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Movie industry wary of Apple's clout

updated 08:30 am EDT, Mon June 19, 2006

Apple looks to movies

With Apple's dominance of the digital music world, the film industry is worried that Apple's enormous clout will extend to the digital movie world, as the company negotiates contracts with various studios. A report on Variety, which touches upon about the secrecy of Apple, Steve Jobs' wealth, and his management style, says that the Apple CEO personally heads up most negotiations, while Apple VP Eddie Cue takes up some of the slack as competing studios are wary of doing business with a member of Disney's board. "Studios have resisted Jobs' initial insistence that feature films be priced at the easy-to-remember $9.99. After all, library titles are typically sold to Wal-Mart and Best Buy significantly cheaper than new releases. Studios now are trying to convince Apple to sell similar content at multiple price points, something the company has never done." The report notes that the film studios are trying, simultaneously, to work out deals with a host of other distributors, including Amazon, Movielink and BitTorrent, in part to make sure that one company does not dominate. The publication expects most major studios to add movies to its iTunes Music Store by the end of the year.

 
Previous Comments

other distributors ok...

06/19, 09:46am reply

as long as there is an Apple solution as well - it's the only way we'll get Mac compatible films.

siMac

Mac Elite

Joined: Aug 2004

0

Agreed

06/19, 10:11am reply

If Apple doesn't get movies in the iTMS, we won't have access to them on Macs (or we'll have a limited selection). I just hope that they do better than the resolution that current videos are at. I would want at least the same resolution as DVD so that I can watch it on the big screen. If not, I'll just keep buying DVDs.

e:leaf

Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Mar 2006

0

agreed

06/19, 03:16pm reply

I just hope the content is offered in both an iPod friendly format, as well as an iDVD friendly format (even 480p) that allows at least a one-time burn to DVD.

Shrug, otherwise, I can't see even paying $4.99 for anything that would be offered.

Just my $0.02

jwd

jwdsail

Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Jun 2000

0

I found something...

09/29, 09:40am reply

interesting this morning_

http://www.walmart.com/swap/SwapEntry.do?dslURL=/swap/LoadArtistBio.do%3FartistId%3D24445

Walmart's music store doesn't seem to allow Mac Users to access their site_ Hmm.....

UberFu

Fresh-Faced Recruit

Joined: Oct 2002

0

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