The Disney Vault is something I loathe and admire all at once. They release movies to DVD (or, in the old days, VHS) for only a limited window, and then put the title back into the “vault” for another 10 years. It creates a nice marketing buzz and cranks up the demand for their beloved films.

It’s a genius idea, from a business perspective–and not too many studios have the cache to pull it off.

But as a consumer, it’s mind-numbingly awful. You have to wait years for certain titles to become available. I honestly think it’s counter productive at this point. In today’s on-demand world, I think they’d make more money if I could buy Bambi whenever I darn well pleased.

(Don’t even get me started on this business about Disney DVD’s ALWAYS costing $20, no matter what… no matter where… no matter the title. That is about as annoying as anything.)

So the announcement today that Disney will start streaming their films online for free caused a bit of cautiousness in me (understandably so). Because I figure there would have to be some major catch to this deal.

And guess what… there is.

First, not all Disney movies will be streamed. Only the films they are showing each week this summer on ABC’s Wonderful World of Disney series will be streaming online for free–and only for the week following their airing on television.

So, it’s basically the streaming-online version of the Disney Vault.

That being said, if you have kids, and haven’t bought Finding Nemo for them yet (what are you waiting for?), you can watch it online with them for free through Friday.

While I can see some upside to this for the consumer, it’s very small. Fact is… if you’ve got high-speed internet and a hearty enough computer to handle quality video streaming, you can probably afford to own the Disney titles your kids love–and you probably already do.

Oh well. At least they’re trying something. Here’s a sampling of some of the other movies to come this summer, from the article:

“Monsters, Inc.,” “Haunted Mansion,” “Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen,” “Princess Diaries 2,” “Freaky Friday” and “Peter Pan” also will be available on the site this summer.

So there you go. If you want to watch any of those movies online for free, with your family or something… check out the article. Or you can just borrow my Finding Nemo DVD.