Sunday, 14 April 2013
While blinkbox is mainly aimed at the digital distribution of movies and TV shows (you can rent or buy digital copies of most of their offerings) I haven't actually paid them any money directly. My only contact with blinkbox has been the checkout at my local Tesco store.
Basically if you buy a supported DVD (one that is also available through blinkbox) in Tesco they give you access to a free digital copy through blinkbox as well. If you use your club card when paying then you will find an e-mail waiting for you when you get home reminding you about the digital copy, otherwise you'll find there is a code on your receipt that gives you access. The first time I came across this was when I picked up a copy of the new Total Recall film (which is actually pretty good, and which explains the title of this post) but I've had the same experience with quite a few other films now as well. I've only tried watching these digital copies on my computer (it even seems to work under Ubuntu although it isn't listed as supported) but blinkbox supports a whole range of devices from computers, to TVs, consoles, and various set-top boxes.
Amazon are doing something similar in the US with CDs which they call AutoRip, where if you buy a supported CD you will instantly get access to an MP3 copy of the CD to listen to while you wait for the physical version to arrive. This sounds like a really useful service which I hope they extend to the UK at some point.
While I think both services are a great idea I can see one small wrinkle; copyright law. Both services are essentially providing you with a digital copy when you buy a physical copy, not purely to make your life easier, but to move people away from performing format shifting themselves. The digital copies these services provided can't be easily shared (either they use DRM to lock them to your account or watermarking to make them easily traceable) and the hope is that if they provide the flexibility of a digital copy you won't need to create and share an untraceable copy. That is all well and good, but what about if you buy a DVD from Tesco (or a CD from Amazon) as a gift? If you give away the physical copy do you still have the legal right to watch the digital copy? I would assume that you don't although I can't find any details in the terms and conditions. Usually the assumption is that you can format shift for personal use, but if you get rid of the original copy then you must get rid of the copies you made as well (i.e. you can't rip your CDs to MP3 files and then sell the CDs while keeping the copies). I would assume the same legal restrictions would apply to blinkbox and AutoRip. One day copyright law might catch up with the modern world and answer such questions.
I'm losing track of copyright law in the UK but here in NZ there is no dubiety. It is unlawful to copy a CD onto your iPod and presumably mutatis mutandis the same applies to DVDs. Fortunately the law is not enforced.
I believe the situation in the UK is the same (illegal but not enforced), although there was a government report last year which suggested making a private copying exemption for format shifting -- not sure how long that will take to actually become law though.
Thanks. I knew there were proposals in the UK but I didn't know what the current situation is. I had read in the music press that the recording companies were very relaxed about the practice.
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