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Wal-Mart Abandons Online Movie Downloads Less Than a Year After Launch

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has closed an online movie download service it launched less than a year ago.

The retreat for Wal-Mart, which accounts for about 40 percent of all DVD sales, follows the company’s 2005 decision to abandoned efforts to build an online DVD rental service. The world’s largest retailer instead turned its rental service over to Netflix Inc.

Wal-Mart still operates a music download service and continues to sell CDs and DVDs at retail stores and over the Internet for shipping by mail.

A message on Wal-Mart’s video download Web site said the store closed Dec. 21. The Web site said customers who already have bought movies could continue to watch them.

In a statement, Wal-Mart spokeswoman Amy Collella said the company closed the store after Hewlett-Packard Co., which provided the software running the site, “made a business decision to discontinue its video download-only merchant store service.”

Wal-Mart did not say whether it would attempt to start the service again using a different company’s software.

Officials with HP did not immediately return a request for comment Friday morning. continue reading…

Aiming to keep its lead in the music retail market, Wal-Mart is launching DRM free MP3 music downloads at Walmart.com for 94 cents per track and $9.22 per album. The uber retailer’s music catalog offers digital tracks from major record labels EMI and Universal. The new MP3 format allows customers to play music on most devices, including the ubiquitous iPod, iPhone and Zune players.

Universal followed EMI in announcing DRM free music to major retailers but bypassed iTunes, which is in third place behind Best Buy’s second in the music retail market line-up. This is a good move for consumers, allowing competition and hopefully provide more options for the digital music buying public.

DRM free allows users the ability to play songs on any device without copyright protection software, which not only limits unauthorized copying of songs, but on which devices the songs can be played as well.

Sorry, Mac, and Linux users, no rollback for you – only Window’s 2000, XP and Vista are supported.

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It’s not the first time, nor the last, that people will find porn on (supposedly) new or recycled consumer electronics. This time it happened to a family in Southside Chicago who purchased Microsoft’s Zune from the local Walmart for their 12 year-old daughter. The daughter, who says the box looked like it had been opened (the charger was missing) discovered that her player contained porn. When confronted, the Walmart store manager initially blamed Microsoft for the pre-load. Later, a Walmart spokesman said they would investigate the matter and provide the couple with a full refund plus a $25 gift card — presumably to pick up a copy of “My Two Daddies” to help the mother explain to her daughter why the “5 men were having sex with each other.” Uh, “join the social” Microsoft?

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