iTunes Offers Movie Rentals
Starting Jan. 15, consumers may to rent movies through iTunes. Hello digital delivery! Thanks to Richard Bullwinkle, chief evangelist for Macrovision, this technology is rushing into your living room. Apple’s weight in the industry doesn’t hurt either. And, the studios are not going to make the same mistakes that the music industry did by trying to hold back the floodgates. All the major studios have jumped on the bandwagon and more than one thousand films are expected to be offered on iTunes by the end of February. Of course, Apple TV has garnered a corner of all this as well. According to CEO Steve Jobs, “Movie lovers can rent DVD-quality or stunning HD movies from their couch with just a click of a button. No more driving to the video store or waiting for DVDs to arrive in the mail.”
20th Century Fox Home Entertainment announced yesterday that new DVDs will include a digital copy of the movie for use on iTunes. The first release with a digital copy will be “Family Guy Presents: Blue Harvest.” Next up is “Hitman,” which will be released on March 11. Fox says all future two-disc special-edition DVD releases will include the digital copy, which can be moved around to multiple devices, including iPods, after loading to iTunes. Jim Gianopulos, chairman and CEO of Fox Filmed Entertainment, commented: “One of the most requested features DVD buyers have been asking for is the ability to get the movies they bought into their iTunes library.” To access the digital copy, DVD owners need to enter a unique code into iTunes while the DVD is in their computer, and iTunes automatically copies the movie to their library. The code is only good for one use, preventing the digital copy from being shared on more than one computer.
And the beat goes on…
