Amazon may distribute films digitally

Amazon is set to develop a digital download service for the DVDs available on its site. Amazon is considering a few options for its streaming video service which would differentiate its service from that of iTunes, such as allowing a customer to stream a movie and credit the purchase against the price of a DVD. iTunes does not currently link video sales to non-digital content and only offers outright download purchases of content. Amazon does not want to divert sales from its DVDs, according to Variety; however, it wants to use streaming video to help drive DVD sales.

Amazon is considering allowing customers to stream content from DVDs to their computer while waiting for the hard copy to be delivered. Each time a customer streamed the video, the price of the streaming video would be credited towards the purchase of a DVD.

"Everything is being leveraged to sell more DVDs. When you go to a product page it will say all the variations about how you'd purchase that video-- stream, buy or maybe a combination (of options)," explained a Hollywood executive to Variety.

Filed under: industry
Other story tags: digital music/video