Before I tell you about this amazing idea of $30 movie rentals, happy April fool?s day and this is not a prank, this story is for real and is very interesting. So a $30 movie rental, what is this all about? Four big studios are rolling out a premium VOD offering, in which renters at home can pay to see films that were just in theaters but aren?t yet out on DVD. The companies involved are Time Warner, Sony, Comcast and New Corp.?s movie studios. These studios are working on deals currently with DirectTV and in some Comcast markets soon. This type of move shows why the movie business is fairing much better against the digital disruption that has blown up apart the music and newspaper industry. With the type of flexibility the movie industry has with this, who knows how far it can go. Soon will we be able to rent movies while in the theater? It?s hard to say that a day like that will ever come but right now I think the movie industry has a winner, but one has to question whether or not this will lead to bigger issues, such as more private access to movies can cause piracy to go up. This is something that I will be keeping an eye on as the launch becomes a reality and try and see if there is any correlations with the introduction of this new rental VOD and movie piracy numbers.
