Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and GUBA Pioneer Online Movie Distribution Deal
CULVER CITY & SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (SPHE) and GUBA (http://www.guba.com), a leading online multimedia entertainment site, today announced the immediate availability of more than 100 feature-length movies from Sony Pictures on the GUBA Premium online video service.
The launch makes GUBA the first video sharing community to distribute Sony Pictures movies online. Among the diverse slate of more than 100 titles that will be available for digital downloading at GUBA.com are “Underworld: Evolution,” “Memoirs of a Geisha,” “Hitch” and the classic “Bridge on the River Kwai.” SPHE will steadily increase the number of films available for Internet sales over the coming months, with an expected 500 films, including day and date releases, being offered to consumers within a year.
GUBA users can purchase films as of today on a download-to-own basis. New releases are priced at $19.99 and catalog titles will retail from $9.99. All video content can be downloaded and played on compatible home computers. Some titles will also be available for rental on a Video-on-Demand (VOD) basis.
“We are open for business on the Internet. 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,” said Benjamin S. Feingold, President of Worldwide Home Entertainment, Digital Distribution and Acquisitions, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. “This is consistent with our studio’s history of bringing the finest entertainment to people through new technologies and channels.”
“Our partnership with Sony Pictures is another major validation of our platform and a significant effort by Sony to make online distribution of film attractive to the Internet audience,” said Thomas McInerney, CEO of GUBA. “Sony has shown a clarity of vision when it comes to portable media and entertainment. GUBA was one of the first companies to make user-generated videos available for the PlayStation Portable. We look forward to further collaboration with Sony Pictures and to making movies and TV shows distributed online, easily viewable in the home and on portable devices.”
Sony Pictures Entertainment continues to be a leader in digital entertainment and distribution. Sony Pictures was one of the first to move to DVDs and to offer television shows for sale online, one of the creators of Movielink, the first studio to sell movies to consumers to watch on mobile handsets and the first and only studio to offer movies embedded on PC hard drives.
GUBA has been distributing video online for eight years. It has tackled a number of key challenges this rapidly-evolving medium involves, from copyright protection, to video transcoding, to content portability. GUBA’s intuitive interface allows consumers to access content in a simple-to-use and legal manner.
“With one of the most digitized film libraries in the world, we want to give people as much choice as possible in how they access and use their favorite movies,” added Feingold. “That’s why we are working to make it possible for consumers to be able to see movies purchased online on a number of their media devices, from televisions to computers to other kinds of portable players.”
Technical requirements — GUBA’s service uses Digital Rights Management (DRM) copyright protection software developed by Microsoft. Only devices with current Windows Media technology can play Sony’s content. This includes most Windows PCs.
Restrictions — The Sony Pictures Home Entertainment content is only available to users in the US due to international copyright ownership restrictions. Purchased videos are owned in perpetuity but cannot be burned to DVD due to current restrictions of the DRM software.
About Sony Pictures Home Entertainment
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment is a Sony Pictures Entertainment company. SPE is a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, (SCA), a subsidiary of Tokyo-based Sony Corporation. SPE’s global operations encompass motion picture production and distribution; television production and distribution; digital content creation and distribution; worldwide channel investments; home entertainment acquisition and distribution; operation of studio facilities; development of new entertainment products, services and technologies; and distribution of filmed entertainment in 67 countries. Sony Pictures Entertainment can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.sonypictures.com.
About GUBA
GUBA is a leading online entertainment destination helping you find digital content that will entertain and captivate you. On http://www.guba.com you can easily browse, download and share video, and buy feature films and TV shows from quality producers, such as Sony and Warner Bros. GUBA has an intuitive search interface that enables rapid download to the PC, iPod, PlayStation Portable, and other portable devices. Users can watch video in Flash, QuickTime, and Windows Media formats, and can stream video in their home network using Windows Media Center and Apple’s Front Row.
GUBA accepts video submissions from users in all commonly available formats, indexes video from parts of the Internet that major search engines do not search, and licenses feature films and TV shows from major studios and independent producers.
