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Earlier today, Apple announced that Steve Jobs will anchor the keynote at next week's Worldwide Developers Conference, also taking the unusual step of pre-announcing that Jobs will introduce the company's "iCloud" streaming service at the event.

While virtually all of the recent discussion about iCloud has been about Apple securing agreements with music labels and publishers to allow users to store their purchased songs on Apple's servers for streaming to a variety of devices, CNET reports that Apple may also be racing to secure agreements for movies and TV shows in time for the service's debut. The most specific information seems to be regarding movies:
In the past several weeks, Apple executives have stepped up their attempts to convince some of the major Hollywood film studios to issue licenses that would enable Apple to store its customers' movies on the company's servers, two sources close to the negotiations told CNET. Apple began discussing a cloud service with the studios over a year ago.
The report notes that talks with film studios are ongoing, but one stumbling block appears to be the "HBO window", an agreement between the cable channel and studios Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, and NBC Universal that requires those studios to temporarily stop sales and distribution of their content while it is being aired on HBO. Enforcement of such an agreement on cloud services may not be acceptable to Apple and its users who expect to be able to watch their content at any time.

The studios, led by Time Warner, do however seem to believe that cloud distribution is fundamentally different from other mechanisms and thus exempt from the HBO window, although it is unclear if the issue can be cleared up in time for next week's iCloud introduction. But even without such an agreement, Apple could launch the movie portion of the service with other major studios such as Disney, Paramount, and Sony that do not have blackout arrangements with HBO.

Information on potential TV content for iCloud seems to be based on speculation at this point, with the report pointing to Apple's existing "Multi-Pass" and "Season Pass" features that have allowed users to purchase bundles of content as foundation upon which a cloud-based service could be easily built, but it is unclear what the status of any discussions to that end might be.

Rumors of Apple looking to include movies and TV in a cloud-based service are not new, but sources have generally been silent about the negotiations as attention has focused on getting music deals done.

Article Link: Apple Racing to Include Movies and TV Shows in iCloud Service?
 

NebulaClash

macrumors 68000
Feb 4, 2010
1,810
0
Perhaps this is one of the reasons Apple pre-announced iCloud. Puts the studios on notice that this thing is moving ahead, some guys will be on board the train as it leaves the station, and wouldn't you like to clear up these agreements fast so you can get Steve to announce your products too?
 

bushido

Suspended
Mar 26, 2008
8,070
2,755
Germany
yay i'll reach my data limit before "spongebob" even ends but i assume its wifi only bc mobile net involves more licensing deals and if its wifi only, then i dont rly see the point cuz u could just use ur tv
 

macnisse

macrumors 6502
Jun 26, 2010
395
1
Sweet indeed, can't get enough movies in the cloud, perfect companion to the iPad and Apple TV :)
 

kiddnets

macrumors newbie
Feb 17, 2009
28
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so how would this work - would you be able to upload movies/TV shows you already purchased or have in Itunes or is it only special purchased items through apple.
 

bpeeps

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May 6, 2011
3,678
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Seems like they are pushing hard and fast to get iCloud officially announced and out. I hope they take the time to work out any beta issues, not interesting in seeing the downfalls of MobileMe again. Anywho, who's excited? :D
 

ChristianVirtual

macrumors 601
May 10, 2010
4,122
282
日本
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8J2 Safari/6533.18.5)

Yes... That would make really sense to me if all the move content can be placed back into to cloud, save from local disasters and everywhere available. Nice !
 

yourstation

macrumors member
Jul 17, 2008
78
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Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8F190 Safari/6533.18.5)

I hope Apple give some options for very large storage. I would need 3tb to handle my tv, movie and music!
 

RonHC

macrumors 6502a
Apr 27, 2010
996
7
This is known as the longest week of June for Apple fans...
Can't wait for June 6th
 

Piggie

macrumors G3
Feb 23, 2010
9,116
4,011
The more I hear about iCloud, the more convinced it's going to be something I will never use.

I could well be wrong, but I'm getting the impression it's just going to hold copies of stuff you buy from iTunes and that's it.
It's not going to be some "Personal data storage area" to upload your own stuff.

I could see this just being like some iTunesCloud and that's all it is.

Hope I'm wrong as I never buy anything from iTunes, only apps.
 

REM314

macrumors 6502
Jun 1, 2009
265
0
Canada
I suppose all this focus on iCloud means that iOS 5 will be very iCloud focused as well. If true it would make me very sad since Ive been hoping for a large UI change or at least a lot of UI improvements.
 

Piggie

macrumors G3
Feb 23, 2010
9,116
4,011
Ah! Great news if this comes true! But Apple would have to allow serious storage space for this...

But they don't need hardly any storage space as they are holding the data already.
You will just need some secret code linked to your iTunes account and it will "Look like" the data is in your account, but it's not there, it's only just a link to the master copy that Apple will stream to you if you request it.
 

nwcs

macrumors 68030
Sep 21, 2009
2,722
5,262
Tennessee
If apple gives me access to what I've already purchased through iTunes for video this will be nice. I bet it would tie into apple tv first, thoug. So much more convenient than having iTunes running for streaming. But they still need to get the apple tv to handle the iTunes extra features. Glaring absence since the home sharing stuff started.
 

iSRS

macrumors 6502
Mar 2, 2010
468
291
My guess

The more I hear about iCloud, the more convinced it's going to be something I will never use.

I could well be wrong, but I'm getting the impression it's just going to hold copies of stuff you buy from iTunes and that's it.
It's not going to be some "Personal data storage area" to upload your own stuff.

I could see this just being like some iTunesCloud and that's all it is.

Hope I'm wrong as I never buy anything from iTunes, only apps.

Music will be anything you have in iTunes as iTunes/music allows for an easy/legal way to get your music in. Video (TV/Movies) will be limited to what you have/will purchase from iTunes, and maybe any of those Digital Copies you get with some BD/DVDs (Disney is a big fan of including these). Since these items require you to authenticate who you are and tie them to an Apple ID, I can see them allowing these as well. Anything you import? Likely to have to manually sync that. Though I wonder if MetaX will allow you to edit the metadata for account?
 

drewyboy

macrumors 65816
Jan 27, 2005
1,385
1,467
What I'm starting to see is that iCloud will be a place that simply stream movie, music, tv shows you've purchased, NOT only from iTunes, but anything legally purchased. Now, how they do that, I don't know. I came to this conclusion by article this past weekend, i believe, in which iTunes will take any songs you have and give you a higher quality on the cloud.

So, rather than having a NAS at home w/ my music, movies, tv shows (all legal) and using plex, the idea would be I can have it "activated" on iCloud so I can stream it, if iTunes has it in their library, to any of my apple devices. Hanging out at friends house, choose movie on my iphone, then airplay to their AppleTV!!!

This is what it seems to be shaping up to be, and IF so, I will more than likely get on board. Otherwise, Plex will always be there for me.
 

lkrupp

Suspended
Jul 24, 2004
1,873
3,796
so how would this work - would you be able to upload movies/TV shows you already purchased or have in Itunes or is it only special purchased items through apple.

The thing about uplaoding your own stuff is how does Apple know or how do you prove your stuff is not violating copyright. Say you illegally ripped (pirated) a friend's DVD movie to your iTunes. Now you want to upload that pirated movie to iCloud? I would assume Apple could be held liable for copyright infringement just like Limewire is being nailed for file sharing.
 

Porchland

macrumors 65816
Apr 26, 2004
1,076
2
Georgia
so how would this work - would you be able to upload movies/TV shows you already purchased or have in Itunes or is it only special purchased items through apple.

I don't see a market demand for "licenses that would enable Apple to store its customers' movies on the company's servers," so I assume this is code for "licenses like what Netflix has."
 
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