September 8th, 2006
Amazon’s Unbox Video Download Service May Be Good Enough
Amazon had a choice in creating their Unbox video download service. They could have pleased the small percentage of people who hate DRM and demand cross-platform flexibility by trying to wrestle down the movie studios who demanded strong distribution and rights control. They could have tried to compete with Apple’s forthcoming video download service by offering Mac and iPod compatibility (which Apple would have embraced why exactly?).
Instead, they chose to please the majority of their existing customer base by creating a simple movie download service that has all of the Amazon one-click convenience. Sure it’s locked down by DRM. But so is the iPod, which was successful in part because it made digital music easy for MOST people, even though it didn’t please the small number of feature obsessed gadget buffs and didn’t please the small number of DRM haters.
The tech elite, lead by Mike at Techdirt, have eviscerated Amazon for all of Unbox’s shortcomings. And I agree that the future is the fully open and innovative offering that they think Amazon should have created. But maybe Unbox is the right answer for Amazon for today.
After all, Amazon has a massive installed customer base, many of whom will trust Amazon for their first experiment with download digital movies. And many of them will embrace the convenience and security that makes them loyal to Amazon, even if they aren’t getting as much for their money.
You’re running off on a trip and realize it would be great to have a couple of new movies to watch on your laptop (given that you iPod video screen is so eye-squintingly small). You dash over to Amazon. A couple of clicks and you’re done — you can even buy the movies at work and then download them to your laptop at home.
So you can’t watch the movie again later on your DVD player. So what? Chances are you probably aren’t EVER going to watch the movie again anyway, so it was more like a rental experience in any case.
Amazon may eventually evolve Unbox to where Mike and others think it should be today — in the meantime, people are downloading movies at Unbox and populating Amazon’s purchase history database, which they will use to sell more downloads. And they will learn a lot about digital video purchasing — learning from purchasing patterns is, after all, what they do best.
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I agree with you that this is the first step, but not the last. So, as Michael says, we will have to be able to watch the films in our TV. With or without DRM? It doesn’t matter, but i want to watch the movie on my LCD TV and hear in my Home Cinema; not in my computer. But well, this is the first step, so he hope they will allow more later.
But I disagree in one thing: “and didn’t please the small number of DRM haters”. I don’t think we’re a small number. People who could buy a movie in Unbox now knows what is DRM, and we are talking about people with more computer knowledge that the average. And I underline the ‘now’.
[…] He intentado probarlo ya que ofrecer un capÃtulo gratuito, pero hace falta una dirección de USA, asi que los proxies no son suficientes. [Actualización - 21:00] A pesar de los incovenientes creo que es un buen paso, ya que le proceso de compra o alquiler es bastante sencillo. Pero reitero, es el primer paso, que deben acompañarse de más pasos. (Más reflexiones en Publishing 2.0) […]
… They could have tried to compete with Apple’s forthcoming video download service … which was successful in part because it made digital music easy for MOST people … Visit original post by Scott Karp
I’d never use it. I want to watch movies on my TV. As soon as Apple finally brings out their Airport-Express device that you plug into your TV to give you native access to all the movies on your computer, Amazon will look like a bunch of fools (Apple has this device ready, legalese with studios is all that’s holding it up).
Besides, you should take a gander at the agreement that comes with the Amazon service. From Uninnovate.
According to the license agreement:
* You must install any software patch Amazon releases or you can no longer watch movies you have already purchased. Imagine if you couldn’t watch DVDs anymore unless you agreed to let Sony poke around inside your DVD player anytime it wanted.
* You must agree to let Unbox report what movies you watch back to Amazon without notice.
* If you try to uninstall Amazon’s Unbox player for any reason, Amazon has the right to automatically delete all of your movies without notice to you.
* You have to agree to let Amazon spam your computer with “promotional downloads†that appear unsolicted in your Unbox player. You also have to agree to let Amazon delete these promotional downloads from your computer without notice.
* Amazon can discontinue the Unbox service at any time without liability. What happens to all the movies you bought then?
* Amazon can change the terms of the agreement at any time and you must agree to the changes or you lose the right to continue watching all of the movies you bought.
Still sound like a good deal?
BTW, I should point out that you can purchase a fairly wide range of non-Apple media servers that let you watch video files on your TV that are stored on your computer right now. I assume the Amazon movies can’t be watched in this way, since their DRM lockdown is pretty stringent.
Just a quick note to point out as the first paragraph of this article states “They could have tried to compete with Apple’s forthcoming video download service by offering Mac and iPod compatibility (which Apple would have embraced why exactly?).”
Therein lies the rub doesn’t it? The unbox is not support on Mac products because Mac already had a similar product in mind shortly after Amazon began developing the Unbox and isn’t it a funny coincidence that “gosh” Mac released this only “days” after the Unbox was released…essentially, Unbox is not supported on the Mac because Mac did not “want” it supported because they were developing a competing product…ummm, Duh!
so all you Mac whiners out there…stick to what works best on your Mac…stuff that was developed “by” Mac…Unbox does not work on a Mac for the same reason that Max OS IX does not run on an IBM Compatible system…