Redbox was a service for renting DVDs from automated kiosks. The business was going well until it wasn’t anymore, and then the company went bankrupt in July this year. And yet… the machines live on. At least, that’s according to YouTuber [Smokin’ Silicon], who spotted some remaining Redbox kiosks out and about. Including at his local Walmart!
Here’s the thing. There’s not one big switch at Redbox that turns all the machines off, and even if there was—nobody hit it the moment the company declared bankruptcy. Thus, when [Smokin’ Silicon] rocked up to Walmart, he was able to flick through the movies and even add one to cart for purchase. However, trying to complete the transaction failed—the kiosk eventually reported itself as out of service. That makes sense—you’d expect payment processing to be the first thing to go down.
However, other Redbox kiosks were different. A kiosk at a Food Lion location actually still worked—and [Smokin’ Silicon] was able to complete the transaction and walk away with a Black Adam disc! On a second trip, he was able to walk away with even more!
The rest of the video dives into Redbox lore and other posts online about the status of the company, software, and hardware. Apparently, someone on Reddit was claiming they had the Redbox kiosk OS available. Meanwhile, some users have had trouble returning their discs because the company is now defunct. However, [Smokin’ Silicon] was able to return his without issue. Ultimately, though, he recommends his viewers to go out and score as many DVDs and Blu Rays as possible from the machines since soon enough, they’ll be gone forever.
The fact is, businesses are big and Kafkaesque, the kiosks are scattered all over the country, and so it’s anybody’s guess if and when they stop working. Back when this website began, a redbox was something different entirely. Video after the break.
[Thanks to Hari Wiguna for the tip!]
So the redbox company has gone bankrupt. Does that mean that eventually all the current assets will be sold at cents on the dollar to partially pay off their current debts as fast as possible. And if that is the case then “Smokin’ Silicon” may have told a large number of people to commit theft, is that a crime ? And more importantly could the partially paid debtors pursue Smokin’ Silicon’s assets ?
Just watched the video, he said “do with this what you will”, which is from a legal standpoint is probably safe.
It is likely there is not enough value in those discs. And I think stores want those things gone, presumably their agreements would have expired by now or soon will expire. After some grace period they would have to dispose of the machines and their contents anyway.
“and even if there was”
No. And ever if there WERE