YouTube recently announced that it is expanding its presence on the internet by renting movies. On Friday, January 22, they began by partnering with the Sundance Film Festival, to make available for rent in the U.S. five films made between 2009 and 2010. These films will be available through January 31. They then hope to include an additional small collection of videos from different industries, including selections in the areas of health and education. YouTube is also interested in obtaining licenses to broaden its rental base by streaming films.

At least one studio executive has acknowledged that his company is having a conversation with YouTube, but he is also downplaying the importance of the talks because, according to him, these types of discussions are not unusual and companies have them all the time. The executive went on to say that there are already many services that have digital rental services or sell downloads.

The YouTube team responds that “Anything that brings more content to the YouTube community is a good thing. And making content available for rent will give our partners unprecedented control over the distribution of their work — … the price of their videos and the rental duration…”