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You might recall that I bought a Roku player a few months ago to make it easier for me to watch high-quality versions of Netflix's Watch Instantly offerings. My biggest complaint about Roku and Watch Instantly was that the selection was pretty slim -- mostly we've used it to watch old TV shows, and even then I suspect we watch more TV on Hulu.com. Watch Instantly has a great selection of low-budget independent features and documentaries, and even some short films, but if you want Hollywood blockbusters you're better off with the DVDs.

Fortunately, the Watch Instantly pickings are starting to improve. Netflix has just partnered with Starz Entertainment to offer more than 1,000 movies that Starz has licensed for its own video-on-demand services. Starz already has deals with Disney and Sony, so these movies include a lot of (relatively) newer Hollywood big-budget films, like Ratatouille, Pirates of the Caribbean 3, No Country for Old Men, and Superbad. These still aren't as recent as the films you can get mailed to you on DVD from Netflix (or rent at your local video store), but it's a significant improvement over the previous Watch Instantly offerings for recent mainstream movies. In addition, Netflix also signed deals last month with the Disney Channel and CBS to add some of their TV shows to the Watch Instantly lineup, like Hannah Montana and CSI. Those aren't movie-related deals, but I got excited because I can now watch the Disney TV show in which a cousin of mine plays an amusingly bad-tempered chef.

New technology can be tricky because it has the ability to complicate legislative and contractual matters. The internet has shown this to be true in a number of ways over the past decade, from censorship issues to copyright concerns. Now with the growing industry of movie downloads and other forms of distribution on the web, some old deals are being interpreted in new ways. Starz Entertainment, which has been paying for exclusive rights to Disney films since 1993, is now suing the studio because of one such interpretation. The 14-year-old contract was renewed as early as 2005 and primarily relates to cable television rights, but Starz is claiming its deal extends to internet distribution too. Since Disney is selling titles via services like iTunes and Walmart.com, it is violating this agreement.

But you are probably wondering how television licensing and web licensing can be viewed as similar, especially in a deal made long before downloads and streaming video existed. Obviously Starz is just angry that its own download service, Vongo, isn't as lucrative as iTunes, right? Well, the company has already been through a similar battle with Disney, having sued the studio a few years ago over MovieBeam, a video-on-demand service that Disney itself set up. Starz won that lawsuit despite the fact that the service wasn't through any cable provider (MovieBeam was forced to split from Disney a year ago, though it has just been purchased by Movie Gallery) -- although it is more similar to cable than internet because it was for play on your television. Starz is now concerned particularly with Disney's deal with iTunes because of the new Apple box, which allows iTunes downloads also to be played on a TV set.

Of course, DVDs and other home videos are also playable through the television, so there needs to be a distinction made somewhere. I have a feeling that the courts will make a new distinction regarding internet product and this time around Starz will not be the victor.