Apple Working to Add Movies to iCloud

[MacRumors]

The LATimes and Wall Street Journal are both reporting that Apple is working to finalize deals with major movie studios that would allow iTunes customers to stream purchased movies to their devices.

Apple Inc. is negotiating with Hollywood studios for deals that would let people who buy movies from the iTunes Store watch streaming versions of those movies on Apple devices such as iPads or iPhones without manually transferring them, according to people familiar with the matter.

With the launch of iCloud and associated services, Apple has started allowing iTunes customers to freely redownload both music and TV shows to any of their devices.

Even in the weeks leading up to the original iCloud announcement, we'd heard reports that Apple had been in deep negotiations with movie studios to provide just that sort of service. One of the hurdles at the time was reported to be the special exclusivity deals that the studios have with HBO. Those agreements would prevent the sale or distribution of movies while they were being aired on HBO. It's not clear how that conflict will be resolved.

Article Link: Apple Working to Add Movies to iCloud

 

[exhibit.b]

I would actually buy movies from itunes if this happened.

 

[klittle32]

Can someone explain to me why Apple needs agreements with the production companies to stream movies from their servers to users who have purchased the content? Once purchased, is it not the user's right to consume the media however s/he wants, whether the file is stored locally or remotely and streamed?

 

[RyanR.]

This

 

[jlpoore89]

This would definitely be awesome. I too would buy more movies from iTunes if this happened.

 

[Thanatoast]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X; en_US) AppleWebKit (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile [FBAN/FBForIPhone;FBAV/4.0.1;FBBV/4010.0;FBDV/iPhone2,1;FBMD/iPhone;FBSN/iPhone OS;FBSV/5.0;FBSS/1; FBCR/AT&T;FBID/phone;FBLC/en_US;FBSF/1.0])

This should not even be an issue. It's patently ridiculous that the studios even have the right to not allow this.

 

[ravenvii]

Streaming would be cool and all, but I would be perfectly happy with being able to re-download movies like I can re-download apps, music and TV shows. That provides a *great* peace of mind in event of data loss.

 

[ImAlwaysRight]

This would be great for when one travels.

 

[yearofthe]

That's gonna cost a hella lotta money just to put in two or three movies.

 

[SwissMac2]

I wish they'd spend the time on having Snow Leopard work with iCloud, fixing the bugs in Lion, and restyling the fragile iPhone.

 

[cshearer]

Can someone explain to me why Apple needs agreements with the production companies to stream movies from their servers to users who have purchased the content? Once purchased, is it not the user's right to consume the media however s/he wants, whether the file is stored locally or remotely and streamed?

This would definitely be awesome. I too would buy more movies from iTunes if this happened.

Royalty laws. And I'm not talking crowns here. Apple's licensing agreement with the aforementioned studios may limit the number of times a certain person is allowed to download a particular movie, or what devices they can view it on. They could also restrict the manner in which it's transmitted. I will admit that I'm only guessing here, but some sort of "fine print" type deal is probably the reason. I do agree that it's ridiculous though, but if you want to point the finger somewhere, point it firmly in the direction of royalties and copyrights.

 

[OrangeSVTguy]

Now we really need the unlimited data plans back instead of this tiered bs!

 

[bpeeps]

Royalty laws. And I'm not talking crowns here. Apple's licensing agreement with the aforementioned studios may limit the number of times a certain person is allowed to download a particular movie, or what devices they can view it on. They could also restrict the manner in which it's transmitted. I will admit that I'm only guessing here, but some sort of "fine print" type deal is probably the reason. I do agree that it's ridiculous though, but if you want to point the finger somewhere, point it firmly in the direction of royalties and copyrights.

For instance, every time you watch an episode of Friends, Jennifer Aniston gets paid.

There are contracts in place that say everytime this is watched, downloaded, streamed whatever, pay this royalty amount to people named X, Y, and Z. Etc.

 

[8CoreWhore]

A little TOO ambitious! Get my phone working first - sheesh! iMessages don't work, auto-synching doesn't work. (with power)

 

[cshearer]

A little TOO ambitious! Get my phone working first - sheesh! iMessages don't work, auto-synching doesn't work. (with power)

Those things have all been working for me since beta 4? Pleased to meet you chief strategist of Apple, Inc.

 

[klittle32]

For instance, every time you watch an episode of Friends, Jennifer Aniston gets paid.

There are contracts in place that say everytime this is watched, downloaded, streamed whatever, pay this royalty amount to people named X, Y, and Z. Etc.

I get that when it comes to content the consumer has not already purchased, such as a song on the radio or television show over cable or a subscription-based service such as Netflix. However, it seems to me that the fact that the content has been purchased by the consumer, might make a difference in this case. It appears to me that Google is taking this position with music, but Apple is taking a different approach.

 

[efktd]

I wish they'd spend the time on having Snow Leopard work with iCloud, fixing the bugs in Lion, and restyling the fragile iPhone.

agreed. but the work they did put into making this transition waaay smoother than the mobile me one... i give them props.

 

[IlluminatedSage]

This would be great for when one travels.

I don't know about that. hotels limit broadband bandwidth, quality video also gets choppy. i wouldn't complain about getting this.

but i do like blu-ray also, why oh why can't i get a MBP with BD and be happy with a ipad that can watch a digital copy of a movie or tv show i got that way?

oh the idea of getting BD on apple products is great, but not going to happen at this point. reality of this is that the studios area launching Ultraviolet, Apple is going to press them to offer them similar compatibility for their cloud/streaming/hosting comparable service.

More on ultraviolet at:
http://www.uvvu.com/

 

[marcusj0015]

This could be Epic.

the MAIN problem with buying movies online, is you have to store them, and have them waste space on your hdd/ssd. this, if it is true could be epic. i wouldn't need a blu-ray drive (I still want one tho)

 

[copl]

It's allready mentioned on apple.de

 

[BornAgainMac]

"Those agreements would prevent the sale or distribution of movies while they were being aired on HBO. It's not clear how that conflict will be resolved."

Money. Apple could just pay off HBO.

 

[Northgrove]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X; en_US) AppleWebKit (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile [FBAN/FBForIPhone;FBAV/4.0.1;FBBV/4010.0;FBDV/iPhone2,1;FBMD/iPhone;FBSN/iPhone OS;FBSV/5.0;FBSS/1; FBCR/AT&T;FBID/phone;FBLC/en_US;FBSF/1.0])

This should not even be an issue. It's patently ridiculous that the studios even have the right to not allow this.

I agree. It's as ridiculous as if a company would not allow you to copy files from some software you had purchased to your laptop, if the purchase took place on your desktop. There should definitely be protection in law where a company can't restrict like this if they can't prove it's a venue for illegal activities. In this case, both a personal iTunes account is necessary, that is tied to all your devices, and a purchase. Mass piracy is quite effectively stopped in its tracks.

 

[BeamWalker]

Maybe they should focus first on getting itunes in the cloud working in all countries they advertised it in - just sayin.

 

[maroontiger2k9]

That's gonna cost a hella lotta money just to put in two or three movies.

not if apple makes movie purchases available to Apple Tv

 

[carlgo]

This is all going to be sent around on cell towers and DSL? People will actually wait for hours to download a movie to be seen on a device screen, and pay nearly $100/month per person in a household so they can get rid of TV?

People want to store movies in the iCloud so they can...watch them continuously? People watch the same movie over and over? They actually have that much time?