DISNEY - NEW MOVIES COMING TO ITUNES

NEW MOVIES COMING TO ITUNES

Apple announced today that it has reached agreements with 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal, Sony, Lionsgate, and other studios to sell movies via its iTunes online service on the same day that the studios release them on DVD. The company had previously reached a similar agreement with Disney. New titles will sell for $14.99; catalog titles for $9.99. The agreements, coming with so many studios all at once, would appear to thwart threats by major retailers like Wal-Mart and Best Buy to refuse to stock DVDs from any studio making such a deal with Apple. They also pose a threat to other online services that are developing their own download services. Apple will benefit not only from direct sales of the movies but also from sales for several of its hardware products, including video iPods and the Apple TV, a device that can send movies wirelessly from a home computer's hard drive to a home-theater monitor.

01/05/2008