It’s almost ridiculous when you think about the fact that YouTube was not the first to offer a movie-on-demand service, an area now dominated by the likes of Apple and Netflix. That’s all about to change as YouTube is finally set to launch a service which charges users to stream mainstream Hollywood movies.
The new service means a full-bore challenge to Apple’s iTunes service – currently the most powerful player in paid video streaming — and a welcome new revenue stream for Hollywood as home entertainment revenues continue their steep decline.
The Wrap Movies reports that the service is set to launch within the next couple of weeks. Sony Pictures Entertainment, Warner Brothers and Universal have reportedly licensed their movies for the new service. A number of independent studios, including Lionsgate (Madea, anyone?) and Kino Lorber are also on board.
One of the major stumbling blocks for any service looking to stream movies or music is dealing with the old-school media companies. This is probably what’s taken so long for Google to bother with this. Even as many studios are now cooperating, Paramount, Fox and Disney have decided not to join.
YouTube has declined to comment on this new service, only responding that they have been renting movies for a year and issuing the following statement:
“We’ve steadily been adding more and more titles since launching movies for rent on YouTube over a year ago, and now have thousands of titles available,” a spokesperson said. “Outside of that, we don’t comment on rumor or speculation.”
YouTube offering video on demand sounds cool and all, but would anyone really care? Probably not initially. What would make the service more exciting and help it stand out from the competition would be a cloud storage locker for your purchases (much like Amazon’s new Cloud Player). The studios are even excited about such a feature as they believe it could help save plummeting DVD sales. Here is a list of some great free movie apps.
Will you buy movies on YouTube?
via TechCrunch, All Things D