Saturday, May 3, 2008

iTunes to allow movie download same day as DVD release

Apple's iTunes had always been seen as somewhat of a threat / opportunity for the industry. The opportunity was always there since it was the legal way for the recording industry to make money from the downloading of music, while the way in which Apple behaves (driven by Steve Jobs) scares the recording industry. Apple is the one which always seeks more control over the entire process and does not seem to care as much for the dictates of the recording industry as other channels do. In a step forward, and scaring the conventional sales channels of the movie DVD industry, Apple has now declared that it will make downloads of movie available on the same day as DVD releases:


Although the vast majority of all sales of movies are done on DVD, likely at mass market locations such as Wal-Mart, there is a slowly growing population of those who are playing for digital downloads. Such a phenomenon is becoming well established in the realm of music, where users of iTunes will pay 99 cents to download a song. Apple is now hoping to bring the same level of success it did to music over to movies.
Movies purchased from iTunes can be viewed on an iPod with video, iPhone, Mac or PC or on a widescreen TV with Apple TV. New release movies will be priced at $14.99 and older catalog titles at $9.99. The iTunes Store current carries over 1,500 films at present.


This is likely to covert into an increased share of the market. So even though there will be people who will be wanting a physical DVD, there will be a large number of people who will settle for the convenience of being able to download a movie onto their device of convenience and jump onto the iTunes bandwagon. This is bound to have an effect on the regular store sales of DVD's and will make them more unhappy.. tough luck, this will not go away.

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