Official advice has been issues to UltraViolet users – and the language seems just a little bit vague.
Yesterday, the news was revealed that digital film service UltraViolet was closing its virtual doors from July 31st 2019 of this year. You can read more about that here, but in a nutshell, Ultraviolet is the service whereby studios had been giving disc buyers a digital copy of a movie with their physical media.
The service has around 30 million users worldwide.
> Please support our print film magazine. Subscribe to Film Stories and get back issues here. <
Later on yesterday, an email was sent to said users, and it highlighted the growing fear many have with regards streaming and digital movie services: that access to your films can be taken away.
Here’s the key passage from that email:
After the shutdown date
- Your UltraViolet Library will automatically close and, in the majority of cases, your movies and TV shows will remain accessible at previously-linked retailers.
- You can continue to make online purchases and redeem codes, but these may only be available through that retailer, and will not be added to your UltraViolet Library.
There you have it: “in the majority of cases”.
Appreciating there may be a little back covering going in for a worst case scenario, it’s not guaranteed that all of your UltraViolet titles are going to remain available. The likelihood is that they will, but still: this is never even a question when you hold a physical disc in your hand.
For users of the UltraViolet service, a full FAQ has been posted here: https://www.myuv.com/faq
