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First rights wrangling ruined Beavis and Butthead vintage footage save some sucky clips onYouTube that keep getting taken down, and now it’s preventing Apple from bringing re-watchable movies to your iTunes account for the foreseeable future.
The anticipated iTunes Replay- an iCloud-based movie streaming service that it is believed would allow for re-streaming of previous purchases- could be months or longer in coming, according to unnamed media industry sources. It’s not a technology issue, however- the sources say four of the six major studios are taking their sweet-ass time in hammering out rights agreements to allow the service to go on as planned.
Furthermore, it seems that previous arrangements between studios and HBO call into question the available pool of content for iTunes Replay:
Negotiations are ongoing but it says they could go on for months thanks to the so-called “HBO window”. The deal means that HBO has the US rights to exclusively stream movies from 20th Century Fox, Universal and Warner Bros for a period after their DVD release.
With major studios yet to okay rights on content for iTunes Replay and the specific issues related to dibs called by HBO, Apple is facing some serious hurdles before the service becomes a reality- and that doesn’t even factor in other regions, like the UK. Apple reportedly remains in talks across Hollywood to push iTunes Replay forward.
