Today the Hollywood movie studios will present us Movielink, their answer to the online movie-swapping scene. Users will be able to rent a movie for 24 hours (wow, what a long period), including recent blockbusters like Oceans Eleven and A Beautiful Mind.
The venture will launch with about 175 feature-film titles, heavy on recent hits such as "Ocean's Eleven" and "A Beautiful Mind," which users will be able to rent for a 24-hour period. The company, Movielink LLC, is owned by five major movie studios: Sony Corp.'s Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment; AOL Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros.; Vivendi Universal SA's Universal Pictures; Viacom Inc.'s Paramount Pictures; and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc.
But Movielink's competition isn't just authorized competitors, but also the wide availability of free movies through online peer-to-peer services. Movielink hopes that reliable technology, fast download times and helpful customer service will help it gain customers who are frustrated by the free services.
The last paragraph is most likely the important one. How are they gonna compete with free movies, when they only allow you to watch a movie for 24 hours. The studios are realizing that the internet is the future, but with this attitude I fear that Movielink will soon be history. Read the article here.
Source: Yahoo!
