Hollywood, Netflix to offer movies on demand

San Jose Mercury News: Netflix near launch of movie downloads.

One industry source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the new Netflix service would be similar to fledgling, studio-supported ventures like MovieLink and CinemaNow. Those services allow people to rent copy-protected movies and television shows over the Internet and watch them on their computers.

Such services struggled because they offer a limited number of new releases. That is unlikely to change, so long as DVD sales and rentals remain the largest single source of revenue for movie studios. ...

Carmel Group President Sean Badding said it also prepares Netflix for the far-off day when consumers actually look to the Internet to rent a movie.

Say what? We're ready for Internet movie rentals now. Get real. Akimbo does this today -- purchases of videos you can watch in your living room, via the Internet. Hollywood's just not ready to climb aboard in a serious way yet because of the DVD gravy train. You can bet that new Hollywood releases won't be part of this deal.