If you're looking for technical innovation in the motion picture industry I've got bad news for you. You have to be at least 21 years old to see it. Earlier this month two companies, CinemaNow and Movie Link, announced they had signed a deal to distribute digital copies of movies online. The caveat was that these downloaded copies could not be burned onto DVDs or really utilized in any meaningful way other than on the computer on which they were downloaded (the files could be backed up on another computer as well, but not transferred to a portable device.) Today Reuters has a story about how Vivid Entertainment Group has taken the initiative a step further.

Vivid will distribute its adult movies, including all the special extras included on DVDs, through CinemaNow. The difference: Vivid's downloaded files will be burnable onto DVDs so people who purchase the files can watch on their televisions, or portable devices which play DVDs. The price, $19.95 per movie, is in line with the cost of actual DVDs bought at stores. They've taken the next logical step in making this business model workable, we can only hope that "legitimate" Hollywood will follow the adult industry. — Brian Ward

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