Today, Blockbuster announced that they have purchased Movielink, an online movie rental & download service. With the fierce competition offered by Netflix, this move was something that was the subject of much speculation earlier this year. Although Movielink’s prices were decent – $1.99 for a rental or $8.99 for keeps – the service never really caught on with consumers, most likely due to the heavy amount of DRM used. The DRM isn’t surprising, since Movielink needed a way to make deals with major studios, notorious for their fear of piracy (you wouldn’t steal a car, would you?). Those deals paid off, though – Movielink ended up with the rights to more than 3,000 titles, making them the web’s largest digital movie library. However, in a strange contradiction to all the DRM, the company had announced a year ago that they were working on a plan that would allow people to copy films to DVDs that would play in conventional DVD players. There’s no telling whether or not that feature will become available now. Blockbuster has only stated that their intention is to eventually offer the Movielink download service via their website.
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