“Consumers have been willing to spend 99 cents to buy Shakira’s ‘Hips Don’t Lie’ or $1.99 for an episode of ‘Desperate Housewives’ from iTunes,” Laura M. Holson and Eduardo Porter report for The New York Times. “Now Steven P. Jobs is betting they will also pay $9.99 to download ‘The Godfather’ to play on their iPods.”
“For weeks, Apple Computer has been talking with executives at all the major studios — including the Walt Disney Company, 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers and Universal Studios — about adding movies to its popular iTunes music store, several people involved in the negotiations said,” Holson and Porter report.
“Mr. Jobs, who is Apple’s chief executive, has been participating in the negotiations and telling studio executives in Los Angeles that he wants to have a deal in place by the fall, people involved in the negotiations said,”: Holson and Porter report. “Disney, which was the first studio to put some TV shows (like “Lost” and “Desperate Housewives”) on iTunes, is also expected to be the first to put some movies on Apple’s online service, the people involved in the talks said.”
“People involved in the negotiations said there were several potential snags, including fears about piracy and Mr. Jobs’s proposal to charge a flat price of $9.99 for movies already sold on DVD,” Holson and Porter report. “Under Mr. Jobs’s proposed plan, there will be several prices for movies, depending on when they have their debut on iTunes. The prices have not yet been determined, but some studios are worried about releasing movies too close to their theatrical release dates.”
“The reports of Apple’s discussions with movie studios have renewed speculation that Apple is preparing to offer a living room-oriented entertainment device later this year, in time for the Christmas season,” Holson and Porter report.
Full article here.
“Some Hollywood studios have also been talking to Microsoft about licensing movies for use with the company’s upcoming portable digital device, the Wall Street Journal said. The company hopes to launch an iPod competitor, which could hit the market as soon as the fourth quarter of this year,” Reuters reports.
Full article here.
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Related articles:
Report: Movie studios flatly reject Apples’ proposed $9.99 pricing for feature films via iTunes – June 19, 2006
Report: Apple in negotiations with movie studios; $9.99 feature films coming to iTunes soon? – June 19, 2006
Living room device? Video capable airport express.
9.99$ is too expensive.
“Disney, which was the first studio to put some TV shows (like “Lost” and “Desperate Housewives”) on iTunes, is also expected to be the first to put some movies on Apple’s online service, the people involved in the talks said.”
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Give me an Apple-branded 42-inch LCD television with Mac mini built-in. Please.
We better get more than 320×240 resolution or it’s a complete waste of money. If bandwitdth is an issue, implement a bittorrent system and reward users who help uploading with credits that can be used towards movies or songs.
Also, how about higher prices for better quality? A video airport express sending a movie to one’s TV (especially digital) will look terrible at 320×240.
Please, Apple, give us options.
So… this means there’s got to be a full-screen video iPod on the way.
Give me an Apple-branded 42-inch LCD television with Mac mini built-in. Please.
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Why would you want a Mac mini built in? Considering the lifespan of a tv is 7-10 years, the built in mini would become legacy long before the tv would. I’d prefer to keep mine seperate.
Two things need to happen to make this a success for the long term:
1. Offer HD versions (720p/1080i will work for now).
2. Update iPod with a massive hard drive (120GB?) and to output HD (dock to HDMI?) and digital optical audio.
Could this be the “real” year of HD Steve has been talking about?
Also, Apple needs to offer lossless versions of all its music too. And then have iTunes be able to drop the quality down when dumping it to the iPod. The bandwidth is there, no excuses…
Also, how about higher prices for better quality?
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Jobs would never do this as it complicates things.. His philosophy is one-price for all.
It is going to take a heck of a lot to make me want to give up Netflix. I don’t see anything here that would make want to do it.
Some device in time for christmas?
As long as it is in 1080P HD format, and connects to my HDTV, I’m in. Otherwise, I’ll wait.
It makes me chuckle. The recording industry did it first, now it’s the movie studios. They want to keep on screwing the consumer for as long as they can. The consumer turns to piracy. The studios lose money. It’s a changing marketplace. Adapt, or get out of the way.
I have a feeling that we’re getting HD. That would rape PS3 and 360.
Bearing in mind there’s still no TV shows available outside U.S, the mind boggles as to how long full lenth films will take to reach us here in europe
HD and a Firewire home backbone are the future, whether or not they will arrive this year remains to be seen. So far Hollywood have had their head up their ass.
“Update iPod with a massive hard drive (120GB?) and to output HD (dock to HDMI?) and digital optical audio.”
Can i get a hell yeahhhhhhhh. i’ll take two.
I can’t help but wonder if it’s Apple that leaked the details of the negotiations. After all, it makes the movie studios look bad. “Apple wants to give you all $9.99 movie goodness, but those evil greedy movie studios want to price the stuff you actually want higher!!” Nothing like a little adverse publicity to force a negotiator’s hand.
Example: Here in Akron, we have a scenic railroad that every Christmas runs a special service for kids based on the book “The Polar Express”. Recently, the company that owned that book was purchased by a bigger company who tried to put the screws to the park service for a big license fee. The park service couldn’t afford it, so no more special Christmas train rides for the kiddies. The local radio, TV, and papers were full of stories of the evil Grinch media company breaking the hearts of every child in the county. Well, surprise, surprise — just last week, I heard the media company had a change of heart.
Couple of things:
1. If it’s not HD quality, or at least DVD quality, forget it.
2. If I can’t easily play it on my TV (like…with video AirportExpress), forget it.
3. If it’s not a subscription service like Netflix…totally forget it.
I think that downloading music is OK. I am not going to give up on my subscription DVD service though. And this crap that we have now where it costs as much to download a movie as to buy it on DVD is stupid. If I have to pay $15 for a movie I want a box with snazzy artwork and a disk. Same problem is still true of music. For $10 I can get a lot of stuff on disk at Wally-World or wherever and just rip it. The price needs to be right and I need it to be compelling for me to spend my bandwidth versus driving to the store.
Just travelled East last week, my iPod was a God send. Bring on the full length movies!
it isn’t going to be HD resolution. How many GB, exactly, can you afford to spend on movies? It isn’t the cost of $9.99 for one DVD that bothers me, but the 5GB per movie it would probably take… how much does your hard drive cost per GB… not cheap.
This has to be 640×360 to work.
I don’t think we are technologically ready for HD content. Two things. One, bandwidth. Maybe Korea is ready, but the U.S. is far from it. Two, storage. HD uses a lot of storage. Roughly 30GB’s per movie.
The only way I see HD being a possibility is if you purchase the movie but it doesn’t get stored on your computer. Whenever you want to watch it, it gets cached from servers and you start watching it soon after the download begins. The downside to this is you are forced to watch it on your computer.
Maybe Apple is working on a 42″ television that runs OS X as well. This would be the way to go. Watch your movies in HD without having to purchase the disk or download it and figure out how to store it. Basically an on demand service but one that allows you to view a movie over and over because you “purchased” it.
Hhmmm…
as long as it works on my 5th Gen iPod, i’m good to go.