Disney signs online movie deal

Monsters Inc is one of Disney's most successful animations

Disney is to make its back catalogue of movies including Chicago and Monsters Inc available to web users in the US.

The company has signed an internet licensing deal with online film service Movielink, allowing users to pay to download full-length movies.

Movielink now has access to films from all major studios except Twentieth Century Fox with about 400 titles now in its library.

Studios have been attempting to find ways of preventing films being downloaded from the internet for free while realising that the web could become a new market place for them.

At present the service is only available in the US, and the Disney service will not be available until August because of the need to transfer the films onto servers.

Viewers will have 30 days to watch any downloaded film and once it has been viewed once it will only be available for a further 24 hours.

Other available films include Gangs of New York, Jungle Book 2 and the Recruit, with Disney setting prices ranging between $2.95 (£1.83) and $4.99 (£3.09).