RSSYouTube may start renting movies, and the MPAA may finally approve
By Tim Conneally | Published September 2, 2009, 6:38 PM
The Wall Street Journal is reporting this evening the internet's most popular video streaming destination YouTube is now in talks with movie studios to offer rental streams of new release movies which could potentially be released day and date with their DVD and Blu-ray counterparts.
The site already works with a number of content owners to host ad-sponsored streams of classic television shows and films, but the site has not yet attempted the rental model with these studios. Details are scant at this point, at the WSJ only cites information provided by unnamed sources "familiar with [YouTube's] plans." A $3.99 rental price is reportedly being discussed because that is the cost of a Standard Definition new release movie rental on Apple's iTunes and Amazon Video on Demand.
At that price point, Google and YouTube should have a much easier time attracting movie studios than Coinstar's video rental kiosk company Redbox, which has been battling with studios over $1 DVD rentals which many studios feel greatly devalue their new releases. Not only will the higher price of the streaming rental appeal to studios, but so will the lower overhead. Streams eliminate the DVD production, pressing, and printing cost and replace it with the cost of bandwidth and hosting, at $3.99 per stream, the potential profit is much higher.
As it is now, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) doesn't really stand behind YouTube. It has applauded the efforts of Hulu, ABC.com, Nick.com, iTunes, and Netflix on Demand, but has balked at YouTube because of its problems with monetizing content.
And as usual. It will be an US only service. For those outside the US there is only one way to go. You know how...
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|Yeah good old YouTube, still staying true to it's original core values of ordinary user content. So long as that ordinary user is a multi-media organisation/film company/music company. So who's going to start the new YouTube then? Facebook perhaps?
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|I still can't see how you pay 3 to 4 dollars for a internet download of a movie when you can go to a Redbox for a dollar or your local video store for less costly purchases. There are no brick and morter costs to an internet download.
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|[q]...it's the networks that won't allow them to stream it out of the US. Those services would love to sell to you, the networks just prohibit them.[/q]
And I bet they STILL connot understand why people download 'illegally'; the schmucks.
DrT
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|No media-based DRM has ever worked, so invariably it will be cracked.
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|to Canada also? no? screw YouTube, Hulu, Netflix and the like...
this is the internet and we're ruining it by playing into georestricted content and offerings
and anyone who buys into these services when they aren't available globally, you deserve a swift kick in the junk
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|It's not Youtube's, Hulu's, Netflix's, or "the like's" fault...it's the networks that won't allow them to stream it out of the US. Those services would love to sell to you, the networks just prohibit them.
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|well, its the contracts they sell to canadian companies like CTV and the like, its just sad that the companies which produce shows don't have rights as to where when and how their content is streamed or broadcast, no matter what other contracts exist...
granted it would Kill CTV offerings but i would love that because the online offerings in canada are spread everywhere and simply f*cked
this is where Contracts and Copyright also show they stifle innovations
really, its everyone involved that is at fault
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