We've all got used to buying music online and, for some time now, buying it without all the DRM crap and using it as we consider fit. One can also buy movies (only those distributed by Walt Disney at the moment) straight from the iTunes store, the favorite shopping place of every Apple fan you and I know.

According to Financial Times, another step in this direction has been made by Apple and the 20th Century Fox studio, which have signed a deal that will allow the end-user (you, me and everyone out there who knows what online means) to rent a movie for an unknown - yet - amount of time and use it for that period, as he/she ("it" if the case) considers it appropriate.

As the source reports, this ground-breaking deal will be publicly announced during the MacWorls show that will take place next year on January 14th.

Apart from being quite a breakthrough for the online movie distribution business, this deal will allow Apple to further spread its FairPlay DRM system on other companies' products, a fact that will allow the Cupertino based company to expand its influence even more on the movie sales online business.

As Jonathan Weitz, an IBB Consulting representative that focuses on media, mobile and cable companies, has said, "Fox and potentially other studios are coming around to the idea that there is nobody out there to challenge iTunes. This deal is a sign that media mobility is coming to the mainstream."

Although other movie studio representatives haven't commented the deal signed between Fox and Apple, there are rumors that name Warner Bros, Sony Pictures Entertainment and Paramount as other possible future partners for Apple in the online movie rental venture.

Besides increasing Apple's influence on the online video market through the spread of its FairPlay DRM system, this contract will also boost Apple's video capable gadgets sales due to the ever decreasing price of sale/rent for movies distributed through iTunes.

The Apple-Fox contract comes to further expand the online movie market, by adding the new type or rental service to the already existent movie selling one. At the moment, the only company that sells its newest releases through Apple's iTunes store is Walt Disney, closely followed by LionsGate, Metro Goldwyn Mayer and Paramount that are only selling old movies from their catalog.