Ultraviolet Cloud Movie Locker to Shut Down

guest · Jan 31, 2019

Ultraviolet Cloud Movie Locker to Shut Down
January 31, 2019
https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/ultraviolet-shutting-down-1203123898/

Ultraviolet, a cloud movie locker once hailed as Hollywood’s best bet to get consumers hooked on digital movies, is shuttering. The Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem(DECE), the industry consortium that has been tasked with running Ultraviolet, will shut down the service on July 31.

“The marketplace for collecting entertainment content was very small when Ultraviolet started,” she said. “It was siloed into walled gardens at the time.”
Since then, services had become more comprehensive, giving fans of movies and TV shows more options to access and collect their titles.

Ultraviolet currently has more than 30 million users, who collectively store more than 300 million movies and TV shows in their cloud libraries.
However, Disney’s decision to instead develop its own cloud locker service, dubbed Disney Movies Anywhere, long represented a major roadblock for Ultraviolet.
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guest · Jan 31, 2019

How to safeguard your UltraViolet library
Don’t lose your videos
January 31, 2019
https://www.theverge.com/2019/1/31/18205326/how-to-safeguard-your-ultraviolet-library

The UltraViolet digital locker service is going away, but if you currently have a library of videos and TV shows on the service, there’s no need to panic. As long as your account is linked to at least one retailer, your library should be safe.

We say “should be” because, as this is being written, it looks like UltraViolet hasn’t quite finalized all the details yet. Currently, if you live in the US and are linked to at least one of five retailers — Fandango Now, Kaleidescape, Paramount, Verizon FiOS, or Vudu — then you will still have full access to your library after UltraViolet shuts down on July 31st.

There may still be issues, though. According to its FAQ, “Most, and perhaps all, existing rights in UltraViolet Libraries currently available through your linked retailers that are still operating should continue to be available from those retailers.”
In other words, whether you will still have access to all of the titles in your library could depend on how the copyrights have been handled.
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guest · Feb 3, 2019

Hollywood's Kinder, Gentler DRM Didn't Even Last A Decade... And Is Still Screwing Over Movie Fans
February 1, 2019
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/2...ecade-is-still-screwing-over-movie-fans.shtml

Stop me if you've heard this one before: the legacy entertainment industry embraces a "new" DRM that it insists will change everything, and everyone will love it. And then, because of various reasons, they kill it off and people get screwed.

[...] buying into DRM means that you are relying on a company to continue to let you have access to the content you legally purchased a license to, and there's no requirement that they have to continue giving you access.
However, as the article above notes, Movies Anywhere is a bit of false advertising, as it's only available in the US. People outside the US are... pretty much screwed as of right now.

Punishing the people who actually want to pay and want to support you seems like a really dumb way to run a business -- but here we are.
This is yet another reason why some people who would otherwise want to pay end up pirating works anyway: they don't have to deal with this [**] because they're not reliant on big, dumb studios deciding to keep DRM servers up for more than a decade.
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guest · Jun 21, 2019

Ultraviolet and Flixster shutdowns leave digital movie libraries in peril
June 21, 2019
https://www.theinquirer.net/inquire...er-shutdowns-leave-digital-libraries-in-peril

British movie watchers could be in for a nasty shock next month, when the Ultraviolet programme, created as a joint venture between movie studios and retailers shuts down.

In the USA, the service has been replaced by Movies Anywhere, another joint venture that also boasts the likes of Google Play and Disney who hadn't been allied to Ultraviolet.
But in the UK, there's a problem. The only two services that Ultraviolet customers can migrate their libraries to are Flixster and Kaleidescape, the latter being only available to corporate customers such as hotels and cruise ships.

But Flixster, too, is closing in October leaving no direct migration path for UK customers. Flixster, for its part, has already confirmed that it plans to migrate purchases from Flixster, where available, to Google Play, but that won't please the majority of customers who don't currently use it.
So what can UK movie-goers actually do to save their libraries? Well, it's a bit fiddly. [...]
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guest · Jul 28, 2019

Reminder: UltraViolet shuts down July 31st, so safeguard your digital movies now
Now’s the time to get on board with Vudu if you haven’t already
July 28, 2019
https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/28/8934044/ultraviolet-digital-video-locker-shutdown-july-31-warning

UltraViolet, Hollywood’s original attempt at a cross-platform digital movie locker service, is shutting down this week on July 31st. If you’ve redeemed your fair share of codes that came with Blu-rays or DVDs through the years, you’ll definitely want to make sure you’ve linked your UltraViolet collection to another retailer so you can continue accessing and streaming those titles after the service goes offline.

There is a chance that some movies or TV shows might vanish from your collection once UltraViolet goes dark. Such is the risk of never truly owning your digital content, and a shutdown FAQ acknowledges this possibility. But I don’t think it’ll be something most of us have to deal with.
One last piece of advice: don’t manually unlink or close your UltraViolet account prior to the 31st, as “UltraViolet and retailers will be working together to maximize your continued access to movies and TV shows,” and doing so might throw a wrench into that process.
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