YouTube on Wednesday announced a deal that will allow the video streaming company to rent movies from Paramount Pictures, the fifth studio now lined up to partner with the world’s largest video sharing platform.
The new partnership will start with Paramount offering nearly 500 movie titles to YouTube and Google Play users, the latter of which delivers movies directly to Google Android based devices.
In the company’s blog post YouTube said movies will including such favorites as “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,” “Transformers” and “The Godfather” trilogy which will be made available in the next couple of weeks in both the U.S. and Canada. Movies are expected to be priced between $2.99 to $3.99 for a 48-hour rental (movies shown above are not from Paramount Pictures).
The move s a big step forward for YouTube and Viacom (owner’s of Paramount Pictures), in 2007 Viacom sued Youtube over copyright infringement claims. Since 2007 YouTube has of course come a long way with its successful partner program and the introduction of partnerships with some of Hollywood’s biggest movie studios.
The movie is a logical next step for YouTube who has more competition in the digital video space thanks in large part to Apple, Amazon and Netflix which offer arguably better content, although I’ll leave Netflix’s streaming content up to debate.
Speaking about the partnership Malik Ducard, director of content partnerships at YouTube said:
“It’s still early days for us. We’ll continue adding new titles and expanding our service to more countries this year.”
Following news of the Viacom partnership with YouTube Google stock fell by 1.2 percent to $635.15.
