Movie Downloads Break New Ground

On Tuesday, Brokeback Mountain will break ground once again -- this time as the first movie to be launched on a download service the same day as its DVD release. Along with Brokeback, beginning Monday movies would be available on service Movielink as "download-to-own" titles.

New releases would be available for between $20 and $30 USD per download. Older movies would start at $9 USD, the company said.

Consumers would be able to view the movies on up to three PCs, as well as stream them around the home via a network. While the purchases could be backed up to a DVD, customers are not permitted to burn the movies for watching on a DVD player.

The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that negotiations were in the works to figure out a copy protection system that would eventually make this possible.

The first movie titles to be made available under the download-to-own service include King Kong, Good Night and Good Luck, Walk the Line, Memoirs of a Geisha, Hustle and Flow, and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The next release would be Sony Picture's Fun With Dick and Jane, which will be available next Tuesday.

Movielink would place the download-to-own movies in a different section of its online store. The company's original 24-hour rental based downloads would also be grouped into their own section; however, both would share a common front page.

"The studios are embracing the Internet as a viable distribution platform for their movies, and providing this service will also help to convert Internet pirates into legitimate customers," Movelink CEO Jim Ramo said in prepared remarks.

Rival service CinemaNow also announced a similar offering Monday, although with some differences. That service's agreement is only with Sony and Lionsgate, and movies purchased through CinemaNow would only be viewable on one computer and cannot be backed up to DVD.

Movie titles on CinemaNow would range from $10 to $20 USD per download.

"This is one piece of a much bigger puzzle. Now, we'll watch for the next move to get long-form filmed entertainment onto a bigger screen," Jupiter Research analyst David Card said of the news. "But this is a piece, and a step in the right direction."

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