After writing about how newspapers seem hellbent to act like a bunch of lemmings headed over a cliff under the rallying cry of Rupert Murdoch it is almost a pleasure to write about a bunch of magazine competitors who seem to have finally caught on to how they might be able to succeed as their world changes around them.

As much as the newspaper industry might be facing some hard times the road forward has to be doubly hard for those publishing magazines. Where newspapers can at least fall back on the old mantra of printing the news as it happens magazine have always be thought of as the more of a monthly collection of long prose and glossy pictures. All of which is really hard to market in the Internet age – especially one crawling headlong into the real-time web.

Where they have funnily enough stood a chance of surviving in my opinion is in the growing mobile space where if done right their presentation is suited to the small viewing area fond on smartphones. The two big problems though are that people are increasingly use to a one-stop shopping experience ala iTunes and the App Store and aren’t inclined to go running about the web and paying piecemeal for content. The other problem is much more basic – people want everything for free especially when it comes to news.

With that in mind Time Inc., Conde Nast and Hearst have agreed to come together under the banner of a new company that will provide a unified web store where readers will be able to buy any one of the 50 magazines that the various partners publish.

Each magazine publisher now believes it’s too risky to go it alone to find new ways to get consumers to pay. If they all join together, the reasoning goes, they stand a better chance of producing greater revenue.

The deal is taking time to complete because it involves so many moving pieces.

“It’s pretty complicated stuff,” said a source. “The really, really hard part is that you’ve got so many different kinds of devices running on different operating systems. And how do you handle that? The consortium provides one point of contact for the consumer. When you come to the main store, you can get the content any way you want.”

Source: The Observer

Now as Frederic Lardinois at ReadWriteWeb noted

Most importantly, these companies will also have to reinvent their magazines for the digital age along the lines of Wired’s app for the rumored Apple Tablet or Condé Nast’s iPhone version of GQ (iTunes link). One of the reasons these publications are suffering is the long lead time that makes most of the content outdated by the time it arrives at the printer. While this still works for magazines like the Atlantic, which mostly publishes in-depth long form articles that aren’t time-sensitive, gossip magazines can’t really compete with TMZ or Perez Hilton. Just putting a digital copy of their magazines online simply won’t cut it.

He’s absolutely right – just unifying what they are already doing on the web under one umbrella and expecting people to be willing to pay for it based on that alone will only guarantee that the project will fail.

If they do manage to come up with unique content available via the store alone in order to add some extra value people are willing to pay for then yes I think this is a viable idea that could work out very well.

Too bad Murdoch doesn’t try forward thinking ideas like this instead of beating his chest against the big bully called Google.

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Apple may be having service difficulties with iTunes Sunday with some users reporting the popular music player is offering a “iTunes network connection timed out” error message.

According to previous instances of the error message, it usually occurs when a search is being undertaken by a user in the iTunes store. There is no word yet as to whether users are experiencing broad iTunes problems, or just with iTunes search.

Previous advice on the issue has suggested that an old version of iTunes may be causing an issue, however a number of people receiving the error more recently have noted that it happened after they upgraded to iTunes 9.

If you’re experiencing the problem, let us know in the comments. Better still, if you know how to fix the “itunes network connection timed out” problem, please share.

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Over the last few months, I’ve become a fan and supporter of NPR, a not-for-profit organization in America dedicated to the production and distribution of “noncommercial news, talk and entertainment programming”, distributed nationally via public radio member stations.  This came about because typical news sources in America are increasingly focused in advertising dollars rather than informing their audience, and cater more to sensationalism and faux-news than unfiltered, unbiased news – I have no interest in supporting the “infotainment”-ization of CNN.

The problem with NPR, I discovered, is that they have wonderful daily programming that spans a range of interests and topics (read: NPR is not talk radio, but actually closer to a real-time History Channel on the radio) and that the programs can be up to two hours in length.  This becomes a problem when:

1. you’re a busy person
2. you don’t have a portable radio
3. you don’t spend a significant and consistent amount of time in the car

But imagine my surprise this week when I discovered that NPR offers podcasts of almost all of their shows, free of charge, that are easily integrated with iTunes – self-updating news and entertainment programs that automatically transfer to your iPod according to rules you create.

This discovery was wonderful – now I could listen to what I wanted on a regular basis without being dependent on the car’s radio!  NPR’s Talk of the Nation and Marketplace (via American Public Media), along with assorted programs from the BBC’s World Service suite and PBS’ NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, have now become a daily staple for my travels.  Sadly, though, All Things Considered does not have a subscription process, and a query to NPR has been submitted.

Although the podcast process is a great modern innovation for on-demand quality programming, and the television industry would do well to take note, there remains a problem:  if a podcast is started on an iPod, but not finished, the only way to continue later is to either not listen to anything else or memorize its time position.

So, Apple, here’s a two-fold feature request:

1. have a default option to remember the listening position of podcasts, and allow it to be restarted where the user left off – similar to a DVD player’s “resume stop” feature, except with persistent memory during other content.
2. have “intelligent listening transference” from an iPod to a computer’s installation of iTunes, allowing a user to start the podcast on their iPod and finish listening in iTunes.

These two small, but important, new features would make the iTunes method of podcast delivery quite possibly the default distribution method for future “radio” shows and other audio-based programming.  But for a media revolution to be successful, the tools in use must first attain a level of usability, in combination with appropriate market/social timing:  FM radio and cable television saw this in previous decades, and the “blogging revolution” is currently experiencing this as tools mature and newspapers fail.

NPR, I love you, but Apple could take our relationship to the next level – why don’t you give them a ring?

— — —

Update (8/27/2009 11:50am PST): Word is coming in that most iPods already do this.  Mine doesn’t, but possibly because it’s too old.  So if this was a new idea to you, try it out – it probably already works for you!

Kyle Brady is a contributing columnist for the Inquisitr, an entrepreneur, and has a future in science fiction.  He can be found at his blog, via email, or on Twitter.

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Users of popular free Windows anti-virus software AVG have been in for a surprise in the last 24 hours after the software started identifying iTunes files as a virus.

According to warning messages received by AVG users, iTunes.dll and iTunesRegistry.dll are infected with “Trojan horse Small.BOG”. The odd thing about the alleged virus is that at least according to the databases of other leading virus scanners, there’s no trojan in existence called Small.BOG…so it’s quite possible that someone at AVG is taking the piss.

AVG, Apple and other forums have been swamped by users experiencing the problem. At the time of writing there doesn’t appear to be any official word from AVG on when it might be rectified.

In the mean time, if you do receive the message, the advice is two fold. 1: don’t quarantine the files as this will break iTunes (and they aren’t actual viruses). 2: add an exception in AVG by following the instructions here.

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The decision, announced at the Macworld Expo today, will be fully in effect by the end of March. Already, about 8 million of iTunes’ 10 million tracks are available for DRM-free downloads, Apple says.

The change is accompanied by a shift in pricing. Rather than offering all songs at a rate of 99 cents, iTunes will soon introduce a three-tiered system. Beginning in April, songs will be available for either 69 cents, 99 cents, or $1.29. Apple’s Phil Schiller said the decision will be made based on what record company is behind the song. He also said more tracks will be at the 69 cent rate than the $1.29 rate.

Finally, as of today, iTunes purchases will be made available over 3G networks for iPhone users. Previously, iPhone users had to connect via a Wi-Fi connection in order to make a purchase.

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Words fail me.

[courtesy of manicho]

No related posts.

The study also revealed that Japan recorded the highest penetration of users of Apple iTunes software during the month, when compared with the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany.

“The Internet and other digital media have become key platforms for music consumption and clearly represent the future of the music industry,” said Maru Sato, managing director of comScore Japan. “With so much consumer music activity occurring in the digital space today, it is increasingly important to capture the available audience now and get them engaged with your service.”

Somehow, Japan’s love for music is understandable. Remember, the first karaoke machine was invented by a Japanese.

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The company had announced late last month that it would shut the servers down, meaning anyone who downloaded tracks from its Web site before February — when it switched to DRM-free files — would no longer be able to transfer the music to other computers or devices. (At least, not without taking the backdoor approach of burning it to disc, then re-ripping it.)

Now, Wally World says “based on feedback from [its] customers,” it will “maintain [its] digital rights management (DRM) servers for the present time,” the e-mail obtained by Engadget indicates. No telling how long that “present time” will end up being — but hey, it’s reassuring to see that a massive customer backlash can, sometimes, make a difference.

In the meantime, Apple is still facing a fight to completely drop its digital rights protection from iTunes-downloaded songs. A consumer rights official in Norway says the company’s restrictions violate his nation’s laws by not letting customers play their purchases on any device they want. Apple has until November 3 to respond to a Norwegian court. Its final ruling isn’t expected until early next year.

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“This is extremely exciting for me,” Al writes in a recent blog posting. “One of the hardest things I’ve had to deal with in my career is keeping my material topical even though I only release albums every 3 or 4 years. Now, with the advent and popularity of digital distribution, I don’t have to wait around while my songs get old and dated — I can get them out on the Internet almost immediately. It kind of boggles my mind — I thought of the idea for this new song a week ago, and next week it’s getting released!”

Weird Al’s not yet revealing what the song is, but he says it’s a parody of a tune “that very recently was (or perhaps still is) the number one song” in the U.S. — something he describes as “another first” for him. The track will go up on iTunes next Tuesday, October 7.

In a time with such uncertainty about the future of physical music, our odd friend’s willingness to step back from the album-centric approach without abandoning it altogether is admirable. And there’s nothing weird about that.

Maybe certain other bands with antiquated ideas about digital distribution should start listening.

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The Copyright Royalty Board has voted to maintain the existing rate of the royalty payments paid to music publishers and songwriters.

The National Music Publishers Association had asked the board to increase the royalty payment to 15c per song from the existing 9.1c per song, a rise Apple claimed in a submission could force it to close the iTunes music store.

The board didn’t deliver good news exclusively however, setting a rate of 24c for ringtones, the first time ringtones have had a mandate rate, and an amount significantly higher than asked for by all parties.

The good news from the decision is that Apple is not going to close the iTunes music store, which many sites have reported was a strong possibility because that’s what Apple argued in its submission. It’s a great line, but it was bollocks: Apple was never going to close the store, it was simply a tactic used to pressure the decision.

Apple was not going to cut off a music store that has been an integral part of its domination of the MP3 music player space, certainly not due to a 9c rise, or even more. They may have protested that the market would only have accepted 99c singles, but they weren’t about to damage a product line (the iPod) that accounted for 42% of Apple’s revenue in the first quarter of 2008. Apple would have worn the cost, by increasing the price of music sold, or absorbing the hike as a subsidy towards maintaining its 75% market share.

(via WSJ)

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Is it an issue directly related to the economy or is it an issue of over consumption?

Variety reported in August that movie rentals are up, indicating that as economic conditions worsen (and this was pre the latest Wall Street crisis) people are more likely to rent a movie than buy one. And yet they note in the same paragraph:

However, sales of catalog and TV series on DVD are robust, suggesting that sagging DVD movie sales may be due to the maturity of the business — and to the quality of the titles.

How many DVD’s are enough? The industry saw saturation coming, and was hoping that Blu-ray would drive new sales based on the premise that people would want to have a copy of their favorite movies in HD. The problem being is that people haven’t bought in, and they are content with their current DVD libraries. There has been no rush to buy Blu-ray titles, and an aimed marketshare of 50% by the end of the year will be lucky to hit 10% instead. As Blu-ray players become cheaper, more people will buy Blu-ray movies, but only when buying new titles, not in most cases as replacements for their existing libraries.

But this doesn’t explain the DVD slump. Wired reports this month that movie execs are saying they’ve seen no downturn in the DVD business, and yet Variety the month before reports:

“None of the studios are making their marks,” an industry research analyst states. “Week to week, there have been double-digit declines.”

…Even the most bullish execs will concede this summer’s light DVD slate exacerbated declining new release fortunes. The ongoing deterioration is creating a ripple effect throughout the industry.

But even before the summer, new release sales were trending downward. According to analyst Tom Adams, “there was another decline, and a fairly substantial one at that,” for theatricals debuting on disc the first half of the year. He says the average overall perf was down 12% in first half, and he expects further declines through the end of the year, although he expects the sheer number of year-end releases to offset individual shortfalls.

So is there a downturn or not? Let’s take a middle line and say growth is flat, and as Variety notes, there are two factors at play, content and market maturity. Content is easy enough: Hollywood hasn’t had as many blockbusters as in previous years, and the flow on effect is lower sales once the movies make it to DVD. But maturity is the interesting factor. Has mass consumption and high sales delivered a market that can take less consumption because, to use a food cliche, it is full or close to it? DVD has been a huge success, and many have big libraries of movies, a brilliant marketing strategy that probably delivered beyond the studios wildest dreams. But how much is enough? As sales become flat, we see no increased desire to consume more. If sales are down, we see people content with their existing libraries, as we see with Blu-ray. They may still add to their collections, but in no where near the volume of years past.

The Digital Challenge

The movie industry is yet to face the same challenges we see in the music industry. There has been no mass uptake of digitally delivered content, even if we see increasing sales of both movies and TV shows from Apple’s iTunes store and others obsess with pirated content. Most people don’t have a digital content conduit in their loungerooms, so although I may rent a movie on my Apple TV this weekend, I am among a small few. But as we know, things are rapidly changing. The age of internet enabled televisions is upon us, and with mass market penetration, so to will consumption switch from physical media to digital media.

I would have bet that Blu-ray would have been the last great physical distribution medium, but it may never get to a point where it is. The successor to DVD will be digitial delivery, but the consumption argument stays the same.

People are not going to rush out and buy digital content (even if it’s HD) when they own the same title on DVD. An upsurge in rentals will help drive digital uptake, but a drop in actual sales presents the same issues to digital content as it does to Blu-ray and DVD. We’re not seeing a consumption shift in delivery, we are seeing a consumption shift based on scarcity, or lack there of to be precise. The challenge for the various companies looking to role out digital delivery in the coming years is how do they make the offering appealing when the end user may have past saturation point when consuming media.

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I’ve been an Apple fan boy for nearly two years. In that time we’ve acquired 3 Macs (a Mac Pro, Macbook Pro and Macbook) two iPhones and an Apple TV. I purchased and love iWork, I use iLife for podcasts and photos, I use iTunes to manage our music, and I’ve even started renting movies and buying apps from the iTunes store. So I’m not an Apple hater, but no matter how much I try to love iTunes 8, I can’t. iTunes 8 with “Genius” is an epic failure. Where do I start?

Genius recommendations suck

Per the screenshot above, I own every single Crowded House album ever released, so by extension I have every single Crowded House single. And what does the Genius Sidebar suggest that I’m missing? Well, Crowded House standards such as Chocolate Cake, Mean to Me and Throw Your Arms Around Me. Maybe Apple doesn’t like Crowded House, but the same goes for other albums we own, with the Genius sidebar actually telling me that I’m missing songs that appear on the album!

Genius sidebar is a blatant sales tool, nothing else

I’m not against the concept of the Genius sidebar making recommendations, after all the idea has some merit, and if it actually worked it would be a good way of discovering singles. My problem is that it’s not a discovery tool, it’s a sales tool, and nothing else. Every recommended single is a link to buy the track on iTunes, further promoting the dominance of the iTunes store. Jobs wasn’t kidding when he said that Genius was about increasing sales!

Genius playlists seem randomly generated

They say that the Genius feature gets better with use, but a couple of days in, the Genius playlists still feel random. My playlists include Jazz next to Alternative and Pop/ Rock. Maybe it works better after you’ve spent $1000 on the iTunes store in singles?

At least there’s a visualizer

The only positive in the release is Apple’s inclusion of a visualizer in iTunes, so finally they’ve caught up with Windows Media Player…in 1998.

Conclusion

The convenience of using iTunes to manage media across our iPhones and the Apple TV means that I’ll probably stick with iTunes, but the Genius feature just got switched off. Apple has dropped the ball, switching to a sales push instead of focusing on the user experience first. Lets hope that greed hasn’t gone to their heads, and this is the beginning of a new Apple that looks more like the competition.

Update: there are also reports of iTunes 8 crashing Vista. Score that as another point on the EPIC FAIL path.

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There is a case in terms of limiting future growth in online content delivery; as we switch away from heritage media, the more content we consume online, the more data we use. But that time isn’t now, at least for the vast majority of users, because even with streaming content, most will never hit the 250gb cap. There are some exceptions, but we’ll get to that in a moment.

Living with a cap

The above shot is from my iiNet toolbox showing my volume usage from August 28, the starting day for the monthly calculation of my use cap, which is currently 65GB peak (noon-2am) and 65GB off-peak (2am-noon). 11 full days into the month, I’ve used 10gb peak, just over 2gb off peak, and 3gb in the free zone.

Now perhaps I haven’t downloaded a lot this month, so these figures may not be completely typical, but they are close enough, and my biggest month so far totaled 50gb. Consider the usage scenario: we rarely watch broadcast television, and on a typical night will stream one to two television programs. Other times we might rent a movie or stream some podcasts via our Apple TV, and if you note the freezone figure for the 6th, we purchased 300 on iTunes (it wasn’t available for rent) and watched it, resulting in a 1.5gb figure for that day. I’m also in front of a computer at home all day, and I regularly download content, and at least three times a week I’m playing online Poker as well, so there is a gaming component. Notably these figures include uploads as well, although it’s not clear whether the Comcast cap counts uploads. Our house has more internet enabled devices than people: three computers in regular use, Apple TV, two iPhones, and a Chumby used day in, day out.

Lets presume the average Roku box user watches one video every night. At 30 days in a month x 1.5gb per video, total use will be 45gb for the month. Lets presume that Netflix isn’t as efficient as iTunes in movie delivery, and each movie is 3gb. Lets presume you’re an addict, and you watch two movies every day. Still only 180gb in a heavy use, high bandwidth scenario, with 70gb to spare.

Comcast states that only 0.1% of their users use in excess of 250gb a month, so 99.9% of users will never have an issue, and that includes many early adopters and those working in the tech/ web space. I could try harder to use more bandwidth, but never being offline is all I can manage, at least for now.

Market Forces

Lets presume that with the rise of digital content delivery, usage rates increase, and more people get closer to the cap, or exceed it. Demand usually results in supply, and presuming that 250gb is the end of the matter ignores alternative ISP’s or distribution deals.

In Australia, as you’ll note in the image above, ISP’s do deals with content providers so that downloads aren’t counted towards a cap. In my case, the iiNet Freezone includes content from iTunes, and a number of other services. iiNet even offers a variety of internet radio stations for free, so when I wake up to the sound of 977 The 80’s Channel on my Chumby of a morning, it’s via a local iiNet stream of the station that doesn’t count towards my cap.

Providers such as Apple, Netflix and others will cut deals in the United States in the same way they have in Australia, both as a marketing tool and as a way to overcome any cap fears that may slow usage rates and consumer uptake. ISP’s like these deals as well, as offering unmetered content from large players is a selling point.

The Exceptions

There are of course some that will lose out under these caps: extreme high end users, large families or group homes, heavy BitTorrent users, and addicted online game players. Some have a reasonable case to complain, but others, for example those who use a residential connection to run a business where many people use that connection every day, or even use the connection as a web server (remarkably some people still do) need to accept up to the fact that if they want unlimited bandwidth, they should pay for it. Comcast business plans are not currently capped, so there are alternatives, even if they do cost more.

Conclusion

I don’t like caps, and having been on the wrong end of usage before and having my connection shaped, I’d consider switching to an unlimited plan tomorrow if I had the choice. Caps do have the potential of constraining growth in digital media delivery in the future, replacing a free market with one of deals and artificial supply constraints. And yet, for the negatives, the sky isn’t falling, it’s not the end of the world, and most Comcast users will never notice the introduction of a cap. It’s not unreasonable that people pay more relative to the amount of data they consume, and that heavy users should not be subsidized by light users. The market will respond, the drive towards more efficient delivery of digital content will increase, and we’ll still be streaming and downloading content tomorrow and into the future.

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BBC Worldwide has revealed plans to launch an Internet-based music download service in competition with Apple. The store will feature tunes from the BBC’s archives with the option to pay to download or pay less to “rent” — meaning the track would be downloaded with a temporary lifespan. The service will also let you stream anything in its entirety for free, if you don’t mind pre-, post- and mid-roll advertisements. All purchased and downloaded content will be DRM-free and is expected to run about 79p (USD$.89) per track.

The interesting thing here is the service will actually offer something new compared to its competitors. Rather than standard album tracks, the catalog will be made up of live performances that have aired on the BBC over the years — anything from “Top of the Pops” to various music festivals and radio or TV specials. Some will even date back to the 70s-era “Old Grey Whistle Test”, a program that had performances ranging from John Lennon to the Eagles.

A beta version is expected to debut in November with a full launch following early next year. The name of the service has not yet been decided.

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The newest tidbit is about iTunes and China’s apparent blocking of the site in the midst of its international moment. Computer users in Beijing say they haven’t been able to download songs all week. Speculation points the sudden silencing to a Tibet-themed album made available on the service. The Art of Peace Foundation says several dozen athletes downloaded its work “in an act of solidarity,” and the site was blocked soon thereafter.

China’s government officials have not responded to any press inquiries. Apple, for its part, is only saying it’s “aware of the logon problems” but has “no comment at the moment.”

Oh yeah, and those medal-winning Chinese gymnasts? Newly uncovered documents may finally prove what everyone’s suspected all along: that more than one of them is underage and not eligible to be competing.

Add all of this to the opening ceremony saga, the questions over judging validity, and the backing down of promises for “complete media freedom” for press — not to mention the hoards of quickly quieted and slyly arrested protesters all throughout the days — and the Games haven’t exactly brought China the glory it wanted. It’s a damned shame, too. But beneath the eerily plastered-on smiles being shown for the cameras, the entire world has seen a disturbing and consistent picture of censorship, dishonesty, and questionable treatment of people.

You can put on all the fake fireworks and lipsynced performances you want, but when the charades are over, there’s little to celebrate — and no one is being fooled.

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The initial offering includes over 700 films for rent or purchase from major film studios including 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Entertainment, MGM, Sony Pictures and Lionsgate.

New release titles will be available for purchase on the same day as their DVD release, including “National Treasure 2,” “Jumper,” “27 Dresses,” “Cloverfield,” “Vantage Point” and “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.”

iTunes movies in Australia start at $9.99 AUD for catalog title purchases, $17.99 AUD for recent releases and $24.99 AUD for new releases. iTunes Movie Rentals are $3.99 AUD for library title rentals and $5.99 AUD for new releases, with high definition versions an additional $1. Like the US store, users have up to 30 days to start watching a rental, and once the movie has been started they have 48 hours to finish it or watch it multiple times.

There isn’t a huge range in the initial release, but as someone who hasn’t rented a movie in years, I’ll be taking a close look via my Apple TV tonight. Who knows, Apple got me paying for iPhone apps, I might even rent a movie or two as well.

(via MacRumors)

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The issues are plaguing store activations and home-based attempts for both new iPhones and first-generation firmware updates. For now, Apple says it’s “working on a solution.” AT&T is officially asking customers to take their phones home to activate later, once things are back up and running.

If only Apple could have somehow known in advance that there would have been such a rush of activity today, maybe they could have prevented this.

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The company is teaming up with Disney, Paramount, Twentieth Century Fox, and Warner Brothers to offer the studios’ films through its U.K. iTunes service, according to information obtained by the London-based Times. The service is also expected to be extended to Canada.

Apple hasn’t yet said how much it’ll charge for the downloads but did indicate the pricing would be roughly comparable to DVD costs, leading to guesses ranging from six to 25 pounds (or roughly $11 to $49 in U.S. currency).

While other companies are already offering online downloads of Hollywood hits, these deals mark the first time such services have been offered in England, according to the Times.

A formal launch date has not yet been announced.

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Portfolio.com quotes HBO insiders as saying the network is “close to announcing a deal” to offer its programs for individual download on the service. Interestingly, the insiders say HBO negotiated better terms than any other current content providers.

The move would open the closely-guarded gates to HBO programming and let non-subscribers get immediate access to hits like Entourage and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Currently, HBO offers online access only to people who are already paying for their television-based service.

Providing on-demand access without a subscription strikes me as a smart and long overdue move. Plenty of people don’t want to pay the monthly fee for channels they largely won’t watch, but buying a one-time episode of a quality show is a much less daunting investment. I’m just surprised it’s taken them this long to catch up with the world and come up with this plan.

The deal could also fill the gap left by NBC pulling its programs from iTunes last year. The peacock network moved its goods over to Microsoft’s Zune service instead, as reported on The Inquisitr earlier this month.

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New releases and catalog titles will be available from 20th Century Fox, The Walt Disney Studios, Warner Bros., Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios Home Entertainment, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Lionsgate, Image Entertainment and First Look Studios. Movies purchased from iTunes can be viewed on an iPod with video, iPhone, Mac or PC or on a widescreen TV with Apple TV, with new releases priced at $14.99 and most catalog titles at $9.99.

Movies being release this week on iTunes at the same time as DVD include American Gangster and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.

This is good news for Apple and Apple fans. The stupidity in delaying electronic release of movies on iTunes only encourages piracy at the time where consumers are switching to digital distribution methods as their first and often only choice. The downside is that the movies are still DRM infested and cant be easily transfered, but it’s at least a start.

Related posts:

1. iTunes Movies comes to Australia and New Zealand
2. Five Billion Songs Sold at iTunes; 50,000 Movies Rented Daily
3. Apple Launching New Movie Service In England