There’s always something in the fine print of the digital download services that are coming out these days that show the big media companies “Just Don’t Get It”, and Amazon Unboxed is no different.

I was looking into the Tivo/Amazon Unboxed integration, thinking how cool it is that you can remotely buy a movie, and it will be on your Tivo when you get home, when I spotted this gem:

What is the “Pay-TV Blackout Window”?
Due to restrictions from the video rights holders, most newly released movies will occasionally become temporarily unavailable for re-download from Your Media Library—even after they’ve already been purchased.

The video will be automatically replaced and made available to you through Your Media Library once the “Pay-TV Blackout Window” has ended.

Does this sound utterly ridiculous? That’s because it is.

This is the equivalent of buying a DVD, being able to watch it for a few weeks, then having a Showtime/HBO/Cinemax representative show up at your door and take away your DVD until their channel is done running that movie. I can see that the original intention was for the pay-TV channel to be able to secure exclusive rights to a movie via “digital distribution to a video signal-viewing device” (my legal mumbo-jumbo), but this goes a bit too far. As far as I can see, this doesn’t serve anyone’s best interest, and only serves to make the Unboxed service less attractive.