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You don''t think there is some higher plan that Apple and Google (YouTube) that this is part of??? No blood here - this is more calculated than that...

For a second I read "More blood on Apple iPods: Microsoft pulls plug on the Zune". I'm a little early I know ...

"I am in blood
Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er."
Macbeth, (3.4.136) - William Shakespeare

Google created a service and it failed, hence, blood.

Why your purchased video won't work is what's puzzling to me (is it all web-based?), and that doesn't, or shouldn't, reflect poorly on the subscription/renting model. No big loss if rentals are no more, because hey, if you really wanted it, you always had the option to buy it. But in this case, your purchased video won't even play? Yikes.

"After August 15, 2007, you will no longer be able to view your purchased or rented videos."

Wow. That's scary.

Regardless, it's still essential that iTunes starts a movie rental service. I guess we can feel safe in knowing they won't pull the plug on the iTunes Store in our lifetime.

Whether or not Google and Apple are planning anything, this is still blood because Google's paid video service is shutting down. YouTube is not a paid video service.

More likely, Google's lack of success with this has reinforced its view that it needs to focus on things like gBox instead, and record revenue from advertising rather than from a product sale.

Google saw the writing on the wall and pulled the plug.

Microsoft management, I use the term management very loosely, cannot read. They've been losing billions on Xbox for years and still think it's a viable business. They won't stop the zune foolishness any time soon. At least they are spreading their obscene Windows and Office profits around.

Well, I have the same problem with iTunes in that I have purchased content on my home computer that is no longer online. I can't listen to the tracks because iTunes can't validate my computer because I'm not online!!

Anyone have any suggestion?!

"Microsoft management, I use the term management very loosely..."

That's okay... Microsoft uses the term management very loosely too.

Erm... isn't this more likely because Google wants to focus more effort on YouTube, which it bought, rather than split resources on a competing product that does not have the same number of viewers? Just a guess....

MDN hinted at the main point of this story: DRM. The whole article points out the facts about what can happen when the DRM is involved. However, the article fails to mention that rented/subscription model is the one that is most affected by this.

I do not believe that the current model for the iPod/iTunes is affected.

Let this be a caution to anyone buying DRM'ed content or content tied to a specific player (e.g. iTunes). You will forever be at the mercy of the owner of that technology. This should be a warning to everyone that international standards (e.g. MPEG-4) and non-DRM is the way to go.

If no one buys DRM'ed content, believe me, they'll get the message.

For me, I'll just buy Blu-Ray disks from the lowest bidder. Even then, my media probably has a maximum lifespan of 20 years. (I can always rip to another media, but at some point it will be considered too low quality and need to be replace.)

Loki, I wasn't aware that a given computer needed to be continually validated. Get your machine on-line somewhere -- take it to a friend's house, or arrange a dial-up. After that, burn your purchases to audio CD. iTunes is set up for that.

Hopefully this portends a move before the Holiday season for Google and Apple to provide, through YouTube, a subscription service that works through iTunes or your iPhone and AppleTV. It would sell a TON of hardware. Here's to dreaming...

hopefully this helps accelerate the death of DRM.

however Google should have fully refunded those who purchased....a "credit" is not acceptable. If there were a lot of people who purchased this could turn into a scandal.

"Why your purchased video won't work is what's puzzling to me (is it all web-based?), and that doesn't, or shouldn't, reflect poorly on the subscription/renting model."

umm, that is the way almost ALL of them work, thus it DOES reflect on all of them.

loki, does this help at all? http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=3820781

@Ioki, I think you just need to validate the computer once, though I haven't tried it myself.

"More blood on Apple iTunes Store’s play button"

So, you're saying that's A positive and we should stick to plasma?

I'm inclined to think that Loki's comment is a fabrication to make a(n invalid) point.

How did you purchase your song(s), Loki, if you weren't online? At the time of purchase of anything from iTunes, you click 'Buy', the file is downloaded and you're good to go. Unless you manually DE-AUTHORISE your computer, it will be allowed to play your DRM-protected AAC files for as long as that computer has the same hard drive and the same OS as when the song(s) were purchased.

You can set up iTunes on any PC/Mac; then go online ONCE and only once; download all the songs you want from iTunes; then go offline and NEVER go online again. Your songs will continue to play on your computer (and all the iPods you connect to it) forever (unless you backup the songs, re-format the hard drive, reinstall OS and restore the songs... then, to the FairPlay DRM it will appear as if it's a different computer and wouldn't play).

To wrap it up, your story is impossible. This is what makes Apple's FairPlay the better DRM than PlayforSure and the new Zune thing from Microsoft. Apple's doesn't need to be online in order to play songs. MS's does.

NO, his story is most certainly NOT "impossible". Installing or re-installing some software and hardware requires a user to re-validate his machine with iTunes. It is VERY possible to be online with your machine and purchase iTunes content, and then have to re-initialize that computer again after hardware or software changes. It just happened to me only 3 weeks ago. Had a motherboard replaced and iTunes wouldn not validate. Had I not had a net connection, I would have been screwed. Like our original poster above.

@loki

If you were able to download the songs from iTunes initially, you must have been online then. What has changed? I had that problem once and all I had to do was deauthorize then reauthorize my computer and all my iTunes-purchased tracks were fine.

Mark

I made the mistake of buying a $9.99 video from Google videos in December 2006. I thought it would let me download the whole thing - but oh no, you get a 4k file which their Player app uses to stream the movie to you. Now that is crappy. No wonder this service has withered to nothing.

The worst thing of all for me is that the movie I bought was never able to play on any of my Macs; I got some sort of error saying 'the video is not available at this time, try again later' or something to that effect. It's just not worth $10 of my time to go chase it down and watch the thing. I still got that message last night when I tried to play it after hearing the service is closing.

BTW, thery offered me $2 in credit. Great.

Amazon next to go down?

Yeah, absolutely, but that diminishes the opportunity for a snarky take and a bunch of teenage fanbois to screech about how Microsoft's next.

You don''t think there is some higher plan that Apple and Google (YouTube) that this is part of??? No blood here - this is more calculated than that...

Of course it is.

This is all about YouTube, iTunes, and leaving MS completely in the dust (again).

anyone else think there might be an announcement tomorrow from Apple regarding an online movie rental service?

considering the apple-google connection lately, this could happen with google's help.

I kind of wonder that, as google is now not delivering the service, if you can file a claim with the credit card company saying the items were not delivered. please give me my money back.

i think YouTube killed Google vid, not Apple. And yes I know YouTube is on the iphone, so is Google maps. They're all in bed together, dosn't matter.

Hopefully, this means that NBA will put games on iTunes Store for downloading.