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Fox, NBC Universal will join Apple iCloud soon

Film industry sources say the two Hollywood film studios that haven't signed on for Apple TV's new cloud feature are hung up by contractual obligations.

Greg Sandoval Former Staff writer
Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. Based in New York, Sandoval is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. E-mail Greg, or follow him on Twitter at @sandoCNET.
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Apple TV got an upgrade and video from all six of the Hollywood film studios will soon be supported by Apple's iCloud. CNET

Not all of the major Hollywood studios are participating in Apple's new iCloud feature that enables users to store their movies and TV shows on Apple's servers.

Apple announced upgrades to its Apple TV system at its iPad press event yesterday. Among them were 1080p support, better navigation and the ability to re-download video from Apple's iCloud.

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AllThingsD reported yesterday that Fox and NBC Universal are holdouts and that the reason has to do with exclusive licenses that those studios have with Time Warner's HBO.

This is the same contractual obligation that plagued the UltraViolet platform from signing some of the labels. HBO has exclusive licensing rights for electronic sales of films from NBC Universal, Warner Bros. and Fox. This is a minor holdup, according to my film industry sources.

Negotiations resulted in a fix for UltraViolet and it will do the same shortly for Apple.

All of the studios want to be part of Apple and iTunes. Online sales of movies and TV shows are still relatively small but they're growing and what there is of it is mostly coming from Apple.