Movies Anywhere launches Screen Pass so you can share movies with friends

When Movies Anywhere launched its vision of being a central digital movie locker of sorts, it quickly gained fans — its new feature called Screen Pass is sure to expand the fandom.

The Verge reported that the new feature is launching in a closed beta today, with an open beta planned for May. Screen Pass will allow you to share your purchased movies with friends — this will hopefully curb the loss of your Blu-Ray that you loaned your friend, and they have yet to return. Unfortunately, Screen Pass beta will not allow you sharing of every film in the Movies Anywhere library. As of now, it has about 80% of the catalog that will be available to share (over 6,000 films).

Screen Pass will work by giving users the ability to share up to three movies per month, granting temporary access to the recipient. The person you've shared with has seven days to accept the offer, and then they have fourteen days to access the film. After the film has been started, your friend has 72 hours to finish watching it, similarly to how digital rentals work. On the first of each month, your three-share limit resets, with no rollovers or limits of how many times a movie can be shared.

Since the initial beta offering is of the closer variety, if you don't get an invite from Movies Anywhere, you'll have to wait for either the open beta scheduled for May. If beta testing isn't your kind of thing, Screen Pass is slated for a full release later this year.