Amazon Looking At Download To DVD Plan

from the watch-now,-put-on-shelf-later dept

Amazon has been notoriously hesitant to get into any business that involves offering downloadable products. However, apparently, they're now looking at more creative ways to use digital downloads to encourage more DVD purchases, recognizing that the download adds value. It's not entirely clear what form it will take, but one method may be that you pay a small amount to download some content, and if you then buy the DVD, that amount gets credited. Another, more likely, approach would be that when you buy a DVD, you automatically get access to watch the movie streaming over your computer. It's unclear how locked down this will be, or for how long you'd have access to the streaming version. What would be nice is if Amazon acted as a backup locker for the content you bought, but somehow that seems unlikely. Of course, they're trying to come up with ways to do this with Hollywood's approval, which should get around some of the problems that some music dot coms had years ago when they tried to do similar things without the recording industry's approval. Though, since Hollywood's approval probably means the content will be locked down to a ridiculous level, it may make the service a lot less interesting to many people.