Hollywood's Video Download Offer Is A Ruse

from the just-puts-pressure-on-the-cable-companies dept

There have been a ton of stories about how Hollywood's attempt at offering movies online, CinemaNow, is awful. It's overpriced and offers very little (if anything) in the way of compelling functionality to make anyone want to download and watch a movie. However, this article suggests this doesn't matter to Hollywood. The project is just there to put pressure on the cable companies to offer better terms. The idea is that if the cable companies feel pressured by the movie studios and believe that the download company is a threat to their video-on-demand projects, they may cough up a larger percentage. Clearly, despite Jack Valenti's pulbic posturing, the movie industry doesn't really believe the internet is much of a threat right now.