YouTube has announced a partnership with the Sundance Film Festival to make five films from the 2010 and 2009 festivals available for rent for US viewers on the portal. The service starts this Friday and runs for a limited time only till Sunday, January 31.
YouTube said it is now sponsoring the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and calls for more independent filmmakers to join their new rental programme as part of their “Filmmakers Wanted” campaign at the festival.
In addition to the five Sundance Festival films, a small collection of rental videos from other US partners across different industries, including health and education, will be made available in the weeks ahead as part of the new rental option. Viewers have to register first with Google Checkout to make payments possible. No pricing details have been released.
“These are early days and in the coming weeks we’ll also invite a small group of partners across other industries, in addition to independent film, to participate in this new option,” said the YouTube blog, “Anything that brings more content to the YouTube community is a good thing. And making content available for rent will give our partners unprecedented control over the distribution of their work — they can decide the price of their videos and the rental duration; they can decide when and where their content is available; and they can keep 100% of their rights.”
The Sundance films it will offer are 2009’s The Cove, Children of Invention and 2010’s Bass Ackwards, Homewrecker and One Too Many Mornings.
