Suhit Gupta
03-07-2006, 06:00 PM
<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.betanews.com/article/AOL_Planning_Paid_Download_Service/1141663833' target='_blank'>http://www.betanews.com/article/AOL_Planning_Paid_Download_Service/1141663833</a><br /><br /></div><i>"AOL will add paid video downloads to its Web site later this year, the company has confirmed to BetaNews. The new paid portion of the site would complement its pre-existing free service in hopes of cashing in on a booming market brought to life by Apple and its iTunes Music Store. The paid downloads would be gradually introduced into a planned rework of AOL's online video on-demand service, the company said. Programming would come from Time Warner properties and other partners, and would sell for $1.99 USD per download. iTunes offers the the same pricing. Eventually, the company plans to move to a variable price structure, which it hopes would entice programmers turned off by Apple's insistence on a standard cost for both video and audio sold through its iTunes service."</i><br /><br />Interesting that they don't mention Google video as a competitor at all. Anyways, it looks like this service is going to be almost half the price of Google's service at about $1.99 per download. Since the DRM question invariably going to come up, it looks like AOL's service will support Microsoft's digital rights management software. So I guess they will be going after the PMC market as well.