Studios unveil 'films to download'

The new service, Movielink, is being set up in an attempt to stop piracy of major Hollywood films.

It is also seen as the beginning of a major push to sell future Hollywood films over the internet.

The studios involved are Warner Bros, Paramount Pictures, Universal Studios, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Classics

Movielink will offer over 170 titles from its launch on Monday.

These will range from recent Oscar winner A Beautiful Mind to 1950s classics such as Breakfast at Tiffany's, and other recent blockbusters such as Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone and Men In Black.

Prices are expected to start from $1.99 (£1.30) for older films, going up to $4.95 (£3.25).

Users will download the film from Movielink to their own computer hard drive.

The film can sit on the user's hard-drive for 30 days without being watched.

Once the user starts viewing it, they have 24 hours to finish watching it before it is automatically deleted from their computer.

Other measures will be used to make sure users cannot swap them over the Internet.

Movielink is currently only available for use in the US, and will need to be accessed through broadband internet, otherwise the time to download it will make it prohibitive.

The service will also allow users to pause, rewind or fast-forward, as they would on a video player.

The service is seen as a new way for studios to sell their libraries.

Money spinner

Some believe the Internet service could be bigger than DVDs in a decade's time.

DVDs are thought to have already earned studios $4.6billion (£3.1billion) in the five years they have been available.

But Movielink's chief, John Ramo, says the service will be a test to see if such a market exists, test prices and curb digital piracy.

"We think we are early enough in the cultural usage of movies on the web, that we are able to make the pirates, deviants," he told news agency Reuters.