Google shuts down pay-per-download movie site
Corporations like Google spend so much time acquiring new assets, companies, and services that it’s not often you hear about a service closure. Hold on to your hats, friends, as today’s that kind of day. Google has announced that they will be shutting down their pay-per-download movie and video site. Google Video, which was intended to be powerful response to iTunes movie and TV show download service, has floundered savagely, relegated to almost instant obscurity since it was launched in January of 2006. As such, it’s not really surprising to learn that it’s going the way of the Dodo. That said, it leaves anyone that has purchased Google Videos in a bit of a tough spot. Effective August 15th, downloads will no longer be viewable. Translation: You’re screwed. The company has graciously offered a $2.00 credit to anyone that has made a purchase. Did you buy $60 worth of videos? Sorry dude. You’ll only get $5.00 of that back, in a 60-day Google Checkout credit no less. Seems like a bit of poor decision on Google’s part to "refund" money in such a limited way. Maybe that new Boeing Business Jet they ordered is using too much jet fuel…
Who didn’t see this coming, and they own one of the biggest free video clips sites on the net. Why pay for it on gVideo when the “sister site” had it for free they should have shut this down earlier.
Google really needed something better to compete with apple.
I really hope that some sort of lawsuit comes out of this, not for the sake of damages, but for future consumer protection. I dont buy DRM’d music or videos from Apple (or anyone else for that matter), but what’s to say that if some other service bites the dust, you won’t be left with a dud?
Even if they didn’t own “gVideo”, there are too many sites that offer content as well as the major studios are now delivering content in all different ways.
Well that’s a dumb thing to do I mean if they refunded $2.00 per video downloaded then it wouldn’t be so bad but that’s just bullshit. Sorry Google but consumers come before your jets.
Hey if you want free, yes the good type of free, videos go here http://www.tv-links.co.uk. It has some of the best tv shows, movies, cartoons, etc. etc. from the U.S. and A, to the U. and the K., to lots of other places in between.
Just another reason why DRM media is a dead end idea. Who would want to pay for content that evaporates if the provider folds. The more consumers learn the folly of this, the quicker DRM can buried as one of the worst ideas in recent history.
Agreed frm sux period
Google is taking over the world.
Way to oversimplify the drm and media delivery problem. No one has any good solutions and I for one think that more ways of delivery are needed. more ways the better, but i dont think drm will simply go away. theft is still theft.
boo hoo. this only futher proves tn the motion picture an recording industries need to change the business model an stop gauge with un justifiable prices ultimatly you can’t stop piracy as long as your gauging for a song
theres this thing called price erosion deal with it
who’s gouging for songs? or mivies for that matter? they cant stop piracy but pirates cant stop organizations protecting intellectual property. drm will not go away but it does need to change.
you tell me your willing to tell me your willing to pay $15-20 for somthing tha costs less than a buck to make?
@MikeyP
Well as a matter of fact DRM is on the decline. Just a few days ago, Universal announced that it will be testing DRM free music. The writing is on the wall, DRM is a failed experiment and only the blind will continue to support it to their demise, I’m afraid.
Also DRM isn’t about theft or piracy, its about making people pay and pay over and over again for the right to use media. Theft was nothing more then a smoke screen.
exacly ifa anything the recorcing indusry are the real theifs
if you ver seen the beakdown of a cd albums pricetag only 14% coes the the artist
5-6% goes to replicatore the rest goes to the record or film label. heck itunes is even worse for the artist. one guy i met is ina aband touring aplle scews em over they have pretty much resorting to selling media off their website.
theft is theft, i agree DRM is not the way to combat it but i’m never going to suggest that people can steal music or movies and its ok.
i’m all for phasing out drm for something better.
if you think its about paying over and over then your not as tech savy as you might think. i’m not a fan of riaa/mpaa tactics but they do have a role to fill, people steal things all the time from p2p and its no different that going into a music store and walking out with tons of cds, no difference.
gal, i really think your an idiot, no one gives your posts and credence as you cannot even spell.
“gal, i really think [hypocrite]your an idiot, no one gives your posts and credence as you cannot even spell.[/hypocrite]“
You guys are missing it.
So nobody has noticed how “chummy” these two major corporations have gotten? They each sit on each other’s boards for crying out loud! It’s a wonder the DOJ isn’t snooping around yet.
Steve Jobs called the Google guys and said “Since we are completely in bed with each other on the downlow, why don’t you turn that off now.” And Google said, “Yes, master. Anything for you Steve.”
aaron your worse than gal with the conspiracy theory. google has very few failures but this would be one, they did this before the you tube purchase thats the reasons not apple.
mikeyp, I’m just saying these two corporations have gotten very chummy lately. Maybe it didn’t have anything to do with their relationship with Apple, but my jury is still out on this one.
Label me all you want, but I’m immediately suspicious of “strategic alliances” like Apple and Google or anybody and anybody else since those type of deals rarely work out well for the consumer.
Anytime two big companies start working so closely together, it should make every consumer start to wonder what’s happening behind closed doors.
google’s site was a flop, easy as that.
as for apple and google,sometimes partnerships can work they are not always to hurt the consumer. Sometimes they are needed to compete against a larger corp. -MS
tv-links has been shut down,and the owner was arrested. Which totally sucks, because it was a great site! Here is a link to a news story about it. http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/11521.cfm