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Hollywood Studios Join Disney To Launch Movies Anywhere Digital Locker Service (theverge.com)

Posted by msmash on from the 73672th-is-the-charm dept.

There may be a grand unifying service to make accumulating a large digital cinematic library feasible, or so is the hope anyway. From a report: For several years now, Disney has been the only Hollywood studio with a digital movie locker worth using, but a host of other industry heavyweights have now jumped on board to launch an expanded version of the service called Movies Anywhere. It's both a cloud-based digital locker and a one-stop-shop app: customers connect Movies Anywhere to their iTunes, Amazon Video, Google Play, or Vudu accounts, and all of the eligible movies they've purchased through those retailers appear as part of their Movies Anywhere library. Given that the Movies Anywhere app works across a number of platforms, it basically allows them to take their digital film library with them no matter what device or operating system they're using. [...] The launch of Movies Anywhere should be the merciful, final blow that puts an end to UltraViolet, one of the entertainment industry's first attempts at putting together a comprehensive digital locker service. That service flailed due to a poor customer experience and lack of adoption on the part of big digital retailers like Apple. The team behind Movies Anywhere seems to have learned from UltraViolet's mistakes, however, as well as Disney's previous successes.

4 of 48 comments (clear)

  1. I'm not sure... by JohnFen · · Score: 3, Insightful

    make accumulating a large digital cinematic library feasible

    If you don't have the video in your possession, I don't think it counts as "accumulating a library".

    1. Re:I'm not sure... by vanyel · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Even if it's in my possession, if it requires someone else to approve my watching it every time I want to, or it's not playable by standard software so I can be sure that as platforms are updated I'll still be able to watch it, then it's just a rental, not a purchase. No thanks.

  2. What Hollywood really wants... by sehlat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Everything on their servers. Nothing anywhere else.

    Next step after that, buying a law making it illegal to have movies, music, etc. etc. on your own hardware, with government-mandated spyware, sorry, MSFT calls it "telemetry," to make sure the law is enforced.

    And, of course, if the network goes down...

  3. Wow by Utgard-xyz · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Another change to re-buy your collection (and pay a storage fee) so you can get hammered by your cable company for excessive bandwidth fees (provided you in a spot that has enough bandwidth to stream a movie) until they close up shop and you have to re-buy your collection again when you move to the next service.