Multiple Studios Already On Board for iTunes Movie Rentals

The New York Times is reporting today that more than one movie studio will be appearing onstage at MacWorld to endorse Apple’s new iTunes Movie Rental service. While its long been known that Apple has been negotiating with numerous studios, the Financial Times report a couple days ago indicated that 20th Century Fox was the only done deal, now it appears others are eager to be launch partners as well.

One obvious other partner would have be Disney – after all, Steve Jobs is on Disney’s board and is their largest shareholder. But imagine how great it would be if all of the major studios were onboard to see this service launched. That could truly revolutionize the digital distribution industry.

[UPDATE]: Variety confirms that as I suspected, Disney will in fact be another partner in the movie rentals. They also throw out Paramount, Lionsgate, and MGM as possibilities for launch partners.

One thing they also say that I hope isn’t true is that the rentals will be between $2-5 dollars for a 24-hour period. I think this would be a bad move by Apple. Previous reports had the system as $2.99 for 30 days! If Apple wants to do only a 24-hour period they better make it real attractive, like 99 cents or $1.99 attractive.

Will it be 24-hours from the download or from when you start it? What happens if you rent a movie and something comes up and you can’t finish it, you just lose your $5? What if you want to take the movie on a trip, start it on a plane, but then want to finish the rest at a later time, are you out of luck? 30-days makes a lot more sense.

More thoughts:

Post by MG Siegler on 12/28/07
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