car than sell it to you.
Buy video to watch online through Google? Google's a good company with a long view, there is no risk there. Oops, again.
This is why a world where you don't own anything is a bad idea. The people leasing or licensing the access to you can and will take it away from you. It's alright to agree upon fixed terms up front (I'm only guaranteed my apartment for a year; I'm only guaranteed access to a given NetFlix video stream for a day or two), but when I decide I want access forever, it damn well better be forever.
Search 2010 Gen Con events
Google had a video store? This is news to me!
As for closing shop and having to refund all the customers, that wasn't such a bright move on Squirrelboy's part. Of course, using DRM in the first place wasn't so bright.
The game.
For years, us geeks on /. have been very wary of DRM. Mainly because many implementations depend on being able to regularly phone home - and if "home" ceases to exist (or, for that matter, continues to exist but decides it's not taking any more calls, as in this case), all the media you've paid good money for essentially evaporates.
But as long as that's a theoretical problem, one that's never been known to happen - it's one which won't get taken seriously by the masses who actually buy this stuff. Now, however, there's a concrete example. "Do not buy this, all your music and video can suddenly stop working for no immediately apparent reason and you won't have any comeback whatsoever".
On a side note, I wonder how long I'd last in the real world if I sold physical products which could, if I so desired, evaporate overnight with no prior warning and the purchaser having done nothing wrong? And then I started making them evaporate?
Movies (and music, and software) are traditionally considered products, not services. Nowadays there are plenty of folks willing to sell you subscriptions to these things, but Google gave the option to buy these videos outright, with no time limitations. And the customers would have been able to watch them indefinitely, or resell them, or loan them to friends, except for the artificial restrictions of the DRM. That's the main problem with DRM: it limits the concept of "ownership" to be whatever the seller chooses, even if that's more restrictive than what the law allows. Apple's changed the rules on FairPlay before, so not are they limiting your rights, they're doing it after the fact.
I'm very encouraged that things seem to be turning around, though. Five years ago, I'd have never guessed major labels would be selling unprotected tracks.
The Google Video store was nothing more than a cheap attempt to boost the stock price by creating press releases that made it sound like they had created something that was the best of you tube and iTunes store blended together.
It was never really any good, and no one other than CNBC anchors ever thought it was for real.
It does look like Google provided this more as an online service, albeit an indefinite one. So your analogy is apt. Though only providing refunds as store credit is a little skeezy.
I hate pirating as a way to get entertainment, not for some ephemeral moral reasons, but simply because it is a pain in the ass. Bittorrent takes forever (maybe that isn't true for everybody but my ISP shapes traffic), IRC and USENET are unreliable and ususally have queues. Quality is sometimes good sometimes not, you never know. If your tastes are the least bit eclectic or outdated, you can forget about finding what you want easily. Pirating entertainment just sucks. It sucks less than going to the store to get your entertainment, but it still sucks.
I would love to pay money (even at the current going rates for CDs and DVDs minus a couple bucks since I have to make my own cases and provide my own disks) to download quality files from fast servers. And, low and behold, every time somebody starts something like this, they make it suck more than pirating movies. You get tied to a platform, the store closes out from under you, you have to run an interface that shows you ads just so that you can play your music, movie, whatever.
How hard is it to make an interface that sucketh not? Their content is already on thepiratebay, so its not like offering video and music for download is going to increase piracy. They should at least offer a viable alternative for those of us who would rather pay (and I bet there are many of us).
weirdest thing I ever saw: scientology advertising on slashdot.
The users of Google Video Store will be compensated with Google Checkout credit
Wow, with all the users of that service, that must have set them back for at least 20 dollars!
The problem is when customers and citizens fail to realize that they are ALL consumers... citizens are consumers of government services, the same way customers are consumers of company services. Since both of those groups rarely insist on being informed consumers or better yet, SELF RELIANT, they end up at the mercy of their service providers.
DRM is merely the latest in a monopoly non free market that has been prevalent since government got created and got involved in regulating the market. Until the sheep stop being livestock and assert their own right to exist and make informed decisions, until the slogan singing stops, there will be little but more of the same. Tyranny never stopped, it merely dropped the eastern iron gauntlet and grabbed the velvet glove... and it hasn't lost a match yet, and once more, we're nearing the game point of the match called "Western Civilization".
" What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler
SAIA
No, really, I had no clue (not that I would have used it). I use Google Video all the time, and am amazed that I didn't notice.
This is precisely why I won't buy video from iTunes.
Unless I can burn it to a standard DVD, I will never buy DRM'd video from anyone!.
I do buy music from iTunes since they openly allow you to burn it to disc, therefore making it usable even if I run out of "authorized computers" or Apple decides to deprecate their DRM.
I'm in the process of looking at eMusic too, but they won't show you their whole catalog unless you sign up (ie. give them a credit card number) for their free trial. I'm guessing their catalog is, uh, limited since they don't want you to see it before you sign up.
$7.95/mo, 200 GB disk, 2TBxfer, MySQL, PHP, RoR.
If you don't like the idea of rentals, don't sign any contracts to obtain limited use of somebody else's stuff in exchange for money. They might default.
You might also be disappointed by defaults as they apply to any other contract:
loans
service and support agreements
marriage (divorce)
It's a disappointing world when partners can terminate a contract they no longer want to fulfill. The problem isn't DRM, that's just leverage in a specific kind of agreement. DRM is only as trustworthy as the entity offering it. If you don't trust anyone, you can't trust anyone.
So stock food inside a compound you own, not rent; better yet, grow your own food. Dig your own well and generate your own power. Then all you'll have to fear is the gov'ment coming for taxes. But you won't stuffer the anguish of losing your online movie rentals from a company you thought you could trust, nor are you likely to get married to someone who might leave you.
It is a lonely life however.
--
Universal vs Apple in the iTunes Store Contracts
When reports surfaced that Universal Music Group, the world's largest music label, refused to resign its existing deal with Apple's iTunes Store, there were private schadenfreude celebrations held in many closets.
It's one thing if a rental store closes down and everyone has to return their rentals.
Actually, with brick-and-mortar rental places renting out physical media, you may have the chance to buy some of the media while it's shutting down, since they need to raise money and dump assets. I did it once, back when VHS tapes for sale were rare.
It's another thing if the rental store closes and, thanks to the terms of service, you didn't realize what you have isn't yours. If this happens in the physical world, expect a collection agency to call...
Seriously, some of the "rental" videos Google was selling were sold this way: for one payment, a customer could watch a video "forever" on the Google website. Quite a few customers interpreted this as meaning they had actually bought, not just the right to watch the video, but a "copy" of the video itself.
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
Yes, eMusic's stock is somewhat limited. Since they have no DRM and low low prices (not counting their access fee), they only have contracts with indie labels. This means that most of the hot hits popular among the masses aren't going to be there.
On the bright side, I hear rumors that Sir Paul McCartney's latest album, Memory Almost Full, is on that site. Now, where's Hear Music on the riaaradar? [grin]
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
My girlfriend stopped giving me access.
If only I had owned her...
This incident shows the pitfalls of DRM, but Google didn't HAVE to do this.
When Microsoft shutdown their MSN Music Store (the music store portion of http://music.msn.com/ ), they kept the DRM servers in place so users that had purchased music from there could still obtain DRM licenses for the music as needed (for example, when moving the music to a new computer). Google has *plenty* of money and ability to do the same. This is a BS move by Google.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
I could be wrong here, but I think that may have more to do with crappy website design than actively preventing you from looking at their selection. Try using Google searches with site:emusic.com to turn up the normal pages instead of the "SIGN UP NOW LOLZ" pages. Although, they may have changed that more recently. I'm a happily paying customer of eMusic now, so I haven't tried it lately...
That said, their selection largely amounts to 1) Classical 2) Assorted ethnic and non-English stuff 3) Non-RIAA indie labels. I'm currently listening to some Pixies and White Stripes music I got from eMusic. Anyhow, if any of those three types appeal to you, I encourage you to sign up; it's certainly worth it. If you want popular music, stick with more mainstream online music stores, like, er, BitTorrent. ;)
Google Checkout is the conduit to the Devil's soul.
This is why a world where you don't own anything is a bad idea.
Sadly, in todays world even owning it means nothing. Eminent domain laws guarantee others the right to take your property to do other things with it, like build a large condo complex for low income families or build a road. When this type of thing starts happening on a wide scale, nobody will want to own anything, because of fear from having it taken away. In that case it will make more sense just to rent. Or, to take whatever the government is going to provide. I'll just live in my government housing watching government provided digital media. Sounds good, yeah?
Only for you. For the people who do own everything, it's a great idea - feudalism was stable for centuries.
hear, hear.. I absolutely positivitly hates that they expect me to return the car I've rented.
Google had a music store? That's news. I didn't even know that and already they're shutting it down. Must be a political decision. Surely Google had the technical ability to make their online music store presence known to the average web surfer. So, what's the underlying story here?
You're mistaken about not being able to see the catalog:
http://www.emusic.com/browse/all.html
As far as availability of popular stuff, it's true you don't get stuff from the big 4, but there's plenty of popular music not put out by them (Matador and Merge are fairly substantial labels and on eMusic). What have I gotten from them recently?
- Paul McCartney/Memory Almost Full
- The Arcade Fire/Neon Bible and Funeral
- Spoon/Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga and Gimme Fiction
- The Decemberists/Picaresque and Her Majesty
- Cat Power/The Greatest and You Are Free
- Camera Obscura/Let's Get Out Of This Country
- The National/Boxer
- Stars/In Our Bedroom and Do You Trust Your Friends
- Interpol/Antics and Turn Out The Bright Lights
- Neko Case/Fox Confessor
- Of Montreal/Hissing Fauna and Satanic Panic
- New Pornographers/Twin Cinema and Electric Version
These aren't for the most part Top 40 acts, but ain't complete unknowns either.
the start of the Big Bubble Burst? (panicking)
I have bought a few videos with google and got the "You are not getting a refund, you are getting store credit at these OTHER stores" message. How is it that I can purchase a video from them, and then I find out I can not have the video and I can not get a refund - only store credit.
Forget that - American Express will refund my money and I hope everyone who 'lost video access' from this does the same thing. Google is a big company but credit card issuers will refuse to do business with places who have a higher than k% chargeback rate.. and come on - how many people besides google video users are actually PAYING google.
...just fire up Snapz Pro on your OSX machine, play the videos and use Snapz to capture the video and audio as a QuickTime movie...
What?
That Google thing was Windows only, you say?
Never mind.
Guaranteed! This comment 100% Anthrax free!
The eMusic catalog is heavily weighted with independent labels, unsigned artists, works on which the copyright has expired, but they have a surprisingly large amount of music that I never would have expected to be there. Since I don't care too much about whether I'm listening to music that everyone else is listening to, eMusic is great.
The downside is that their website is occasionally flakey, and while it's heavily targeting IE it can be flakey even on IE on Windows. Their credit card processing is likewise flakey. Don't leave a lot of unused downloads in your account.
Yeah, right. And when GemStar decided to go out of the eBook business, they kept their DRM servers in place... for about a year. Then they shut them down.
The natural lifespan of a book is well over a century. The natural lifespan of a vinyl LP is at least half a century, and equipment for playing one (and digitizing one) is still readily available. Then natural lifespan of a CD gives every indication of being equally long.
The natural lifespan of anything with DRM seems to be a couple of years.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
On a side note, I wonder how long I'd last in the real world if I sold physical products which could, if I so desired, evaporate overnight with no prior warning and the purchaser having done nothing wrong? And then I started making them evaporate?
Ask people who bought Omnisky internet access for their PDAs.
Well, I guess the Omnisky receiver hasn't evaporated, but it might as well have for all te good it does.
Now, just wait until companies start shipping devices with Vista-only drivers.
Because, don't forget, Vista can evaporate just like that.
... or insightful, or something, so long as it's up.
It comes as no surprise to me that companies with monopolies (Microsoft, MAFIAA) also equate citizen with consumer.
They try to get away with things like DRM because they figure everyone has to buy their stuff.
...Google had a video store?
Not to troll, but just to say, maybe they didn't do a good enough job of letting people know it was even there.
I cheerfully accept the rich second-hand markets of all colors and the on-line stores. But you do realize that scanning for illusive copies of whatever won't do much good? If the work doesn't exist, you're never gonna find it.
I think what you're looking for are elusive copies of whatever.
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
What most people here are missing is that the credit amount you get is MORE than you ever spent on google video. I spent around 8 bucks on GV and I'm getting a 15 dollar credit. A coworker only bought 1 $2.00 video and is getting a $5.00 credit. Sure, it's on google checkout, but hey - profit is profit.
But you knew that already, didn't you?
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
>>The EU has laws requiring the owners of a closed down business to continue to provide support for several years
Can you please provide a citation for that?
Or did you just pull that 'fact' out of your ass?
Insightful?
... to demonstrate to people the evils of DRM. Think about how many people are pissed off now.
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
My law firm is investigating Google Video and the fairness of the "rebates" that Google has offered its customers. If you made purchases from Google Video and would like to discuss your experiences with us, please e-mail me at tciarlone@lawssb.com or call me at (212) 239-4340.
Thomas G. Ciarlone, Jr., Esq.
Shalov Stone Bonner & Rocco LLP
http://www.lawssb.com/
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