IP Democracy: iTunes Posts First "Movie" for Sale

MacRumors broke the story that Apple’s iTunes posted its first “movie” for sale — Apple is expected to announce the sale of movies via iTunes once it completes its talks with the motion picture studios.

The movie posted today is actually a TV movie, Disney’s “High School Musical.” (The iTunes link is here.) What’s suprising to many about this early tip of the hand is not that a movie appears on iTunes but the price: $9.99, far higher than the flat-rate $1.99 for iTunes videos.

But this shouldn’t be a surprise to anybody. Hollywood would never agree to a low price for feature length films if the model on iTunes is download to own (a model that Apple is advocating but Hollywood fears.)

At Emerging Media Dynamics, our January analysis of iTune’s prospective video revenues was premised on the very notion that “[a]s time progresses…the average price of an Apple iTunes video sold will climb as the mix of content shifts toward products with higher, or more variable, prices” such as movies. I would suspect that once Apple announces its movie deals, iTunes will be selling true theatrical films at a price far higher than $9.99.

Posted by Cynthia Brumfield on March 15, 2006 3:20 PM to IP Democracy