Abstract: A method of a movie rental vendor hiring one or more movie titles in electronic format to a movie renter includes connecting a portable personal storage device to a vendor computer system, and registering the storage device and one or more associated authorized users with the vendor computer system and configuring the storage device to receive one or more movie titles in electronic format. At least one of the authorized users select one or more movie titles from a plurality thereof available for rent by the vendor and then they download the selected one or more movie titles from the vendor computer system to the storage device. The method further includes exchanging monetary payment from the renter to the vendor for the downloaded movie title(s), the magnitude of said payment depending on the downloaded movie title(s) and the length of time of rental for each downloaded title(s) and/or a number of permitted viewings of each downloaded title.