Morgan Freeman has been a pioneer in protecting an artist’s copyright protection and freedom of expression for years and has been in the forefront in helping make new technologies available that will help in fighting fraud and piracy within the entertainment industry.

He will again be on the cutting edge by allowing the film “10 Items or Less” to be available for digital download in just two weeks (on Dec. 15th) from the films theatrical release, which was today.

The film will be downloadable from Clickstar Inc, a company that Morgan Freeman’s production company and Intel created to bring small movies to those who live too far from the cinema, or whose handicap may not allow them the kind of access available to most movie lovers.

“Where I live, in my town, there’s no movie house,” Freeman cites as just one example. “There are many, many, many, many people who don’t have access.”

Once again Freeman is rethinking Hollywood’s business model and creating another nitch to fill a need and protect an artist’s work at the same time.

“I’m just a firm believer that things continue to grow, get better,” the 69-year-old actor said.

“10 Items or Less” is not a genre film, but is a small movie indie directed by Brad Silberling. Freeman’s character is an actor who has been out of the movie biz for four years who’s considering signing onto “a little independent thing.” Within the framework of the story Silberling takes a clear-eyed look at the ups and downs of making an independent movie. Freeman’s character researches the prospective part by observing a grocery store checkout girl, played by actress Paz Vega. The two become quick friends and spend quality time together.

Freeman and partner Lori McCreary began considering how the industry could head off piracy problems once peer-to-peer downloading of copyrighted material became rampant on the internet. This led to talks with those in the computer industry resulting in a partnership with Intel.

“And we came up with the idea of distributing movies via the Internet on a stable platform, on something that you can control,” Freeman says.

And, while others have been doing this for awhile Clickstar will be unique in that it will be offering first-run movies within days or weeks after their release to the theaters.

“10 Items or Less” is just the first of many planned films to be released using this marketing model. Next on Freeman’s agenda is a film starring John Travolta and “The Sopranos'” James Gandolfini titled “Lonely Hearts.” This one should be ready for web download in Spring 2007.

Hollywood is keeping an eye on the success or failure of this strategy and other filmmakers have also begun to re-examine how they release their films. Last year, Steven Soderbergh released the indie “Bubble” across three platforms over just five days: in theaters, on the high-definition cable channel HDNet and on DVD. Freeman wants to avoid the DVD method, however, believing that the risk of priacy with DVD’s is far too great.

“You can come up with money sometimes to make a film, but you can’t distribute it because it costs a lot to get prints and advertising,” Freeman says.

The obvious fear is that digital downloads made available so close to the theatrical release could cannibalize the box office.

Silberling, whose credits include wide-release films such as “Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events” and “Moonlight Mile,” thinks the Internet simply presents another audience to penetrate.

“I don’t think broadband is going to shift viewing patterns,” the director says. “I think hopefully people who otherwise wouldn’t have seen it might now. People who like to go to that theater and get popcorn will go.”

Both Freeman and Silberling think Hollywood doomsayers will be proven wrong on Internet distribution in the same way that fears of TV, the VHS and DVDs have, for the most part, turned out to be much ado about nothing. They believe digital downloads present the future of home entertainment and expect it to spread prominently within a few years.

“I’m enjoying the attempt,” he says with a laugh. “I’m trying to master a new discipline, which I guess is something we should all do, anyway.”

Initial Story Source: Yahoo News