iTunes Store Opens Up for Independent Video Producers

iTunes has taken yet another great step towards becoming the absolute online media shop. After several heavy names for the entertainment industry announced partnerships with Apple's iTunes online store, the Cupertino-based company made a step towards listing independent, low-profile productions in their catalog.

This Tuesday, the production "That" became available on iTunes. It is a 30-minute snowboarding action film made for DVD by Forum Snowboards. Until now, it could have only been purchased on DVD, mainly from sports shops, for the price of $29.99.

Forum Snowboards has asked its DVD distributor to place "That" on iTunes, because they saw their DVD sales going down and the film was strongly pirated over the Internet. Their distributor didn't succeed, so Forum Snowboards talked directly to Apple.

Apple didn't list "That" in their film section, but in TV Shows, where content is usually sold for $1.99. "People are not buying DVDs the way they used to, and it's becoming increasingly easy to get (illegal) versions of our content online, so we're thrilled to be able to pioneer an agreement like this with iTunes," says Mike Nusenow, general manager of the Program, Forum Snowboards' parent company.

The independent producer accepted the low price on iTunes hoping that this way, they will reach a much broader audience, that otherwise would have probably got a pirated digital copy.

If now accepting independent production, iTunes will soon become by far the largest online media content distributor. The iTunes store sells music, films, motion pictures, TV Shows and home entertainment productions. The store has until now sold more than 2 billion songs, 50 million TV shows and 1.3 million films.