Sony Pictures Digital Entertainment is trying to develop and own the next iTunes--but for films.
"We want to set business models, pricing models, distribution models like (Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs) did for music, but for the film industry," Michael Arrieta, senior vice president of Sony Pictures, said at the Digital Hollywood conference here. "I'm trying to create the new 'anti-Napster,'" he added.
To that end, Arrieta said, his group plans to digitize Sony Pictures' top 500 films and make them available for the first time in various digital environments within the next year. He said the distribution for films like "Spider-Man 2" will go beyond just Movielink, the video-on-demand joint venture of Sony Pictures and several other major studios, which to date has hosted a limited library of Sony's movies.
News source: C|Net News.com
