X

Digital movies for 20 bucks?

Digital movies for 20 bucks?

Jasmine France Former Editor
Six of the major Hollywood studios--Paramount, Fox, Universal, Warner Bros., Sony, and MGM--began selling full-length, digital movie downloads on today. (Separately, Sony and Lions Gate announced that their movies will be available for purchase through CinemaNow.) I've been expecting the studios to give in and sell their movies in digital format for a while now, though I thought iTunes would be the first to offer the content, along with Apple releasing a more video-friendly iPod. What I did not expect is that these downloads would cost between 20 and 30 bucks a pop--especially considering the very limited DRM that comes with them. You can burn a purchased film to DVD once, but that DVD can be played on only up to three PCs with Movielink authorization. A standard DVD player can't play back the disc. Both Movielink and CinemaNow say that they expect the movies will be able to be transferred to portable devices in the future, but it's up to the studios to allow that type of license. Personally, I'd just buy a standard DVD on Amazon.com for around $15. I still can't copy it to my portable player, but at least I'm not limited to watching it on my computer. What about you? Would you pay $25 for a digital copy of a movie? (Get more info at Yahoo.)