Why Apple iTunes isn't selling movies. Yet.

Three years since unveiling its iTunes music store Apple Inc. (AAPL) has sold more than 15 million digitized TV shows and videos. It's no surprise that Apple has held serious talks with major movie studios so it can start selling movies from its iTunes music store. Sources say that Apple hopes to get the store up and running within weeks, however, there are a lot of obstacles that Apple must deal with.

Aside from the issues dealing with copyright, piracy, and digital rights management, technical problems are another hinderance that stand in the way of the movie store. A typical mp3 download only takes a couple minutes using iTunes music store, but, downloading a movie (which is several thousand times larger) could take a hours. This is one of the reasons why there's no activity taking place" in movie downloads, says Frank Casanova, director of QuickTime Product Marketing at Apple. With a 1.5-gigabyte movie file, "you could request a movie from Netflix [which delivers DVDs by mail] before this download gets to you."

Many analysts believe that Apple's jump to selling movies will not be a hit unless it comes out with a new kind of consumer device designed specifically with movies in mind, rather than the iPod and its miniscule screen. However, I can assure you that if Apple does strike a deal with the movie studios and figures out the technical problems it will have a hit. Of note, one of my good friends recently purchased an illegal program that allows him to download movies to his iPod. This program became a huge hit across campus.

Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs has similar aspirations for the movie business as he had for his iTunes music store. If Jobs is succesful, not only can he revolutionize the movie industry, but also, hopefully boost his company's faltering stock price.