In much the same way it upended online distribution of music, Apple may now be poised to redefine the way movies are rented online. According to published reports, Apple (AAPL) and Fox (NWS) plan to bring movie rentals to Apple's popular iTunes Store, and through that to its family of iPod media players and the iPhone. The two companies are said to have concluded an agreement that will have Fox movies available for limited-time viewing via iTunes as they are released on DVD.

Online film rental is only now getting off the ground. Netflix (NFLX), which specializes in mail-order movie rentals, recently launched an online movie rental service that lets consumers order movies and watch them instantly on a computer. Netflix said in August that its customers had watched some 10 million movies and TV shows on their computers. Meanwhile Amazon.com (AMZN) and TiVo (TIVO) have launched a partnership to let owners of TiVo digital video recorders purchase or rent movies and TV shows from Amazon's Unbox video download service. And in August, Movielink, an online on-demand movie service backed by major movie studios including Universal, Paramount (VIA), MGM (MGM), and Warner Bros. (TWX), was acquired by Blockbuster (BBI).