Few days after the official launch of Amazon Unbox, the new video download service by Amazon many people give it a try and I saw only negative feedbacks until now ! First the idea is very original allowing to download the latest DVD, VCD and TV programs for really good prices, the problem is the way how Amazon have created the service. Prices are really amazing, you can find movies starting from $1.99, $3.99 to around $15 for the new movies.
Just after purchasing the movie you want, the problems began !
1- You can’t play Unbox movies on your DVD player, there is a special amazon player that you have to download to play the movie, but it’s not just player !!
2- You can’t let your friends borrow your Unbox movies, movies will work only on your computer, you can’t play it anywhere else
3- You must give Amazon total control over your computer, and this is the only reason that i didn’t give it a try. The amazon player is the best spyware i have ever seen, as soon as you install it it make itself autostart with windows and no way to stop it. And even if you remove it from the msconfig and restart it will autostart and try to connect to the internet too !
4- Finally read the license agreement :
- You must agree to let Unbox report what movies you watch back to Amazon without notice.
- If you try to uninstall Amazon’s Unbox player for any reason, Amazon has the right to automatically delete all of your movies without notice to you.
- You have to agree to let Amazon spam your computer with “promotional downloads” that appear unsolicted in your Unbox player. You also have to agree to let Amazon delete these promotional downloads from your computer without notice.
- Amazon can discontinue the Unbox service at any time without liability. What happens to all the movies you bought then?
- Amazon can change the terms of the agreement at any time and you must agree to the changes or you lose the right to continue watching all of the movies you bought.
I’m simply wondering who told them that such service will work, for me this is a 100% failure. I really prefer the Google approach to sell videos online, they sell what they can sell, the player is really great, and the service is based on a community for sharing videos something which could work much better. Until I launch my new service of movies download, you don’t have yet a big choice 
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September 10th, 2006 at 8:32 pm
khalli 3andhom
September 13th, 2006 at 2:53 pm
I didn’t read your post before writing mine:
http://houblog.net/article/1087-unbox
Totaly agree with you Hatem. I didn’t knew about the license agreement, this is crazy!