Wal-Mart's lame-o online film service

In this week's Newsweek, Steven Levy takes a look at Wal-Mart's lame online distribution service. Key grafs:

... Those technical difficulties are associated with the ridiculous necessity to play back movies with specialized software, because of digital rights management (DRM) requirements. Though the overall experience is much better in time-tested systems like iTunes, onerous copy-protections rules affect all legal movie downloads. Wal-Mart's rules are especially infuriating: you can watch a movie only on the computer you use to download it. (iTunes allows you five.) An alternative is to buy a version that lets you watch it on certain portable devices, but not iPods. But that means the movie won't look good if you play it on your computer. In contrast, a DVD plays on any computer or television in high quality, and friends and family members can borrow it.

Also, online movies do not include any of the bonus content that routinely comes with DVDs. Burning the file to a DVD is OK for backup, but the disk won't play on a computer or television set. ...

In short, even the entrance of Wal-Mart into the marketplace has not changed the fact that you're better off with the old model than the new. Wal-Mart's Kevin Swint lays this directly at the feet of Hollywood. "The studios set the pricing," he says. As for bonus content, "that's the way the studios provide the content." And, of course, it is the studios who set the rules for copy protection.

I wrote about the Hollywood studios' reticence in embracing their digital destiny in Darknet. And while Swint's point is well-taken, it's not the studios that are responsible for this inexcusable behavior on the part of the Wal-Mart service:

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The current Newsweek also has an observant essay on "Why TV is better than the movies" (if it's online, I can't find it). In passing, the piece spells out why Hollywood is not moving faster to offer digital delivery of its entertainment products:

Hollywood wants to be consumer friendly, but not too friendly, because that arm's length exclusivity is the essence of glamour. And without glamour, what is Hollywood? Yup -- television.