We have been covering the upcoming Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC 2006) that will be happening this coming August. We also mentioned in our earlier reports that Steve Jobs will be showing a preview of the Mac OS X "Leopard" at the August 7 event at the San Francisco's Moscone West. But there has been rumors that aside from the OS presentation, the Apple CEO will use his keynote address to announce the debut of movie rentals through the iTunes Music Store.

If this is true and all that, then this just goes to show how Apple is planning on dominating the field of digital media downloads. I bet some movie and studio execs are trembling with fear right now and how much more afraid could cinema operators be? According to the same rumor mills, Apple is said to have inked agreements with Walt Disney, Universal Studios, Paramount Pictures, and Warner Bros., and is currently in talks with other major movie studios as well.

So how would the rent-a-movie-the iTunes way work? Well, according to backfence talks, because the movies will be rented and not sold, people familiar with the situation report downloads will be coded with a date stamp that will restrict playback. The coding system is still a hazy area, but most likely the coding system will limit the number of playbacks or will provide unlimited viewing for a period of time...until it expires, and won't play anymore.

According to Apple sources that claim to be reliable, "we knew that Steve (Jobs) saw the rental model as the only viable option...we knew it was a matter of time before he signed on." Whether it will be a click or a flop, will heavily depend on the price tag, that is if this rumor ever becomes true. We have until August 7 to speculate about that.