MGM Hooks Up With YouTube

With the success of sites providing digital content from just-released TV shows to classic movies, everybody's trying to get into the act -- but there's still some copyright snarls and worries along the way.

Hulu appears to be the current favorite, but the latest site to start offering full-length movies online is YouTube, which has struck a deal with MGM. You can get classic movies like The Magnificent Seven, and newer stuff like Bulletproof Monk, according to the New York Times, but it seems the offerings will be fairly limited at first.

Now owned by Google, YouTube wants to put paid to its old scuffles with Hollywood for its lax approach to copyright infringement in the old days, and make some money online as the digital revolution keeps spinning.

I know that's where everything is headed, but I really can't ever see myself watching classic films on an iPod. It's bad enough to size them down to a computer from the silver screen, but really. Can you imagine watching the chariot race from Ben Hur on a tiny screen? The mother ship from Close Encounters? The burning of Atlanta from Gone With the Wind?

Call me old-fashioned.

by Gary Cornhouse/Getty Images