Reports: Apple, Fox planning movie rental service
Apple is reportedly planning to get into the movie rental business and license its digital rights management technology, and it could announce a deal within the next few weeks.
Both the Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal are reporting that Twentieth Century Fox Film has signed a deal with Apple to let iTunes users download new movies and keep them for an unspecified (but likely short) period of time.
Both reports say Apple CEO Steve Jobs will make this news part of his Macworld keynote on January 14.
You might soon be able to rent Fox's movies and put them on your iPod, if new reports come to pass.
(Credit: CNET Networks)The reports also says that as part of the deal, Fox is also going to use Apple's FairPlay digital rights management technology on its DVD releases, which would allow DVD buyers to rip their movies onto their computers using iTunes and also move those store-bought movies to iPods and iPhones.
Rumors of Apple getting into the movie rental business have been swirling all year, as it has become clear that the per-song pricing strategy that worked so well for Apple in the music business hasn't worked as well in video.
The movie studios want the same thing the record labels want--variable pricing, and more control over it--and people want the option of either buying or renting. There are lots of films I'd pay $4 or so to rent, but not $15 or $20 to buy.
Part of the problem, of course, is that only Walt Disney, which counts Jobs as a member of its board of directors, sells its first-run movies on iTunes. Adding Fox's movies would provide a significant boost to iTunes, not to mention a lineup of iPods that has been almost completely redesigned around making it easier to watch video.
This move would also have interesting implications for Apple TV. A rental service from a new movie studio would give Apple TV owners another easy-to-access source of entertainment to watch on their big-screen televisions. Right now, they're restricted to buying movies and TV shows on iTunes, or watching skateboarding bulldogs on YouTube, and that gets old.
But it might not just be movie studios that feel the implications of this deal, should it come to pass.
In February, Jobs wrote an open letter on DRM and music that contained this sentence: "Apple has concluded that if it licenses FairPlay to others, it can no longer guarantee to protect the music it licenses from the big four music companies."
Apple's concern was that if FairPlay were licensed to outsiders, the encryption technology could quickly become public, and the company would be unable to keep up with those bent on cracking the code and ensuring unlimited usage rights for their songs.
However, if the reports are right, Apple has come to grips with the idea of licensing FairPlay in spite of those concerns. So is FairPlay now up for grabs? Licensing FairPlay to companies like Microsoft or SanDisk would allow the Zune or Sansa to play songs and videos purchased from the iTunes Store; right now, you can play iTunes Store purchases only on iPods.
In any event, it sounds like Macworld will once again involve more than just Macs. Apple's stock is at an all-time high, and it went up further Thursday on reports of the movie rental deal.
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom. 
Netflix is cheap enough to rent, and they have HD discs.
Movies on iTunes are "near DVD quality". With a big HD set, you
can see the difference between "near DVD quality" and a real
DVD. I can only assume the same will be true for HD content as
well.
I'd choose quality over connivence more often than not.
So for ME to be a customer, it has to be really good HD content.
The more at this party, the merrier, I don't ever plan on renting physical media again, haven't done so in over a year. Welcome to the party, Apple.
use some good HD content. For those who are not a big fan of HBO
or those other HD premium channels.
you download too much data. They are already "shaping" (i.e.
throttling) all bittorrent data, etc.
BTW, who's your ISP that is selling 20Mbps?
- Picture is incorrect
- by manofthematch December 27, 2007 2:10 PM PST
- The picture is incorrect for 2 reasons. House from the Fox show, House, is shown. House is owned by Fox and NBC/Universal. Also, House is a show, not a movie.
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