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YouTube looks at renting movies - but not in Canada
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The Associated Press
Date: Thursday Jan. 21, 2010 7:25 AM ET
SAN FRANCISCO — Movie rentals are coming to the Internet's most popular video site but the service will only work in the United States.
YouTube is making its debut as a rental outlet Friday to help promote some of the movies that will be shown at the upcoming Sundance Film Festival.
It's part of a test that YouTube hopes will encourage more movie studios to rent movies through its site.
The expansion announced Wednesday thrusts Google Inc.-owned YouTube into competition with more established vendors such as Apple Inc.'s iTunes store, Amazon.com Inc., Netflix Inc. and Blockbuster Inc.
The first batch of YouTube's rentals will cost US$3.99 for a 48-hour viewing period. Movie studios will be able to set their own prices, with rental viewing windows ranging from one to 90 days. YouTube will get an unspecified commission from each rental.
A Google Canada spokeswoman said the rental feature won't be available to Canadians at launch, but hopefully will in the future.
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But they probably get straight As for computer games and TV.
