Sony Pictures Television International (SPTI) and Daum Communications (Daum) announced today the first free video-on-demand (VOD) licensing deal between a Hollywood studio and a Korean company.

SPTI will license annually selected library titles to top South Korean internet portal site Daum. The latter will stream these films via its site www.daum.net to consumers, on demand, for free, with the support of advertising. The specific titles are yet to be decided.

Daum's service will be geo-filtered to ensure that the movies are only viewable to consumers in South Korea.

'SPTI is the first to collaborate with Daum to introduce the free video-on-demand model to Asia,' said Ross Pollack, SPTI senior vice president, Asia distribution. 'We feel such a model represents a win/win proposition not just for the content licensee and licensor, but, more importantly, for advertisers and consumers as well.'

' Korea has one of the highest broadband penetration rates in the world and is the ideal market to introduce this free video-on-demand service,' said Soojin Chung, SPTI's executive director of Asia licensing. 'Daum is the ideal partner for this deal as they are one of the top internet portals in Korea and are already offering streaming content through their portal.'

'By offering free video-on-demand content from a world-class Hollywood studio such as SPTI, Daum is taking a great step forward to increase our customers' satisfaction while creating a new business model,' said So-young Choi, chief strategy officer of Daum's media division.

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