Sony To Be The ITunes Of Film?

By WebProNews
Staff Writer
Article Date: 2005-04-02

Sony wants to be for the downloadable movie industry what Apple is to the downloadable music industry.

"We want to set business models, pricing models, distribution models like [Steve] Jobs did for music, but for the film industry," said Michael Arrieta, senior vice president of Sony Pictures.

According to a PC Pro article,

"Sony will kick off its 'iMovie' (sorry, Apple's taken that name) ambitions by releasing 500 films next year in various formats and not soley through the Movielink venture that it co-owns.

Nonetheless, with the industry-leading H.264 codec to be included in Mac OS X 10.4 and QuickTime 7 within the next couple of months coupled with its iTunes track record (not to mention Steve Jobs' other job over at Pixar), Apple appear to be the movies studios best bet if they want a viable online alternative to illegal downloading."

Analysts say that movie piracy cost the industry $7billion in 2003.