Movies Coming to iTunes?
Filed under: Deals, Distribution, Newsstand, Home Entertainment
According to the trades this morning, Apple is interested in offering movies for sale at iTunes. You don't say! In other news, the sky is blue. I mean, really -- we all knew this was just a matter of time, right? Now, though, Apple has stopped just fantasizing about movies on iPods, and have started negotiating with "major studios" with the goal of having films for sale by the end of the year. The major issue under discussion, not surprisingly, is how much those films will cost: Steve Jobs wanted to offer them for $9.99 across the board, no matter the film or the studio. While that sounds nice to us consumers, studio heads immediately nixed the idea, saying right up front that they need to gouge us for the stuff we really want: "We cant," one negotiator said, "be put in a position where we lose the ability to price our most popular content higher than less popular stuff."Because there are several established companies already offering movies for download, Apple doesn't have the market-stranglehold that has allowed them to pretty much dictate the terms of their deals with the companies providing music and television shows to iTunes, and the guess is that the final price for movies will range between $9.99 and $19.99, depending on how many people want to see a given film. The deal, rumored to be done last February, seems to still a ways off; we'll let you know when it happens.
_thumbnail.jpg)
Fan Made: Steampunk 'Return of the Jedi' Figures_thumbnail.jpg)
Exclusive: 'A Christmas Tale' Poster Premiere_thumbnail.jpg)
Cinematical's Fourth Annual Halloween Costume Contest is Coming!
Netflix Unleashes Another Batch of "Forgotten" Flicks
Geek Daily: Wolverine, 'Batman 3', 'Punisher' and 'Kick-Ass'
_thumbnail.jpg)
_thumbnail.jpg){kind=spacer}
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-19-2006 @ 1:15PM
Scott said...
Oh boy. Like I'm going to pay $20 to download a low-quality, DRM-infested video file that I could buy used on DVD for 40% less or download for free using P2P. The ONLY way something like this will work is if $10 is the maximum cost and the file can be freely burned to DVD.
Reply
6-19-2006 @ 1:40PM
Mike said...
Scott's right. Also factor in the new Blu-Ray HD technology now rolling out, and movies through iTunes seem like less and less of a deal at anything over $10. In fact, new releases should be $10 and catalog titles should be $5.
Reply
6-19-2006 @ 2:07PM
Neil said...
Apple should look into allowing independent producers to distribute their films over this movie iTunes service...
Ideally, producers could upload files to apple's movie server, price the movie, and apple would take a cut of the revenue.
Reply
6-19-2006 @ 2:57PM
Elliott said...
iTunes is like the United States: Far from perfect, but the best that's ever been attempted.
Reply
6-19-2006 @ 4:00PM
Goodman said...
Frankly, even $10 is too high for a low-res video file that has no extras and can't be burned to DVD. How many times are you going to watch a movie on a tiny iPod screen?
Reply
6-19-2006 @ 6:55PM
Sam Van Eerden said...
As some earlier commenters remarked, there has to be the ability to burn the movie to disc. Easily. Apple is the king of stuff like this, and to get the inside track on technology of this sort will continue to make Mr. Jobs his mill...er...BILLIONS.
And, yes, the price needs to stay less than 10 bucks. That's a CERTAIN!
Reply
6-19-2006 @ 8:10PM
Rob Smith said...
I dunno. I can hardly imagine sitting in a desk chair and watching a full movie even on my 20" iMac. Granted, I want to have some movies with me on my 17" Mac Book Pro when I'm flying or off in a hotel somewhere with nothing else to watch but...really, who is going to watch movies on iPods? That's absurd. Maybe somebody should come out with Thumbnail-Pod. Download movies for it? Jobs is too smart. There's more (there's always more) ups his sleeve. As for my Mac Book Pro video experience? I've got Netflix, TIVO burns and everything else from A to Z. Do I need to download to iTunes? If it's instantaeous, costs no more than ten bucks and I can burn a disk from it...maybe
Reply
7-16-2006 @ 2:23PM
Lauren Glenn said...
I don't know about this. While I hope that this will finally bring chapter stops to iPod video files, I can't see paying $9.99 for a video that is low rez and can only be viewed on the iPod. For a few dollars more, I could buy it on DVD and use "Fair Use" to convert it to iPod Video MP4 format. And for those old catalog movies, I could get the DVD for cheaper and still be able to watch it in a higher resolution on the TV.
Reply