Guba Pens Deal With Sony Pictures
Video sharing site Guba signed its second deal with a major movie studio, announcing Tuesday it had penned an agreement with Sony Pictures to offer downloadable movies from the site.
New releases will cost $19.99 USD, while older releases would be start at $9.99 USD. Some titles will be available on a pay-per-view basis.
The deal is similar to the one Guba signed with Warner Bros. two weeks ago, and is non-exclusive. Sony will make available immediately over 100 titles, including studio hits Spider-Man 2, Underworld: Evolution, Memoirs of a Geisha, Hitch and the classic Bridge on the River Kwai. Sony said it expects as many as 500 titles to be available, including day and date releases.
"We are open for business on the Internet," Sony Picture's digital distribution head Benjamin Feingold said in a statement. "GUBA is a powerful user-generated community and this deal demonstrates our strategy to find the best ways to make our content available to consumers online."
Guba's moves put the pressure on other video services to follow suit. While many have built a thriving business on the contributions of their users, these videos generate little revenue other than the ads that are displayed on the page. With these studio deals, the sites receive a portion of video sales, a potentially lucrative business.
Analysts responded positively to Guba's move, saying the deals were setting it apart from the completion in a increasingly crowded market.
"Online video site Guba is clearly in the good graces of Hollywood these days," TechCrunch's Neil Kjeldsen said in a post Tuesday. "One of the more interesting aspects to the deal is the fact that it's Sony. It's a toe in the water; not a dramatic move, but at least it's something. With hardware and gaming and limited internet success to date, will this deal be one of many that signal a change in Sony's digital and internet strategy?"