New movie download services will be launched soon

The movie download firms Movielink and CinemaNow have made a deal with the big five studios to ensure that downloads will coincide with DVD releases at Blockbuster and WalMart. Unlike previous deals, these will be full purchase downloads, and not merely for a rental period. The move is aimed at stemming the rising tide of pirate downloads, and DRM will be in force to prevent copying the movies to DVD - to be more exact - burning a copy of the movie to a DVD will make it playable only on other computers.

Both movie sites will debut with several hundred older films. Unlike their current services, in which online shoppers pay around $4 to rent new movies for up to a month, the films will be sold for prices “similar to home video,” says Ramo. That’s around $20 to $30 for newer films, and $10 to $20 for older flicks. CinemaNow intends to be more aggressive, offering some of its new flicks for under $20 and to build traffic, it will offer a two-for-one sale at the outset. The second film will cost $4.95, says the services CEO Curt Marvis.

The downloaded movies would still come with several restrictions that underscore the difficulty of the new digital world for Hollywood studios. To keep from competing directly with large retailers like Wal-Mart, both sites for now are only allowing the movies people buy through downloads to be stored on PCs or on devices like the game player Xbox outfitted with certain Microsoft (MSFT) software. Movies can’t be “burned” or copied onto disks that can be played on other devices, such DVD players. The movies, however, can be copied to play on as many as two other PCs, says Ramo.

The first batch of downloadable movies will include Brokeback Mountain, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, King Kong.and Saw II. The problem of this service will be probably the price, for which you can buy a new retail DVD even with shipping fees…