MUMBAI: For the first time, Fox Filmed Entertainment will make available three of the current releases from its Fox Searchlight movie unit available as free downloads from Apple Inc.‘s iTunes to all of the Acting Guild‘s 100,000 voting members.
Black Swan, 127 Hours and Conviction were nominated for Screen Actors Guild awards.
This could mark the first step in an industry-wide shift toward making digital copies of films made available to voters for all awards. This would eventually end the costly, time-honoured practice of producing and sending physical copies of DVDs.
Fox co-Chairman Jim Gianopulos said that his studio was also in talks with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the members of which vote for the Oscars and also with the British Film Academy, about making iTunes downloads available to their voters as well.
Studios regularly send DVDs with watermarks that identify the video as belonging to a specific person in case it leaks onto the Internet -- to voters in various awards groups.
SAG members will get a code they can use to download the three Fox Searchlight films in high definition and watch them on a computer, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch, or on television via Apple TV. As with any iTunes rental, films can be watched as many times as the voter wants during a 24-hour period.
Members would receive an e-mail from the Guild and a postcard from Fox Searchlight with instructions on accessing a download code from the studio‘s website.
