Audio Video News

In a few years, many computer users will have DVD-ROM drives, DVD burners, and Internet connections with sufficient bandwidth to make the sharing and copying of full-length movies a real possibility. The emerging prospect for what some are calling "Napster for movies" has film studios exploring movie downloading and streaming technology, or "video-on-demand."

Due to technical limitations, Internet films at the moment consist mainly of short independent films which can be watched only in small windows on the screen. Slow transmission speeds, buffering glitches, and other problems have made full-screen, full-motion video the Internet's last frontier.

Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment has reportedly developed a movie-downloading platform and is willing to share it with other studios. That preemptive strike could save millions in legal fees that would certainly be spent trying to combat the piracy of films over the Internet. Primary parties include Walt Disney Company and Warner Brothers; other studios are participating in the discussions. NewsCorp's Twentieth Century Fox is said to be feeling out a joint Internet venture with Disney. Warner Home Video president Warren Lieberfarb told the Wall Street Journal that his company may license its films to Sony for the venture.

Last year, the music industry was blind-sided by the rapid growth in popularity of audio file-sharing service Napster and music archiving-and-accessing service MP3.com, both of which recently settled protracted copyright infringement lawsuits brought against them by the industry. The film business hopes to avoid a similar scenario by getting there first. "People want to see movies on the Internet, and we, along with other studios, plan to give them a chance to do that," said Yair Landau, president of Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment.

Movie rental giant Blockbuster, Inc. also plans a move into video-on-demand (VOD) in a joint venture with Enron, Inc. The partners will begin a trial of the service in mid-December. Film studios have been discussing the possibility of licensing their content to the VOD service, said Blockbuster spokeswoman Karen Raskopf. Blockbuster is a unit of Viacom Inc., which is also the parent company of Paramount Pictures and Paramount Home Video.