By Will Sturgeon, 6 September 2001 09:30
NEWS Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation has signed a deal with Walt Disney to distribute films via cable and the internet. The joint venture comes just weeks after Sony signed a similar deal with studio giants MGM, Paramount and Warner Brothers as the market for video-on-demand hots up. According to the Financial Times the deals are a pre-emptive strike on piracy. Hollywood is clearly looking to learn from the reticence of the music industry to embrace online offerings that saw them left in the blocks by file sharing site Napster. If the major company's can establish recognised services providing high-quality movies it should dent the enthusiasm of people, as with Napster style music sites, looking to illegally fill a gap in the market. Walt Disney and News Corporation will only distribute their own films initially, which will include the studio output of companies such as 20th Century Fox - makers of the Star Wars films among a great many others.
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