Word: downloadable
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...everyone in Silicon Valley is unsympathetic--even those promoting downloading technology. "Studios will not support downloading of new releases for the same reason book publishers don't go direct to paperback," says Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, the hugely successful online movie-rental company. Hastings has his own version of an iTunes-like solution to the movie-download problem. Right now his 2 million customers rent DVDs online and receive them through the mail, but he says he has always intended to make the transition to movie downloads. Nothing is likely to be launched in the next year, but Hastings...
...copyright management has hamstrung the movie industry's attempts to make a business out of file-sharing technology. Two years ago, major studios launched a service called Movielink, which offers movies for downloading to your computer at about the same time they hit the pay-per-view window. Not only do the movies take hours to download, but they also disappear from Movielink's catalog altogether 90 days later, when they enter the premium-cable window. Because channels like HBO and Starz! offer lucrative licensing deals, Movielink has not been able to compete in the latter window...
...council also considered one piece of new legislation last night—a bill that would allow for the council to promote the movie-download website Movielink.com in exchange for a 25 percent discount on movie downloads for Harvard students. In addition, a cut of the revenue would go to the council...
...handful of enterprising entrepreneurs find that attitude anachronistic. They're trying to make space in Asia's $5.2 billion music market for legal downloads. In 1999, Sudhanshu Saronwala quit his job as the managing director of MTV Asia to co-found the Singapore-based online-music store Soundbuzz. The venture made little progress for four years, but after iTunes proved a commercial success last year, Saronwala is trying again. "The labels have seen that online can be a real, viable distribution channel," says Saronwala. "The domestic labels as well as the internationals?everybody has pretty much embraced it wholeheartedly." Soundbuzz...
...That'll take time. Although Soundbuzz is set to become Asia's first regional digital music store, expanding soon into Hong Kong, India and Taiwan, its download numbers are still modest. Meanwhile, Asia's other pioneering online stores, like Max MP3 in Korea and iBiz in Taiwan, remain small and local. Japan, with its $4.16 billion music market and love of all things high-tech, should be an obvious opportunity for online-music sales. A survey by Japan's Nikkei Business Daily found that 47% of respondents would buy music from iTunes if they could. But Sony, the obvious candidate...