With Wal-Mart gearing up a multi-million dollar campaign to help promote UltraViolet in stores, making more than 4000 films available in the cloud; and Apple allowing Digital Copies, both old and new, to stream via their iCloud service, now is the time to jump on the cloud streaming bandwagon.
Nearly every major studio has made the leap to the cloud, despite some studios, like Disney, who've yet to adopt UltraViolet, taking a "wait and see" approach to the new service. That said, Disney does offer Digital Copy, which they do allow to be streamed through Apple's iCloud service.
This leaves Fox as the only major studio who has yet to adopt the cloud streaming format in full. Fox does offer Digital Copies with many of their films, but the studio may be facing blackout dates, where content would not be allowed to stream via iCloud or UltraViolet.
According to paidContent, Fox's hefty 2007 $1 billion pay-TV deal with HBO is the major sticking point. The cable giant is enforcing blackout dates during their pay-TV window, restricting users from access to cloud content from Fox. These blackouts also restrict iTunes from being able to stream purchased content through iCloud. Amazon Instant Video, however, does not seem to be affected by the blackouts. Titles are still available for purchase and streaming through Amazon Instant Video PC, mobile, PS3 and TV apps.
Fox is negotiating with HBO to allow streaming rights to their films, but have not yet reached an agreement. Thankfully, there's still a chance the studio might be able to work out a deal. Both Warner Bros. and Universal had similar contracts with HBO, but were able to negotiate cloud streaming rights to users who purchased content before the pay-TV blackout dates. For example, if you bought Green Lantern before it premiered on HBO, you could stream it via UltraViolet and iCloud, as long as you purchased the film before the pay-TV window.
With a relatively convoluted format war between On Demand services, Digital Copy, iCloud and UltraViolet cloud streaming, cable TV blackouts could prove detrimental to the services. But, as always, it'll be up to the consumer to decide the fate of the formats.
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