Redbox puts the kibosh on community-developed iPhone app

Darn... what will all those 17 customers of red box use now for their on-the-go dvd-rental something-or-other needs? And to actually think they stood a chance against illegal downloading in the long run... what a shame

app was crap all it did was crash a waste of $1.99!!

If I remember correctly the DVD rental service Redbox used to be a division of McDonald's now a division of Coinstar (http://bit.ly/iCO4) ..which is why you see them outside of McDonald's most of the time. That being said they have deep pockets and should act as a 800 lb gorilla if they have good reason to do so. This story also kind of reminds me of the Amazon iphone application that got reject by Amazon and not Apple because.....well Amazon was already developing their own application, they didn't admit to it at first but eventually it was released.

Even if Redbox never releases an application I have to agree with Ryan on saying that they have every right to get the Inside Redbox application removed.

Ryan,

In this case, the use of the name "Inside Redbox" - particularly on the website - may constitute "nominative fair use". Like Davis mentioned, the website seems to fit in the same category of "Hacking Netflix". This kind of use would not affect the trademark holder's right to the trademark.

To read more about nominative fair use, check out the entry at Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_use

Definitely a trademark issue. Movie artwork is also copyright and the studios have a right to determine how and where that gets disseminated. Just because you have a right to display it on the website doesn't automatically cascade down to an app on a mobile device.

Especially when Apple starts getting a cut of the profits from their Pro version, you wake up and take notice. I think Redbox probably would have less issue with a free version but when you start to piggyback off your trademarks and infrastructure, I can see where they would get pissed.

You raise a good with the trademark issue, however as Lusby noted, InsideRedbox.com has been around for quite some time already. They were writing about Redbox back in 2005, before most people had even heard about them. Over the years, Redbox hasn't really communicated with the blog, but they have clearly been aware of it. If a trademark issue is why they killed the app, they should have at least be open enough to say that instead of refusing to comment on this perplexing decision. To ask them to pull the app over trademark issues, would be like asking HackingNetflix to shut down his blog because he uses Netflix in his domain. At some point, the benefit that you get from the buzz, outweighs any "damage" being down to Redbox's trademark.

Furthermore, asking Inside Redbox to change the name of the app would have been an easy thing to do, instead they are acting like an 800 lb gorilla by forcing them to take it down. If their decision to kill the fan based app was because they have an official app in progress, they should have at least released the official app first. Even if they are planning their own iPhone app, I don't understand how Redbox is harmed by having more options for their customers. There may be a very reasonable explanation for Redbox turning on their long time fans, but when they refuse to talk to their own evangelists, something is seriously wrong.

The website www.insideredbox.com already exists, so why not take that down too? Redbox will text you the free codes, and at the bottom is says "Forward to your friends" so they surely can't take issue with making the codes easy to access. They WANT them to be easy to access, hoping that you will use the code to get a free night's rental and end up keeping the movie for more than one night (which I would bet 80% of users do). I can only guess they must have their own app in development. Or at least, I hope so, because I really like the IR app. It actually helps Redbox by making it easy to find the closest locations by GPS. Redbox is a cool company -- I hope they don't mess this one up!

"could be a trademark issue"

Do you think? Talk about stating the obvious. How long do you think an app called "Inside Blockbuster Mobile" would last?

It's because they have their own iPhone app in development. They released a beta that a friend of mine got and it was very cool but very buggy and needed serious polish.