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Disney Inks Deal on Downloading Movies

Posted on: Thursday, 24 July 2003, 06:00 CDT

By ALEX VEIGA

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Scores of Disney films like "Chicago" and "Monsters Inc." will soon be available for downloading off the Internet through a licensing deal reached between the entertainment giant and online movie service Movielink, the companies said Wednesday.

The agreement between The Walt Disney Co. subsidiary Buena Vista Pay Television and Movielink was finalized last week. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The deal gives Movielink access to film titles from all the major studios except one - Twentieth Century Fox Studios - and boosts its library of digitized films to around 400 from the 175 the company had when it launched eight months ago.

Movies from Walt Disney Pictures, Touchstone, Miramax and Dimension New Releases will be available through the service. Among the first releases will be "Gangs of New York,""The Recruit" and "The Jungle Book 2."

The first batch of Disney titles won't be available until August because they have to be transferred to a format for downloading, Movielink CEO Jim Ramo said.

Plans by Disney to develop a video-on-demand service called MovieBeam this fall are still on, a Disney spokeswoman said. Unlike Movielink, MovieBeam would deliver films directly to consumers' TVs through a set-top box.

Disney will set the retail price for the movie downloads, which typically range between $2.95 and $4.99, Movielink said.

The movie files can be viewed on a PC or on a television connected to a computer, but customers have a maximum of 30 days to begin watching their downloaded movie. Once they begin to do so, the movie can be viewed only over the next 24 hours.

A computer with a broadband Internet connection is necessary to use the service.

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