A new online movie company is renting blockbuster films for $1. "Shrek," "Legally Blonde," "Spy Kids," "The Tailor of Panama" -- those and hundreds of other films are all available to be streamed a limitless number of times for three days.

Is it legal? The Taiwanese company Movie88 seems to think so. A notice on the site reads: "All the materials, movies and films in Movie88.com are lawful and free from copyright infringement under the laws of the Republic of China."

The MPAA is much less sure. A spokesman said that the MPAA was "looking into it and was taking steps to deal with the site appropriately."

He added that the MPAA operates a program in Taiwan as part of its worldwide anti-piracy operation and that it therefore had the personnel and expertise to handle whatever the situation may prove to be.

Legitimate sites for online movies took a stronger position. "Clearly, we're against it and believe it should be shut down," said Bruce Eisen, executive vp of CinemaNow. "But it also shows that there is a public demand for Internet video on demand that offers a legitimate alternative to these pirate sites. CinemaNow has been doing this for several years and is pleased to see that Movielink and Movies.com are joining us in meeting this demand."

The Web site address for Movie88.com is registered as belonging to Daniel Tan at an address in Taipei. Attempts to contact the company were unsuccessful by press time.

Besides the American films, Movie88 has many films in Chinese and other languages along with popular American television series such as "Friends."

The Movie88.com Web site is very slow and somewhat awkward to use. Once a viewer chooses a movie and starts playing it, the stream frequently buffers and often drops completely. Many titles are poorly encoded as well.

A RealNetworks spokeswoman confirmed that although the webcasts use its Real Player product, RealNetworks is not serving the stream and therefore has no association with the site or its operations.