Google Play follows iTunes to offer books and movies in Russia

We saw the same from Apple's iTunes just last week, which moved into Russia to offer music and movies to locals there. Now, Google Play is following suit to also offer books and movies to Russian customers. Although, we're going to hope that the Play Store launch goes better than iTunes, and Google doesn't accidentally show porn to users. 

As you may have noticed in the headline though, Google Play went live in Russia at around midnight, but music is still not available for purchase there. Russian users already had access to Android apps, and now also have access to the books section, and movies, but not music. The official Google lists for countries where movies are available has been updated to include Russia, but not the list of countries with access to Google Books. 

The prices for movies are on par with iTunes starting at 149 rubles ($4.85) to buy, 49 rubles ($1.59) for SD rentals, and 99 rubles ($3.22) for HD rentals. There are a number of free books available, and other books for purchase start at 49 rubles ($1.59).