Jari Ketola
18 Jan 2001 14:26
Miramax Films has announced that it will be offering the movie "Guinevere" available for download on January 22nd. The movie can be downloaded from the movie's official site at www.GuinevereTheMovie.com. The service is provided by SightSound Technologies.
Of course the download will not be free - you'll have to pay $3.49 to get a 24h license to view the movie. If you wish to view the movie again you obviously also have to pay again.
``We can prevent for movies what Napster did for music,'' Scott Sander, president and chief executive of SightSound, said on Thursday.
Now how's that going to happen? By offering the movies for rent at ridiculous prices? Hardly. If someone is capable of downloading a legal rent copy of a movie that's hundreds of megabytes in size, they're also well capable of downloading a pirated copy of the same exact movie.
Actually a "Napster for movies" is bound to emerge as soon as more homes are equiped with high-bandwidth Internet connections. Believe me - we're going to see the Napster vs. RIAA all over again. It'll just be Mopster vs. MPAA.
Now if I could purchase a permanent copy for $3.49 it might actually be worthwhile. Now I'd rather spend $10 more and get a DVD instead.
Anyways, SightSound will be releasing a total of 12 movies from Miramax. The remaining 11 movies, however, are yet to be determined. Somehow I feel the movies are going to follow the lines of "Guinevere" of which I hadn't heard a peep before.
Source:
Yahoo! News