The Usenet archived turned commecial-video-service Guba.com raised eyebrows with recent high profiles deals with Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures to offer current-release, DRM-protected movies and television programming for purchase via download. Now—no doubt in anticipation of Apple Computer entering the digital movie market—Guba.com is trying to draw all the eyeballs it can, hoping people will try, like, and get emotionally attached to Guba’s service before more players mount the stage.
To that end, Guba.com is slashing prices on its downloadable movie and television programming. For a limited time, Guba.com users in the U.S. will be able to download movies for just $9.99 on the same day the films are released to retailers on DVD; 24-hour rentals of some movie titles can be had for as little as $0.99. Back catalog titles will be available for just $4.99 and television show episodes will cost just 49 cents. Guba.com uses Microsoft’s Windows Media DRM technology, so purchased videos play only with current version of Windows Media Player; LInux, Macs, and iPods need not apply, and users can’t burn the downloaded videos to DVD.
Downloadable movie sales are still a very new thing, and it’s not clear at this point whether Guba’s price cuts represent the beginning of a price war, a re-adjustment of the “standard” pricing of downloadable movies (which, until now, have made many potential customers scoff: why pay to download DRM-addled movies when standard DVDs are more convenient and available for essentially the same price?), or merely a fluctuation in the not-yet-established market. Time will tell.
