Sundance Films for Rent on YouTube

YouTube, the Internet's most popular video website, announced that it will partner with the Sundance Film Festival to begin an online movie rental service starting this Friday.

The program is part of a month-long test and will be initially limited to five independent film titles and a handful of videos from partner industries. Over the course of the test, YouTube plans to further incorporate independent companies and partners in health and education industries.

If the test brings positive results, it could provide a new model for funding the ad-supported video site. The test could also lead to future inclusion of new Hollywood releases, though no concrete discussions on the matter have yet commenced.

YouTube, in addition to archiving countless home videos, web series, and homemade guitar lessons, already features a number of older films and TV shows owned by contributors from MGM and Disney. All these are made free by commercial advertisement, but this could change if the web giant adopts a rental program, each movie ranging from 99 cents to 20 dollars.