I can imagine AT&T wanting it's own streaming service and pulling Warner content. It started with five studios with relatively equal stake. Even Movies Anywhere might be impacted soon with the Disney acquisition of 21st Century Fox. I never did count on these streaming companies not getting hurt by the content owners shifting policy and parent company. What are other’s takes on owning or renting?Īny video content I want to be safe from out-of-business I buy on physical media which usually comes with an iTunes, Vudu or UV code. I currently have a library of purchased movies spread across iTunes, Vudu, and Amazon Prime so we’re talking Apple, Walmart, and Amazon. What happens when the company you bought movies or music from decides to quit or goes out of business? iTunes shows no sign of being doomed (well, the usual suspects say it is) but you never know do you. They should not actually cancel or unlink their UltraViolet accounts before then, as they’d lose their entire movie collection, in that case.While it appears that any movies you own will still be available this just highlights the issue of owning or renting. Users are advised to link their UltraViolet accounts to at least one retailer before that date. The service will shut down on July 31, 2019. This, combined with a shift to streaming and subscription video, didn’t bode well for UltraViolet’s future. Within one app, all the movies you purchased across retailers are centralized. And last year, 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures and Lionsgate stopped distributing new-release movies on UltraViolet.ĭisney’s service - now just called Movies Anywhere and operated with studio partners that include Universal, WB, Sony Pictures and 20th Century Fox - is more popular. And Disney later decided to launch its own cloud locker, Disney Movies Anywhere. With its launch, several studios left UltraViolet for Disney’s service, Variety’s report also noted. While UltraViolet was backed by all the major Hollywood studios, it didn’t have Disney on board. (Besides, if you really wanted your friend to watch one of your Vudu movies, it was just easier to share your login.) People were increasingly more interested in streaming Netflix on their Roku - not buying DVDs, converting them to digital, then loaning them out. Walmart’s Vudu began offering a way for people to selectively share their UltraViolet movies with friends back in 2014, for example.īut that may have already been too little, too late. When the Hollywood and tech execs first came up with the idea, many people at the time thought it was just another “form of DRM” to keep people from sharing their movies - the way that was possible with physical disks.Īfter a few years, however, UltraViolet loosened its grip a bit. The service was not well-received at launch. But arguably, “UltraViolet” never became a household name. Today, UltraViolet claims to have more than 30 million users, who are able to stream more than 300 million movies and shows from their cloud libraries. The shutdown was first reported by Variety. Over time, it’s become less necessary for consumers, as movie marketplaces and subscription services now offer extensive libraries of movies for streaming, rental and purchase - all in digital formats. The service, which allowed consumers to unlock a digital copy of their DVDs and Blu-rays, was something of a transitional step between the age of physical media and today’s streaming video landscape. UltraViolet, an older “cloud movie locker” service, is shutting down.
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