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Steve Jobs, Apple CEO, wants to apply the one-price-fits-all approach that has proved so successful in selling digital music. However his attempts to charge $9.99 per movie are opposed by studios that want variable pricing, mirroring the way DVDs are sold, with higher prices for new releases.

'We can't be put in a position where we lose the ability to price our most popular content higher than less popular stuff,' said a studio executive told Forbes.

Forbes says that the signs are that Apple 'may bend', allowing a range of prices from $9.99 to $19.99. If it does music industry bosses will be less than impressed. Earlier this year Jobs defeated attempts to force variable pricing on the iTunes Music Store and investors' website The Motley Fool speculates that he may yet prevail over the studios.

'The studios have already dipped their toes into digital movie downloads, but those efforts have

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failed to gain mainstream acceptance, partly because of their prohibitively high prices,' notes the Motley Fool's Alyce Lomax. 'At this point in the game, I think the studios would be small-f foolish not to follow Apple's lead on pricing.'

Apple's ability to dictate terms to the music industry has made Hollywood nervous about dealing with Jobs. Hollywood-based Variety magazine notes that Jobs' 'reputation as a brilliant yet arrogant executive used to getting what he wants has left many in Hollywood wondering whether the new-media titan will prove a friend or foe.'

But Hollywood accepts that Apple's proven track record and the huge installed base of iTunes, which already offers free and paid-for video downloads, means that it will be key to the success of movie downloading.

'Every studio wants to have broad distribution in digital, and we all know that having Apple as part of that is very, very important,' one studio executive told Forbes.

Jobs certainly believes that to be the case: 'We set our mind to what we were going to do in the music business and revolutionised it, and now we want to do the same thing with film,' another executive, quoted by Variety, recalled him saying.

Variety has reported that despite the ongoing discussions over pricing, the service is still expected to be up-and-running before the end of the year and is likely to be preceded by or coincide with the introduction of a larger screen iPod.

Apple declined to comment.