If you enjoy the ease and convenience of being able to download your media, music, television shows, even movies, this news is going to make you happy. Apple Computers Inc. is in talks with the major movie studios in Hollywood to have available for download the latest and greatest movies as well as some of your favorite classics.
Variety reported, citing unrevealed sources that you may see movies on the Apple iTunes Music Store by the end of 2006. The big sticking point right now is the cost the movie downloads will cost you. It’s been reported that Apple’s Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs wants to charge a flat $9.99 for the movies but that the Movie Studios want a variable cost scale similar to the one that’s currently being used for DVDs. For example some movies are the bargain discount DVDs for only a few dollars while others are can be $20 or more.
You can already legally download movies from Movielink and CinemaNow but with the support of the very popular iTunes this deal might be the best thing for everyone involved. This is a very positive step towards finding a new business model to provide a service that’s legal and fair for everyone from the writers and directors all the way to you at home. The Napster craze of years past shows that many people want to be able to download their content directly and fast to their computers, and success stories like iTunes are paving the way for making this new system work.
In other related news, recently Warner Bros. announced that it will be offering a selection of its movies, both new and classic, as well as its stable of television shows via the popular peer to peer downloading program BitTorrent. BitTorrent is used for among other things downloading Linux and game updates to the popular video game World of Warcraft.
How about all of you out there? What types of things do you download and from what stores?