The Sundance Film Festival has struck a deal with YouTube to broadcast five of the films showing at the Utah-based festival over the online video bazaar at a price of $3.99 each starting today.

While Variety questions whether this will impact pickup for independent films,  producer Mynette Louie (Children of Invention) said in a statement, "This Sundance-YouTube partnership is totally in line with our hybrid distribution philosophy for this film: capitalize on festival publicity, retain as many rights as possible, and challenge the existing release windows in the hopes of establishing better, more flexible distribution options for indie films."

All we know is that it sounds like a more exciting way to use YouTube than another round of drunken Nirvana concert watching.