YouTube to Let Some Users Charge for Rentals

YouTube's fledgling movie rental program will soon be taking an interesting twist: some content owners will soon be able to use a "self-service" tool to charge for access to their videos, product manager Hunter Walk said this week in an interview with MediaPost.

YouTube first delved into rentals with a test in conjunction with the Sundance Film Festival. That, in connection with the company's development of an automated rental program, further suggests that the company is hoping to get a foothold with the creators of low-budget or niche films that may slip through the cracks at iTunes or the Netflix instant-watch stores. Few details are currently available--no revenue-sharing, no information on what kind of flexibility content owners will have over pricing, and no final timetable--but it's an interesting move on behalf of YouTube parent company Google as it competes with Apple and Netflix for the growing online video rental market.

Read the full text of this article at CNET News.com.