Studios' digital dilemma

FROM VARIETY: Apple calling shots as biz tries to control market

By Scott Kirsner of Variety -- Video Business, 11/7/2007

NOV. 7 | FROM VARIETY: When Ed Burns' Purple Violets appears on the virtual shelves of the iTunes Store later this month, it will mark the first direct-to-digital release of a movie on Apple's online marketplace.

It'll also signify a new push by Apple to land a true hit in movie downloads, something that has eluded its iTunes service and those offered by all of the studios in their quest to create the next great marketplace.

For all of the attention that movie downloads have generated -- in the form of studio investment or in WGA demands for their fair share -- the truth is that the results so far have been paltry. The majority of consumers haven't begun buying movies in digital form.

Read the full story on Variety.com.

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