The Change Mariner

AOL: You've Got Movies!

CBS Marketwatch:

A buck gets you more than a song on the Internet these days. Time Warner's America Online is offering broadband users downloaded movies for 99 cents each.

AOL is partnering with MovieLink, a movie download rental service and a joint venture of the five major movie studios, to bring this promotional offering to its 2.6 million broadband members. These members have high-speed connections through other vendors and pay $14.95 per month to get AOL.

The move is part of AOL's effort to sweeten its high-speed offering, as more people get hooked on broadband. It's also a MovieLink effort to introduce legitimate movie downloads on the Internet as an alternative to file swapping.

Internet piracy has already beset the music industry, and, as broadband becomes ubiquitous, the movie industry is hoping to avoid the same challenges and losses. See Net Sense: Digital loopholes still exist.

The promotion begins Wednesday and runs for five weeks. AOL broadband members will be able to begin watching a movie as soon as they've downloaded it, which can take 30 to 45 minutes, said Steven Yee, vice president of AOL Movies. Movies now available range from "Finding Nemo" to "The Matrix."