AMAZON’S move into movie downloading demonstrates that Apple, which dominates digital music, will have a fight on its hands if it is to achieve the same with film.

Apple’s problem is that it has frightened most of the Hollywood studios by achieving a three-quarters share of music downloading, giving it power over the future of the music industry.

The iPod manufacturer insists that all songs on an album are on sale individually — a major boost for sales of single tracks, now at a record high, but depressing album sales, where the profit for the labels lies.

As a result, major studios have signed a string of deals to kick-start movie downloading in an attempt to ensure that market shares are spread around. In the UK it is already possible to download films from Lovefilm, while BSkyB, 38 per cent owned by News Corporation, parent company of The Times, allows existing subscribers to download for free.

Although the file size of a film is far greater than an album, recent increases in broadband speeds — two megabits is now the standard rate — take it to the fringes of possibility. It can take over an hour to download a film but that will improve rapidly.

Apple, meanwhile, has plenty of advantages. Its portable devices remain incredibly popular and all larger iPods come with video capability. Given that the iTunes website and the iPod are linked, Apple is likely to gain significant share of the emerging download video market.

However, there are other factors that could work against the Californian technology company. While a high proportion of music listening is done on the move, Arash Amel of Screen Digest points out that films are watched “on the largest best screen in the house”.

While portable music players are used by a high proportion of commuters, it is unusual to see a handheld DVD player except on a long journey, which usually involves children. Given that Apple is expected to sign up Disney — its chief executive, Steve Jobs, sits on the Disney board — that will help the company a bit more.

At the same time, many other film viewers, such as business travellers, will probably just want to download a film to their laptop, and ideally find a way of airing it on a nearby television screen. That should help the competition that Hollywood desperately wants to see emerge.

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