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Looking into this earlier today, turns out there's a thriving aftermarket niche of sites reselling grey-market Ultraviolet codes. Unlike Steam code resellers t

Looking into this earlier today, turns out there's a thriving aftermarket niche of sites reselling grey-market Ultraviolet codes. Unlike Steam code resellers these aren't primarily sourced from credit card fraud. Instead, collectors purchase Blu-rays for their own use and then resell the digital license, recouping some of their costs. There are also Redbox operators and the like reselling those codes. Anyway, long story short, you can generally purchase an Ultraviolet HD code for a movie you want to watch for approximately the same price as renting it, and you get to keep it forever. I can't vouch for any of these sites personally but there are various communities on Reddit and elsewhere that offer that function. And now with Movies Anywhere, if you link to both Vudu and iTunes, and it's one of the participating studios, you get a license for the 4k HDR movie too. Not too shabby.

ocdtrekkie 9y ago
Arguably, separating the digital copy code from the original disc may be against the terms of use, digital copies are not intended to be sold separately, and are supposed to merely provide the owner of a movie with a secondary medium with which to consume it. Though arguably, they can't stop you from legally reselling your disc, and the code can't be transferred away from the initially redeemed account. And since they can't track the code prior to redemption, they can't do much to stop you from selling a slip of paper or the letters contained on it. Another questionable practice if you haven't heard, is using Vudu's Mobile Disc 2 Digital (MD2D) service via a UPC code generator. Basically, it's intended for you to scan the barcode of movies you own. It location locks to your home address, but it's easily circumvented with a list of UPCs online. This lets you buy any Ultraviolet-supported movies for $2 a pop (and they will transition to Movies Anywhere correctly), but the assumption when they "sold" them to you is that you already owned them. Personally I avoid both techniques because I feel heavy abuse of these unintended methods will lead to a crackdown/worse experience for everyone else.
- hendersoon 9y ago
  So the rabbit hole goes deeper yet! That MD2D service is too unambiguously dubious for my taste. If you're going to so much trouble, why not just pirate the movie in the first place? Reselling digital codes may be contrary to their terms of service, but is legal under first sale doctrine. But that's not what puts it on the side of the angels for me-- the key point there is that every digital code came from an actual physical sale.
  - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    It may be legal to sell the sheet of paper or the code on it, but the service is under no obligation to honor the offer if you aren't in compliance with their terms of use. Should they believe you are buying and selling Ultraviolet codes, they could remove your entire collection and ban you from their service. This is no different from MD2D: In no way is it "illegal" to scan a barcode into a phone app and get a movie, if the app is providing that service and you aren't hacking the app in some way. But it's against the terms of service, and if they know, they could choose to cut you off. In that way, both strategies are on pretty equal grounds. As for "why not just pirate", I would guess one time purchases that cheap may actually save you money on storage, backup, everything's in the cloud, etc. And of course, most pirates have excuses/justifications for their behavior: I've regularly heard "at least they get something, people would pirate it otherwise" used in reference to it.
    - hendersoon 9y ago
      Legally they are on equal grounds. Morally, I find reselling UV codes to be less scummy because each code is associated with an actual sale and cannot be used multiple times. That's just where my personal line is drawn.
- Bedon292 9y ago
  So, I am wondering if using MD2D, now that there is no lock in to VUDU only, is actually a viable service. Especially if you can take a DVD, upgrade it to HD with VUDU ($5), and then get it in 4k from iTunes (assuming that movie now has a 4k). And I mean to use this for movies I actually do own. However, I could see it being abused and locked down though.
  - hendersoon 9y ago
    Yes, if that movie is from a studio that cooperates with Movies Anywhere and it's on iTunes, you'll get a 4k license from iTunes. Everybody thought iTunes Match would be shutdown really quickly too because it was so easily exploitable. That was the service where you could pay $25 and iTunes would essentially replace all your Kazaa/Napster-pirated music with real iTunes licenses. But those fears were never realized, it was not widely exploited and is still available today years later. My feeling is that if you have to pay and the only actual benefit is a legal license, pirates won't do it. Period. Money involved, and they stay away.
    - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
      The general notion seems to be that when you implement a service like this, you know it will be exploited to some amount, but that the amount will be negligible compared to the percent of well-behaved users. The DMA/MA disconnect/reconnect method can actually be used to share movies permanently too, since each title remains on both sides when you disconnect, and a connection shares all your titles across both ways. Say you connect Vudu to MA today, and six months later, you can disconnect them, and use your MA account to share with another Vudu account, and your Vudu account to share with another MA account. Six months after that, each of those can split off and share with others... Add the fact that there's four retailers and this is extremely exponentially gameable. My hope/assumption is that Disney bothered to develop some sort of way to look out for abuse, but they might just be assuming it won't be commonly exploited.
- scarface74 9y ago
  If someone is going to do something that is questionable unethical and more than likely against the terms of service anyway like find UPC codes online, then why not just torrent the movie and put it on Plex server and have more flexibility.

ocdtrekkie 9y ago

Arguably, separating the digital copy code from the original disc may be against the terms of use, digital copies are not intended to be sold separately, and are supposed to merely provide the owner of a movie with a secondary medium with which to consume it. Though arguably, they can't stop you from legally reselling your disc, and the code can't be transferred away from the initially redeemed account. And since they can't track the code prior to redemption, they can't do much to stop you from selling a slip of paper or the letters contained on it. Another questionable practice if you haven't heard, is using Vudu's Mobile Disc 2 Digital (MD2D) service via a UPC code generator. Basically, it's intended for you to scan the barcode of movies you own. It location locks to your home address, but it's easily circumvented with a list of UPCs online. This lets you buy any Ultraviolet-supported movies for $2 a pop (and they will transition to Movies Anywhere correctly), but the assumption when they "sold" them to you is that you already owned them. Personally I avoid both techniques because I feel heavy abuse of these unintended methods will lead to a crackdown/worse experience for everyone else.

hendersoon 9y ago
So the rabbit hole goes deeper yet! That MD2D service is too unambiguously dubious for my taste. If you're going to so much trouble, why not just pirate the movie in the first place? Reselling digital codes may be contrary to their terms of service, but is legal under first sale doctrine. But that's not what puts it on the side of the angels for me-- the key point there is that every digital code came from an actual physical sale.
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  It may be legal to sell the sheet of paper or the code on it, but the service is under no obligation to honor the offer if you aren't in compliance with their terms of use. Should they believe you are buying and selling Ultraviolet codes, they could remove your entire collection and ban you from their service. This is no different from MD2D: In no way is it "illegal" to scan a barcode into a phone app and get a movie, if the app is providing that service and you aren't hacking the app in some way. But it's against the terms of service, and if they know, they could choose to cut you off. In that way, both strategies are on pretty equal grounds. As for "why not just pirate", I would guess one time purchases that cheap may actually save you money on storage, backup, everything's in the cloud, etc. And of course, most pirates have excuses/justifications for their behavior: I've regularly heard "at least they get something, people would pirate it otherwise" used in reference to it.
  - hendersoon 9y ago
    Legally they are on equal grounds. Morally, I find reselling UV codes to be less scummy because each code is associated with an actual sale and cannot be used multiple times. That's just where my personal line is drawn.
Bedon292 9y ago
So, I am wondering if using MD2D, now that there is no lock in to VUDU only, is actually a viable service. Especially if you can take a DVD, upgrade it to HD with VUDU ($5), and then get it in 4k from iTunes (assuming that movie now has a 4k). And I mean to use this for movies I actually do own. However, I could see it being abused and locked down though.
- hendersoon 9y ago
  Yes, if that movie is from a studio that cooperates with Movies Anywhere and it's on iTunes, you'll get a 4k license from iTunes. Everybody thought iTunes Match would be shutdown really quickly too because it was so easily exploitable. That was the service where you could pay $25 and iTunes would essentially replace all your Kazaa/Napster-pirated music with real iTunes licenses. But those fears were never realized, it was not widely exploited and is still available today years later. My feeling is that if you have to pay and the only actual benefit is a legal license, pirates won't do it. Period. Money involved, and they stay away.
  - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    The general notion seems to be that when you implement a service like this, you know it will be exploited to some amount, but that the amount will be negligible compared to the percent of well-behaved users. The DMA/MA disconnect/reconnect method can actually be used to share movies permanently too, since each title remains on both sides when you disconnect, and a connection shares all your titles across both ways. Say you connect Vudu to MA today, and six months later, you can disconnect them, and use your MA account to share with another Vudu account, and your Vudu account to share with another MA account. Six months after that, each of those can split off and share with others... Add the fact that there's four retailers and this is extremely exponentially gameable. My hope/assumption is that Disney bothered to develop some sort of way to look out for abuse, but they might just be assuming it won't be commonly exploited.
scarface74 9y ago
If someone is going to do something that is questionable unethical and more than likely against the terms of service anyway like find UPC codes online, then why not just torrent the movie and put it on Plex server and have more flexibility.