Could YouTube become the next major online service to offer movie rentals? Maybe so, according to CNet News, which quotes a Wall Street Journal report as saying the Google subsidiary is in talks with movie studios over the possibility.
YouTube has reportedly been chatting with Lions Gate Entertainment, Sony Pictures, and Warner Bros. Entertainment—no Disney, Fox, NBC Universal, or Paramount so far. Still, the WSJ claims YouTube is indeed seeking "licenses to stream feature films on a rental basis."
A deal may be nowhere near, though. CNet adds that "one studio executive familiar with the talks" says discussions are "at best in the early stages," and they may be a sign of studios covering their bases more than anything. As the exec points out, a decent number of online services already offer movie rentals, so it only makes sense to talk to YouTube, as well.
Some movies from Sony and MGM are already available for free with ads on YouTube. However, CNet says movie industry sources believe that, to woo studios, YouTube needs to prove it can ward off piracy and offer more than just a cut of ad revenue.
0 responses to “Report: YouTube in talks with studios over movie rentals”
They’re already getting clobbered by kiosks like RedBox and MovieCube. Getting their download ducks in a row before the vast majority of consumers start doing it is a good idea.
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a. flash is a cpu pig
b. youtube videos are either very low quality or have streaming issues, sometimes both (and my net connection is plenty fast.
c. pass.
You must be no fun at parties.
And us deafies… There is almost never any close captioning on the videos.
As long as they don’t forget us Canadians.
Don’t you know you can’t joke around here!? If you do, you’ll be told you’re not fun at parties!
Finally we’ll have a mainstream use justification for quad cores. I wonder what the CPU requirements would be to get even just near-DVD quality and sound from Flash.
(this is meant as a joke)
q[<(you also get their physical distribution infrastructure, which is expensive and ultimately doomed...though not any time soon the way broadband in the US is going).<]q Exactly. Sorry, all you pro-digital-distro bastards, but the United States has at least another decade of infrastructure and cost-reducing before there is enough bandwidth for everyone.
I’ve been thinking for some time that Google or Apple or MS should buy Netflix in an effort to jump-start this process. It looks like Google decided it was cheaper to do it from scratch the way Amazon appears to be doing. Netflix would be more expensive up-front, of course, but you get their subscriber base which is nothing to sneeze at (you also get their physical distribution infrastructure, which is expensive and ultimately doomed…though not any time soon the way broadband in the US is going).
I kind of expected Apple to go their own way, since they’re already doing this with iTunes and the record studios, so that leaves MS and Netflix to fall into each other’s arms (which is a natural pairing anyway given the existing XBox partnership).
Ooh, even heard a riccochet whine on that one.
With a name like Farting Bob, I can only imagine how many parties you get invited to.
I bet your the life of the party everywhere you go.
The studios and MPAA are the major obsticle to reasonable streaming (timliness of release for current titles, video/audio quality, devices where it can be consumed, etc.) I’m certain that’s why there are so few current releases available on Netflix, a service that already offers this ability. In an interview on NPR this morning, the CEO of Netflix pretty much said so between the lines of his carefully chosen words when asked about this.
Is it proper grammar to use the plural form of day when talking about a negative single integer?
This is a great idea. The DRM will be cracked on this one day prior to release, alsog{<.<}g edit: grammarg{<.<}g