Why Screen Pass Is a Great Feature for the Age of Digital Libraries

One of the reasons I like having a large library of movies at my disposal is I like loaning movies to friends. I don’t mind when they browse my shelves and borrow a few titles because movies are meant to be shared. You’re not supposed to keep art locked away and only used for display purposes. However, as digital libraries expand, they tend to have a locked ecosystem. Either you give away your password, which probably isn’t the best idea, or someone has to come to your place and watch the movie where you’ve already logged in, which defeats the purpose of sharing the film in the first place.

Movies Anywherehas solved this problem with their newScreen Passfeature.Screen Passallows you to send aScreen Passfor an eligible title in your own collection to let a friend watch that movie or a limited time at no additional cost. To be eligible to send aScreen Pass, all you need to do is purchase aMovies Anywhere-eligible movie from a connected participating Digital Retailer or redeem a non-promotional digital code every six months. If you’re like me and build up your collection on a regular basis, maintaining eligibility isn’t really an issue.

From there, you find aScreen Passeligible movie in your collection, click the “Screen Pass” button, and then follow the steps to send aScreen Passto a friend, who will have 7 days to accept the pass. You get three passes per month, and if a pass isn’t used, it’s returned and can be used again in the same months. It’s as simple as sending a text message.

You’re probably wondering if theScreen Passeligibility significantly curtails your ability to share your collection. I had that concern as well, but I was surprised at how many movies made the cut. To give you an idea of the percentages, I have 281 movies currently in myMovies Anywherelibrary. Of that 281, 169 are Screen Pass eligible. That’s over 60% of my collection available for Screen Pass.

While I’ll still be happy to loan out my DVDs and Blu-rays to friends and family, I’m glad I now have a way to share my favorite movies digitally withMovies Anywhere.