Miramax film to appear online - News - Business

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This story was printed from ZDNet Australia.
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Miramax film to appear online

By Mindy Charski, Interactive Week
January 19, 2001
URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/business/soa/Miramax-film-to-appear-online/0,139023166,120150474,00.htm

Miramax Films will distribute its first pay-per-view title over the Internet on Jan. 22, in association with SightSound Technologies. The film, Guinevere, is the first of 12 scheduled to be available for download in the United States.

The movie will cost US$3.49 for a one-day rental and can be found on www.guineverethemovie.com, www.sightsound.com and www.miramax.com. Guinevere was originally released in theaters in September 1999.

SightSound has encoded and encrypted the film, and will process the e-commerce transactions for Miramax. Many other studios have been hesitant about moving their films online, worried about both the security of their product and its quality of delivery.

SightSound is currently distributing works from over thirty, mostly independent production companies. It gained press attention in May when it released an Internet feature film called The Quantum Project that was downloaded by Web users in 52 countries who paid its $3.95 fee.

While many people question a viewer's desire to watch a feature film online, it's clear a number of companies are interested in the online movie space. This week the independent film site Alwaysi.com announced a subscription service for moviewatchers set to launch in February. The service, Unlimited Cinema, will initially cost $4.99 a month for existing members and will give subscribers unlimited access to the site's 1,500 films, 250 to 300 of which are feature-length.

"I think the day of everything on the Web being free are numbered," said Howard Rosenberg, chief executive and president of Alwaysi.com, a unit of Always Independent Entertainment. "The rules are changing." CinemaPop.com, a division of Kanakaris Wireless, recently launched a film subscription service of its own, which costs $4.95 a month.