ITunes Movie Rental Rumors, Redux

Another day, another round of rumors about movie rentals on iTunes. Still no sign of an actual launch, however.

The latest round of rumors was sparked by some interesting code found in the latest version of iTunes; according to the Bits blog on the New York Times, a Carnegie Mellon undergrad found phrases such as "rental-content," "source-rental-info," and "supportsRentals" hidden in the code. Exciting stuff—so looks like movie rentals on iTunes is imminent, right?

Well, don't get too excited. Rumors of iTunes movie rentals have been bouncing around the Web for months and months; most recently, I blogged about a Financial Times story that said Apple was in "advanced" talks with the big film studios about movie rentals. That was back in September; since then, radio silence, save the recent buzz about the hidden iTunes code.

So what's the holdup? Clearly, the technology itself isn't a problem; it's probably more about negotiating deal terms with the studios on issues such as price ($3? $4), the rental window (30 days? 24 hours?), and such. I'd also hope that once there is a movie rental announcement (or rather, when and if), it would coincide with new functionality on the floundering Apple TV: namely, the ability to browse, buy, and/or rent content directly over the box.

All that said, talk of iTunes movie rentals and AppleTV improvements is nothing new, and it's hard to tell whether the maddening trickle of rumors is a harbinger of things to come or just a whole lot of nothin'.

Would you rent movies over iTunes? Do you care?

Related:
Apple Notes: Finding Clues About Movie Rentals [Bits]