Remember when Wal-Mart opened their own video download store in February? Yeah, I didn't really either, and I wrote about it, twice (only because their launch made them look like morons). Not surprisingly I forgot to mention them in my last article about digital movie distribution services - and it's a good thing too, because as Gizmodo points out, they've ceased to exist.

On December 21st Wal-Mart Video Downloads closed their doors for good. Were they tipped-off early and fearful of a rental-based iTunes as well? Maybe, but more likely is that they were simply last to the table and very restrictive on how you could actually watch movies on your computer (IE only). Still, it's surprising that they didn't even last a year - you'd think they would have tried a little harder given how big DVD sales are at the world's largest retailer - they make up about 40% of all DVD sales in the U.S.

Wal-Mart was kind enough to announce that any videos you already purchased and downloaded are yours to keep for life - of course you cannot transfer them to any other computer or media! That is going to be great when some early adopters in middle America are hauling around their Pentium 4 tower 50 years from now so they can watch their digital copy of My Girl.