Movie Rentals on Android Market Blocked for Rooted Devices

Rossi Fernandes • May 23, 2011, 10:31:33 IST

If you want those movies from Android, you’d better not root your smartphone.

Movie Rentals on Android Market Blocked for Rooted Devices

While you’ll expect such cases to have an Apple-related headline, it seems that Google is now dealing some pain to those who prefer to get superuser rights for their beloved Android handsets.

Flipendo! And your movie’s gone!

Android Central has pointed out an error by the message line “Failed to fetch license for [movie title> (error 49)” if you’re downloading a movie title from the Android Market. Now, if you look at Google’s support page for this issue, they say that, “You’ll receive this “Error 49” message if you attempt to play a movie on a rooted device. Rooted devices are currently unsupported due to requirements related to copyright protection.”

If the word ‘currently’ means that the future could possibly look bright, then so be it. However, the question over here is that even Apple doesn’t restrict movie rental services for jailbroken or rooted iOS devices. Let’s hope that Google sorts this out as soon as possible, otherwise it’s XDA Developers to the rescue.

Written by Rossi Fernandes

Our resident Hardware Ninja, Rossi, lives for speed - by uhh riding his bicycle. He's Tech2's utility man, dividing his time between cameras, software and intense bouts of Quake III. He's also a fan of all things obscure, case in point, Live for Speed (sic). Never heard of it? We rest our case. In his spare time he tries to teach our new joinees the tricks of the trade even though the blood sweat and tears, but give him a camera and all things forgotten. see more