Rumor: Apple Ready On Movie Downloads

After months of rumor, ThinkSecret reports today that Apple will be ready to offer movie downloads through iTunes as of Steve Jobs's keynote speech on August 7.

They don't hazard a guess as to a pricepoint, but I'm expecting it to fairly low, because – and this is the bad news, so brace yourself – it looks like Apple will be offering downloadable movie "rentals."

Which, you know, BOO!

For all of Apple's rhetoric in opposition to renting music, this strikes me as a mistake. Now, ThinkSecret's report does leave it ambiguous, so a rental might be less dire than it seems.

Because the movies will be rented to consumers and not sold, people familiar with the situation report downloads will be coded with a date stamp that will restrict playback. It is not known exactly how the coding system will work, but industry experts tell Think Secret that the software would likely either limit the number of playbacks or provide unlimited viewing for a period of time, after which the movie will be "turned off" and no longer available.

If it's a limited number of playbacks, this could still be a great product. Ten plays of a given movie is more times than most consumer-purchased DVDs will ever see. It's almost equivalent to a purchase. If it's date limited, we're back to the world of DiVX.

Which would suck. Let's hope not.

(Via MacSurfer.)