According to the Financial Times on Sunday, Apple is in advanced talks with some of Hollywood’s largest movie studios in order to add a movie rental service to iTunes that would launch in the fall of 2008.
It was said that individual film rentals via iTunes would cost $2.99 for a 30-day rental, with each film being governed by digital rights management software that would allow users to transfer it from the computer to a video iPod or Apple TV, and would prevent against copying.
Apple’s chief executive, Steve Jobs, has often stated that customers would rather own than rent their digital content, it is believed that his theory only applies to music, which customers can listen to over and over, while they might only watch a movie once or twice.
AppleInsider recently conducted a survey asking the publics opinion about the idea of a movie rental service through iTunes and received over 1500 responses. According to the survey only 35% said they would rent their movies, 16.5% said they were interested in outright purchasing, while the remaining 48% said they would not consider buying or renting from iTunes until Apple improved its resolution of its iTunes movie downloads.
