Apple and Twentieth Century Fox used Steve Jobs' Macworld 2008 keynote to announce a new technology called Digital Copy for iTunes. In short, when you buy a compatible DVD, you'll get a free digital copy of the film, which can be transferred to your iTunes library, and from there played on your PC or Mac, or transferred to an iPod or iPhone.
The first DVD to include the feature will be 'Family Guy Presents: Blue Harvest', with more on the way. It works by you inserting the DVD into your computer, typing in a code, and then the transfer process is automated.
Maybe I'm missing something, but this smacks to me of a short-term measure. If you can buy (or rent) movies digitally from iTunes, who wants the DVD? For the moment, it's good to have both - as long as there's not a big price hike - but it'll surely seem a quaint fudge a couple of years down the line - like those VHS/DVD dual players we saw a couple of years ago.
I also wonder when Digital Copy for iTunes will be extended to Blu-ray (and maybe HD DVD). No news on that from Apple or Fox, at the time of writing. *cough* One of our commenters says it'll work on Blu-ray discs too, but there's no mention of that in Apple's official release.
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