Lionsgate confirm iTunes movie downloads?

Just how close we are to an Apple iTunes movie store service is anybodies guess, but it's become pretty clear of late that we are due for one sooner or later.

The greatest confirmation yet just came from the loose lips of Lionsgate's CEO, Jon Feltheimer, during a financial earnings conference call. He stated that the independent studio has reached digital delivery deals with CinemaNow, Movielink and iTunes, and Lionsgate president Steve Beeks followed that up by stating that iTunes movie downloads should be launched before the end of the year.

Think Secret is also reporting that iTunes downloads will be rental only, but we're not sure where they're getting that info. Of course, Apple isn't the only company these days that can't seem to keep a lid on their movie download plans.

Amazon was recently subjected to a drive-by Google-caching revealing similar confiscatory rates to what we're used to by now for downloaded video content, and potential TV show downloads. Netflix is also hitting the rumor mill with reports of 1.5TB of server space being staked out at the high-end Isilon hosting service. Good times indeed for the download crowd, we just hope one of these providers can manage to drive the price down a bit.

iTunes Move into Movie Rental?

FinancialTimes reports that Apple is in talks with Hollywood studios about launching an online movie rental service.

The iTunes movie rentals would reportedly be $2.99 for a 30 day rental, but would allow films to be moved to at least one other device -- such as the iPod or iPhone.

The target for this service is believed to be autumn of this year.

Steve Jobs has always been vocal that customers do not want to rent music, but has never specifically excluded the possibility of movie rentals. In fact, at the shareholder meeting responded to a question about movie rentals through the Apple TV, Jobs replied "One never knows."

Today's evidence comes to you courtesy of the Apple iPhone. iPhone Developer Pumpkin. He has discovered even more rental-specific information, this time in the iPhone's lockdown daemon file. Lockdown is responsible for authorizing your iPhone for services. For example the lockdown files are involved in authorizing phone service and is also responsible for communication between the device and the computer in general.

A string search through the lockdownd executable in /usr/libexec produced the following hits when searched for "rental":

pumpkin:~ pumpkin$ strings /usr/local/share/iphone-filesystem/usr/libexec/lockdownd | grep -i rental
trigger_rental_bag_verification: Could not retrieve FairPlayID
trigger_rental_bag_verification: Could not initialize FairPlay context
trigger_rental_bag_verification: Could not verify the rental bag response: %d
load_rental_bag_request: Could not retrieve FairPlayID
load_rental_bag_request: Could not initialize FairPlay context
load_rental_bag_request: Could not generate rental bag request
load_rental_bag_request: Could not create mutable dictionary
load_rental_bag_request: Could not create CFData from request message
load_rental_bag_request: Could not create CFArray
load_rental_bag_request: Could not create CFNumber from indice
RentalBagResponse
RentalBagRequest
pumpkin:~ pumpkin$

Buying versus renting
I only watch concerts on DVD more than once, so I?ll probably continue to purchase the latest OzzFest DVD when it gets released. However, I don?t waste my money buying a movie DVD because I know I?ll never watch it. Let?s assume you can buy a recent movie DVD for $20 (a nice round number). Now let?s assume that a movie rental from iTunes is $4. I would much rather rent 5 movies from iTunes than go out and buy one DVD that I will watch once.

I don?t disagree that iTunes is successful in part because you can own the music or TV show. But more than that, iTunes is successful because of the iPod combination and Apple?s ease. (Incidentally, Convoy was one of the first songs I purchased on iTunes; the other was Crazy Train from The Blizzard of Ozz. My wife threatened to cut me off soon after that).

Is it a teensy bit contradictory to tout the merits of owning media on one side of the store while pushing rentals on the other. I?ll give you that. However, there are other factors at work here that need to be considered.

First, I don?t believe Apple has been as successful in convincing the movie industry to sell movies as it has been with either the television or the music companies and their wares. Everything is a negotiation, and if the best Apple could do to bring feature-length movies to iTunes is rentals, then I say bring it on.

Being first is really important; it will allow Apple to dictate the market much the same way the company did with music and television. Its market share in those two markets is outstanding?it now has the potential to do the same thing for movies.

And for all we know, there are other unannounced products that will pair up with a rental service?a new video iPod, for example, or (the product I really want to see from Apple) a digital media center. It would be great to sit down with my Macintosh media center, buy a movie and sit back and watch all from the comfort of my favorite chair.

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