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Apple's iCloud movies missing Universal and Fox flicks, HBO 'relaxing' terms to rectify

Apple's iCloud movies missing Universal and Fox flicks, HBO 'relaxing' terms to rectify

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iTunes In The Cloud will soon have support from every major Hollywood studio so users can download movies they've purchased on any Apple device.

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icloud movies 600

Only four of the "big six" major film studios were on board for this past week's iCloud movies announcement, but Apple went forward with the launch anyway. Twentieth Century Fox and Universal Pictures, the only holdouts, are within weeks of deals with Apple, the Wall Street Journal reports. Apple spent years courting the record labels and TV studios in order to make iTunes in the Cloud a reality, and apparently wooing big movie studios has proven challenging as well. The delay has been largely due to issues with HBO, which licenses exclusive movie rights to content from the two studios, but there's a partial fix in the works: HBO is expected to agree to let users download its exclusive content as long as that user had purchased the content from iTunes before it moved to HBO.

Assuming the deals go through with Universal and Fox, Apple's iTunes in the Cloud picture will finally be complete. You'll be able to start any movie, song, or TV show on your Mac, then pick up right where you left off on your iPad, iPhone, or Apple TV.