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.
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