Though many know China as a hotbed source for piracy (just ask Microsoft about sales of bootleg Windows copies...), it seems pretty surprising to find out that they're planning to launch a legitimate service that will be the equivalent of the popular on-demand streaming provider Netflix. For the billion-strong population, this development really has the potential to hit it big already.

Later this year, the China Movie Channel is gearing up to launch the mentioned service and offer consumers a range of content for a fee. Its guaranteed high chance of success is due to its backing by the Chinese government, meaning no one is really going to complain about it too much.

China Movie Channel has impressively already established relationships with all the major Hollywood studios, but as of right now, only Paramount Pictures has signed up for this new streaming service. Others are expected to follow, with MGM being the most likely to come on board next.

The service will carry a very low subscription charge and there’s going to be more of a focus on mobile streaming. At the same time, the involvement of the government will ensure subscribers don’t get to watch anything deemed unsuitable, while getting to turn a healthy profit from the expected millions of subscribers. You win some, you lose some.

China Movie Channel already has a successful website offering over 6,000 movies, called M1905.com. With 3 million registered users, all of them will be transferred over to the new service when it launches.

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