Droid Charge Blockbuster App Also Blocking Rooted Users from Movie Viewing
Rooted Android users are once again being alienated by a movie-viewing application thanks to Widevine DRM. Last week we saw Google’s new Movies service blocked on rooted devices, and now Blockbuster (their app at least) has followed suit. Rooted Droid Charge users attempting to view movie content via the pre-installed Blockbuster app on Verizon’s shiny, new 4G handset are being greeted with an error message telling of an inability to “download or playback Widevin encrypted content.” In case the reason was unclear, the same message explicitly states that a rooted phone is the root of the problem.
Now if we take into account the fact that Google own Widevine (and thus their DRM technologies) we start to see a disturbing trend develop, no? It is as if having a rooted device is implicitly linked to performing illegal activities such as stealing movies, thus the reason why devices with super-user access are banned from such activities. We’re sure the mod community sees it more as a challange, another hurdle to overcome in their quest for compelte Android openness.
[via DroidLife]