YouTube Introduces Movie Rentals

YouTube has taken its first tentative steps into the movie rental business and confirmed rumors that have been circulating for some time.

Google’s video sharing site, YouTube, is currently sponsoring the Sundance Film Festival. Yesterday, the YouTube team announced that starting tomorrow, titles from Sundance 2010 and Sundance 2009 would be available for rent for U.S. Youtube users.

While there are only five titles on the bill (including “One Too Many Mornings,” “Homewrecker,” and “Children of Invention”), and these are only available for rent through Sunday, January 31, the YouTube team says a small collection of rental videos from other U.S. partners across different industries, including health and education, will be made available in the weeks ahead.

“These are early days and in the coming weeks we’ll also invite a small group of partners across other industries, in addition to independent film, to participate in this new option. Anything that brings more content to the YouTube community is a good thing.”

In addition to all of this, YouTube is putting out the call for more independent filmmakers to join the rental program as part of their “Filmmakers Wanted” campaign at the festival.

It’s not yet clear if this kind of move will eventually spread to include titles from Hollywood studios. Certainly there’s nothing of the sort hinted at in the post but wouldn’t it be nice, eh?

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