Movielink Signs Download & Burn Deal

Video Business: Movielink has signed a deal with Sonic solutions to enable customers to download and burn copies of movies to be played on a stadard DVD player.

For home-burned discs to be compatible with all set-top DVD players, for instance, the industry would have to adopt the same CSS copy-protection system used on commercially manufactured discs.

Inter-industry talks aimed at extending CSS to downloaded movies, however, have dragged on for months, as the studios have pressed hardware and PC makers into incorporating a variety of additional security measures into new DVD players as the price of a deal on burning using CSS.

Recently, however, the studios have softened their stance, according to sources familiar with the discussions, raising hopes that a deal could be reached before the end of this year.