Warner Bros. sells films and TV shows over Guba.com

American Film Company Warner Bros. announced on Tuesday that it had struck a deal with online video-sharing company Guba, a YouTube competitor, to distribute feature films and TV shows over the Internet.

Now, Warner Bros. Studios will sell some of its best films through Guba.com.

On Guba.com, new release DVD films could be purchased for $ 19.99 that can be downloaded to computers and older films can be purchased for $ 9.99 or rented for $ 1.99 a day. New releases would be made available on Guba on the same day as they are released in stores. Presently, the service's television show selection is limited to rebroadcasts of classic Warner Bros. owned shows, including Babylon 5, Dukes of Hazzard, The Flintstones and The Jetsons.

San Francisco-based Guba is asserting that its recent deal with a major studio would help uplift its profile in an increasingly crowded social video space. It also intends on the part of movie studios to work with technologies they once bypassed. Guba uses Microsoft Corp.'s digital copyright management system.

"This new service brings premium studio content to an Internet audience in an easy-to-use and intuitive way, without the necessity of downloading additional software," Guba CEO Tom McInerney said. "For years we've been making access to online video easy - now we're bringing that experience to Warner Bros.' catalog of films and TV shows," McInerney added.

Warner Bros., one of the world's largest producers of film and television entertainment, will also make nearly 200 of its films and TV shows available for purchase on BitTorrent.com. Videos purchased at that site cannot be downloaded to DVD.

Warner Bros. already has some of its older TV shows available at In2TV.com, and the company recently announced a deal with CinemaNow. Warner Bros. is a segment of the Time Warner Inc. media conglomerate.

About the deal, Warner digital distribution senior vice president Jim Wuthrich said, "With Guba, more Internet users will be able to legally and securely buy and rent our films and TV series," adding that "Warner is committed to providing our programming to fans when, where and how they want it, and this deal is another example of our commitment to do that."