As expected, Disney has signed a deal with Apple to provide digital movie rentals over iTunes. The terms are similar to last week's deal with Fox. While this isn't particularly surprising — Steve Jobs owns a huge chunk of Disney from when the company bought his Pixar animation studio — it is good news for Apple. Can you name any Fox movies off the top of your head? Neither can I. But I know a ton of Disney flicks that are worth watching. Among them, Pixar's small but universally brilliant library of family movies, which will help iTunes appeal to moms and dads. OK, so that's two studios down. What about the rest? Variety reports that Sony, Universal and Warner Bros. are unlikely to sign on for "various competitive reasons."

Also in Apple's movie rental deal yesterday with Fox: Apple will license its FairPlay copy-protection technology to the studio for DVD movie releases. This will allow DVD purchasers to easily — and legally — copy movies to their computers for playback on iPods and iPhones.

The Financial Times reports that Apple and News Corp.'s 20th Century Fox film studio have signed a deal for digital movie rentals. Consumers will be able to rent the latest Fox DVD releases from iTunes for a limited time. The deal, which will likely be announced at Macworld in January, would likely be matched with an upgrade for the woebegotten Apple TV which has been de facto dead on arrival since it was released. It is suspected that Disney, which has extremely close ties with Apple — Steve Jobs is its largest shareholder after Mickey bought his Pixar animation studio — will be on board at launch as well.

Mac users are more likely to pay for music, says market research firm NPD Group. Some 50 percent of Mac users purchase digital downloads opposed to 16 percent of PC users. Makes sense: Apple fanboys are used to overpaying. [Gadget Lab]

Viacom is determined not to fall into the music industry's technophobic trap. Instead, it's embracing the online-video frenzy by releasing Jackass 2.5 directly onto the Web next week. Initially offered as a free streamed video on Blockbuster's Movielink, it will eventually move to pay outlets like iTunes and, yes, DVD — which is where this on-the-cheap knockoff probably would have landed just a couple years ago.

The Web is deriding Microsoft's decision to rename PlaysForSure, its digital rights platform, as "Certified for Vista." It's actually a rare sign of intelligent life in Redmond's marketing cubes. PlaysForSure never spawned the hoped-for army of iTunes killers, and Microsoft itself created another format for its own Zune, kneecapping any stores foolish enough to adopt PlaysForSure.

Our friends from the Great White North can finally purchase TV shows via Apple's iTunes. The limited selection currently includes CBC's Little Mosque on the Prairie and CTV's Corner Gas and Degrassi: The Next Generation, the fourth incarnation of the teenage drama that just won't die. And, of course, hockey — albeit reruns of NHL games. Bob and Doug McKenzie would be proud, eh? [Apple]

Amazon.com and Pepsi have teamed up for a year-long free music promotion, very similar to one Apple and Pepsi had several years ago. The promotion, scheduled for a Super Bowl launch, will have consumers collecting five Pepsi bottle caps for one free music track from Amazon. In short, Amazon is making a major play against iTunes. The Super Bowl is the highest-profile advertising venue in the world, and Amazon will get tons of attention from the Pepsi promotion. For free music, plenty of people will take advantage of the promo — but will they stick around to buy music when it's finished?

AOL has stopped selling videos online and instead is throwing its weight behind Amazon's Unbox download service. AOL, which is shifting from paid downloads to ad-supported video plays, will include Unbox-sold videos in video search results. Amazon.com has not had much success with Unbox and is getting soundly beaten by Apple's iTunes. This deal's unlikely to change that.

Through-the-mail movie rental outfit Netflix has been very aggressive in fighting Blockbuster's competitive advances — and winning. Analytics firm Compete has a rundown of Netflix vs. Blockbuster and lists Netflix.com as having four times the visitors Blockbuster.com does. Also, Netflix's download strategy seems to be having some success with 450,000 "Watch Instantly" users in November. Blockbuster is still attempting to roll out a download service it gained from its purchase of movie download site Movielink. Good luck to both of them. Apple is rumored to be introducting movie rentals to iTunes. Will they be battle-tested veterans by the time Steve Jobs shows up — or so bloodied from fighting each other they'll fall victim to his shiny white-plastic machine?

NBC and Apple have finally parted ways. All NBC Universal shows have been removed from iTunes completely after talks to renew their contract fell apart. Disagreements on pricing led the partnership, once hailed for saving NBC's The Office, to founder. But Apple found an unlikely replacement: News Corp.'s Fox studio, NBC's joint-venture partner in online-video site Hulu.

What's with the bloggers throwing themselves down, dressed head-to-toe in red, in front of the Apple fanboy stampede? First egoblogger Robert Scoble took on the entire universe of Mac fans. Now Silicon Alley VC blogger Fred Wilson tells the world, "I fear Apple and I hate them. As much as Microsoft." What gives?

"We make a lot of money from him, and suddenly you're wearing golden handcuffs. We would hate to give up that income." — Universal Music Group chief Doug Morris, on why Universal won't leave Apple's iTunes store anytime soon. Steve Jobs does have an interesting relationship with his girlfriends, doesn't he? [The Register]

Successful rap producer Jermaine Dupri probably didn't win any friends for his Huffington Post entry defending Jay-Z's decision to sell his new album American Gangster online only as a full album. Dupri may not be a polished spokesperson, and no one wants to hear, "Why do people not care how we — the people who make music — eat?" Not when it comes from someone tied as the sixteenth wealthiest hip-hop mogul. Or when that person also gets to sleep with Janet Jackson. But — I can't believe I'm saying this — Dupri is right. Of course, artists should have the right to determine how their creations are packaged. In admitting that it's about money, too, he's just being honest. Music is a business. It's about coming to mutually agreeable terms with the customer, not catering to his every whim. Even Steve Jobs lets musicians sell songs on Apple's iTunes in album-only packages. Ultimately, if consumers really have a problem with the way they do business, the artists will fail. That's their right, too.

U.K. album sales are down 11 percent for the year to date and it's been a slow holiday season so far. British music retailers blame record labels for worrying about digital piracy too much. Kim Bayley, director general of the Entertainment Retailers Association, told the Financial Times her members specifically want labels to quit insisting on using digital-rights management code that prevents customers from making copies and playing the music on multiple devices. Bayley said research indicates consumers are about four times more likely to buy DRM-free music than DRM-encoded music. Apple, Amazon.com, and others already sell DRM-free music online, but the selection is limited.

Warner Music CEO Edgar Bronfman, in a startling change of heart, proclaimed that the music industry is, at least partly, to blame for its current woes, mentioning something about a misplaced war with consumers. With that off his chest, Bronfman launched into a full-fledged groveling routine, proclaiming Apple's iTunes store a paragon of digital music. He went on and on, praising the genius of selling individual tracks, the user interface, and billing platform. Bronfman even threw unnecessary praise towards the iPhone — like we need to hear from a music guy what makes for a good cell phone. Why all the posterior-smooching? Bronfman is realizing that tough talk isn't helping it get out of "indecent" pricing schemes when it comes time to renew Warner's contract with Apple.

Digital music sales made up 15 percent of Universal Music's third-quarter revenues, bringing in $714 million — a increase of 47 percent from last year. How much of this growth is attributable to iTunes? Probably not enough to call a truce in the great iTunes pricing war of 2007. [PaidContent]

To the relief of Steve Jobs, the Beatles finally plan to let their music go digital in 2008, Paul McCartney told Billboard. Boom! McCartney says the holdup was contractual, but other reports suggest the last hurdle to bringing the Beatles online was resistance from the estate of George Harrison. But his music went online in October and his widow, Olivia Harrison, said she expects the Beatles to go digital in 2008.

Because Apple CEO Steve Jobs wouldn't give NBC a piece of iPod sales, NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker announced plans to yank his network's content from Apple's iTunes store in August. Over the weekend, NBC launched an ad-supported download site, NBC Direct. The word so far? So far, so dreadful. But at least they're trying.

Apple fanatics have uncovered some code in an iTunes software update hinting at a video rental service. Now every blogger on the planet is running around like decapitated chickens. Why the fuss? We all know iTunes video sales aren't rocking. This is an inevitable move on Apple's part as rivals move in. Rental is the business model of choice for Vudu, Microsoft's Xbox 360, and most likely Sony's PlayStation 3. For some reason, content producers feel it's more piracy-proof than direct sales. Don't cancel your Netflix memebership just yet, though. Building the code into iTunes is one thing. Striking agreements with balky Hollywood studios is quite another.