Vudu’s porn question answered…
When Wal-Mart announced plans to buy Vudu, one of the
questions we posed here at Technotainment was “What’s going to happen to the
porn?”
We’re not pervs. It was a legitimate question. Vudu was the only streaming service to strike deals with major adult entertainment studios to rent and sell digital copies of their films. It was a small part of a relatively small company – but it was a potentially huge foot in the door for companies like Vivid and Digital Playground to get their content into living rooms in widespread fashion.
Turns out they won’t.
Wal-Mart, not surprisingly, is shutting down the “After Dark” section of Vudu – and they’re doing so in the “coming days”. TechCrunch has obtained a copy of the email being sent to adult studios announcing plans to discontinue the service. The move was pretty widely anticipated, given Wal-Mart’s family friendly stance – and its refusal to carry even some music CDs with explicit lyrics.
Vudu and Wal-Mart and asking the porn studios to voluntarily terminate the agreement and keep things amicable. We’ve called the top adult entertainment studios. None of them opted to comment on the relationship.
Oh, and as for customers who have already purchased movies via the service? They’re out of luck, too. They’ll be refunded the money, but won’t be able to access the content. Witness one of the dangers of buying things in the cloud.
Chris Morris reports on the the intersection of Hollywood and technology, as well as the latest must-have consumer technology gadgets.
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That and there is not enough Fabreze on this Earth to de-funk the couch.
Posted by: ed hardy sunglass | 03/16/2010 at 11:55 PM
I have to wonder just how all these services are going to survive cutting out what seems like al legitimate source of revenue. Perhaps it is perfect timing for a start-up to specifically target this with a conspicuous device that is all black with purple LEDs just the way sex shops used to be.
To be honest, you have to figure unless you are Glen Quagmire, that watching porn on the big screen in the living room is probably not going to happen anyway. Living room sex-romps are for singles and newlyweds, not people with coasters and coffee table books infront of picture windows. That and there is not enough Fabreze on this Earth to de-funk the couch.
Posted by: Tim | 03/08/2010 at 07:17 PM