Google Video Store is (sort of) here

Google Video Store has mostly sort of gone live.  It shows up as a line of shows for purchase on the main Google Video home page.

You can buy e.g. Star Trek Voyager - Tattoo for US$1.99 .
You need to set up a Google Account, if you don't already have one.
An AdSense account, for reasons unclear to me, is not a Google Account.
If you click to set one up, it will prompt you for credit card.
It wants your phone number "Used to verify your credit card".

Problem #1: I am giving out my phone number to companies when hell freezes over.

You know what happens when you give out your phone number?  Hello telemarketers.

Problem #2: Only AFTER you enter in your address info in the State and Zip fields does it say, in glowing red letters

Must be a U.S. 2-letter postal code or state name

U.S. zip codes are like XXXXX or XXXXX-XXXX.

Might it be useful to mention this before you get people half-way through the entire purchase process?
(As a side note, as far as I know, there are currently zero legal television download options in Canada - no, not through iTunes either.)

Problem #3: Although "classic" Star Trek (i.e. the original series) was one of the shows to be on sale that got people all excited, it isn't on sale yet.  CBS shows under "classic" are: DS9, Voyager, Brady Bunch, Twilight Zone, I Love Lucy, MacGyver and Have Gun Will Travel.  Clicking to see episodes of any of these fails, e.g. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, see all episodes...

Your search - in_label:tvshow=Star_Trek_Deep_Space_Nine did not return any results.

Problem #4: One for the archivists - Google Video adds new video DRM.  So now we have DRM from Apple (FairPlay), Microsoft, Google and others.  Here's a question: once you authenticate, say a song from Apple, can you

a) continue to play that song forever, without re-connecting to the Internet at some point?
b) pass the song on to your heirs like any other piece of physical property when you die?  pass it on to a library?

I am particularly concerned about (a).  I suspect if you "buy" a song, authenticate, and then never reconnect to the Internet, it will eventually fail.  If that's the case, it means if the master DRM servers of these companies eventually fail or are shut down when they go out of business, the things you thought you owned will cease to work.

Google Video was a big CES announcement, although it was not live at that time.

The Google Video Blog also reports as of January 9 2006, Google Video's New Year

We have officially launched the Google Video store, the world's first open video marketplace.

Feature #1: You can, I think, set a price on your own videos, and watch the cash pour in.