The Skyliner

Issue date: 1/30/08 Section: Entertainment & Features

Christy Putnam
Staff Writer


Blockbuster and Netflix seems to have some competition. iTunes is offering movies that can be rented up to 30 days.

iTunes released the rental feature Jan. 15, 2008.

Although the selection is slim compared to other rental places, the list is growing. Movie studios such as Walt Disney, Paramount, Miramax Films, Sony and others are beginning to make their movies available on iTunes.

Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple, introduced this new program at the opening of the annual Macworld Expo in San Francisco.

"We've never offered a rental model in music because we think people don't want to rent their favorite music, they want to own it," Jobs told the Agence France Presse. "But, your favorite movie you watch maybe once."

Customers rent a movie and have 30 days to watch the movie. New releases cost $3.99 to rent and library titles are $2.99. Also store credit can be used to rent movies.

After the movie is started, the buyer has 24 hours to watch it before it erases itself from the hard drive.

During this 24 hour period, the renter can watch the movie as many times as desired from either a TV with Apple TV, computer, iPhone, iPod touch, iPod classic or iPod nano (3rd generation or later).

The movie can be transferred to any of these devices, but only one device at a time.

Plans for this rental feature for Apple is to have this available not only in the US but also internationally.

"We are rolling this out in the US starting today and internationally later this year," Jobs said in an interview with Agence France Presse. "We are dying to get this international as well."

Customers must have the iTunes version 7.6 in order to rent.

With film studios and Apple TV software backing up iTunes movie, the public can only wonder how the market is going to change.

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