Cory tears into Amazon Unbox license

Cory Doctorow gives Amazon a beat down for the license of their new Amazon Unbox movie download service. Cory’s piece looks spot-on to me.

I imagine the other side of the story will be the “Hollywood made me do it” defense — that movie executives wouldn’t agree to participate without every one of the restrictions in the license. That excuse was barely tolerable to me (though not to Cory) from Apple when the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) launched, but in this case, no one should accept it for a moment (if it is offered as explanation). Apple has clearly proven that a market for downloadable entertainment exists and will benefit Hollywood tremendously if they make it work for people. Amazon should be pushing to offer looser, more customer-friendly terms in order to take business away from Apple, and the story in Hollywood should be, “Silicon Valley made me do it.”