Unhappy with UltraViolet? Flixster Suggests iTunes
UltraViolet, Hollywood’s fledgling digital movie locker service, launched a little over month ago, and it wasn’t long before the negative reviews started rolling in. Warner Bros. is UltraViolet’s biggest proponent and the Warner Bros. owned Flixster is the only outlet for UltraViolet content. Warner Bros. and Flixster need a hit to make UltraViolet a success and start turning the tide of negative press and word of mouth and they were hoping that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 would be that hit. Evidently things aren’t going so well because Flixster is reportedly issuing unhappy UltraViolet customers an iTunes code for a free download of the last Harry Potter flick.
Aspointed out by BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield, Flixster has begun issuing iTunes coupon codes to users who issue complaints atsupport.ultraviolet.flixster.com. Multiple reviewers claim to havegotten access to the iTunes version of theHarry Potterfilm, and Greenfield even got Flixster to comp him a copy without providing an actual UltraViolet code to prove he had purchased the film.
UltraViolet has been years in the making, and no one should be surprised that such an ambitious service offering might have some rough edges, but there is a definite whiff of desperation in this news. UltraViolet was supposed to counterbalance iTunes’s growing influence in the digital movie sales market, not provide further evidence of how easy Apple’s service is to use.