Report: Google in talks for movie rental service

From CNET News.com: YouTube's fledgling movie rental program may soon be getting some Hollywood muscle in the crowded fight for domination of digital movie and television content distribution.

YouTube-parent Google is negotiating with major Hollywood studios to stream movies from their catalogs to a pay-per-view basis by the end of the year, according to a report in the Financial Times (subscription required).

The service is expected to stream movies on demand for $5 each, according to the report, which cited sources with knowledge of Google's plans.

A YouTube representative declined to comment on the report, saying "We have nothing to announce at this time."

The move would put Google in competition with Apple, which is reportedly working on a new digital-video service perhaps tied to a new generation of Apple TV, and Netflix, which early this month signed a five-year deal worth nearly $1 billion to stream movies from Paramount, Lionsgate, and MGM. Hulu, which is owned by Walt Disney, News Corp., and NBC Universal, is reportedly considering an initial public offering worth $2 billion.

YouTube has long been expected to get into the video-on-demand business, especially since Google removed video content purchases from its (now-defunct) Google Video service at the end of 2007. Google first hinted at its intentions in April 2009 when it announced plans to build payment mechanisms into its video-sharing site. Late last year, reports surfaced that YouTube was in talks with a number of film studios in an attempt to warm them to the idea of renting their films on the service.

View: Article @ Source Site