"The Wal-Mart Video Downloads Service closed on 12/21/07," says Wal-Mart's media downloads page. Customers can still play their movies, but only on the PC they used to buy them. Wal-Mart's FAQ says:
Due to licensing restrictions, you cannot copy or transfer the videos you purchased to another PC.
No doubt Wal-Mart is correct in pointing users to the End User License Agreement (EULA). This says clearly that:
The Content that you download will only be playable using the Authorized Personal Computer registered with WALMART.COM, to which the Content has been downloaded, and, if applicable, the Authorized Personal Devices, to which you have transferred such Content, based on the particular rights you have purchased.
It would be nice to think that Wal-Mart's beta service failed because customers noticed this restriction and decided to shop elsewhere (or, more likely, go to BitTorrent). But I suspect there will be plenty of enraged customers who didn't know what they were doing.
According to Reuters: "Wal-Mart shut down the download site after Hewlett Packard Co discontinued the technology that powered it."
HP spokesman Hector Marinez said the company decided to discontinue its video download-only merchant store services because the market for paid video downloads did not perform "as expected."
There is a way out, because FairUse4WM 1.3 will remove the DRM wrapper from WMV files if you already have a valid license (It's not a crack. "FairUse4WM is intended to be used to make fair-use backups only.")
On the other hand, Wal-Mart's customers got exactly what they paid for, and FairUse4WM goes beyond what they paid for. They didn't buy the movies, and they don't own them: they merely own a limited license to play them on one PC.
It would be much better if people just refused to buy DRM-encumbered files in the first place.
