September 2, 2011
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Video-sharing site YouTube, which has been adding professional content in a bid to generate revenue, announced Thursday it has begun renting movies online in Canada.
YouTube said in a blog post that more than 1,000 full-length movies from major Hollywood studios are available for rent in Canada at youtube.ca/movies.
YouTube began renting movies from the Sundance Film Festival last year and expanded its offerings to US users in May with films from Sony Pictures, Warner Brothers, Lionsgate Films and other studios.
Its foray into renting movies in Canada is the latest bid by Google to make money from the immensely popular video-sharing site which it purchased for 1.65 billion dollars in 2006.
YouTube remains the top online destination for amateur video but it faces stiff competition when it comes to professional content from services such as Apple's iTunes, Hulu and Netflix.
Netflix began streaming movies and television shows to Canada in 2010 and announced plans in July to expand to Latin America and the Caribbean later this year.
Hulu, a partnership between The Walt Disney Co., NBC Universal and News Corp., launched a subscription-only service in Japan this week, its first expansion outside the United States.
