Topic: News

A new campaign to target music and video piracy is launched today. Consumer minister Gerry Sutcliffe unveiled a new television commercial which aims to stamp out DVD crime in the run-up to the festive season.

News reachs us from America of another strange tale of DVD hardware going haywire. A couple of weeks ago a man in Oregon was paid an unexpected visit from the US Air force after his Toshiba with built-in VCR, DVD and CD player starting emitting the international distress signal.

For six years, Stephen Cooper ran a song-sharing website from his modest brick home in Bellbowrie, in Brisbane's west, that attracted 190 million visitors a year and allegedly earned him up to $64,000 (£26,000) a month.

Robbie Williams' Greatest Hits album is to be sold in memory card format for mobile phones and hand-held computers. It is believed to be the first time a major artist has sold music on the small, portable format.

DVD boffin Flash has been busy again - this time testing the latest full-faced printable 4x DVD-R from Bulkpaq. In his review flash concludes that "burns well without errors, producing discs with low PIE errors that are compatible with all my burners". Click to read his review Bulkpaq Full Face Printable 4x DVD-R.

Both Macrovision and Sunncomm have been releasing technologies aimed at restricting how consumers can use their legally purchased music and movies. Add Dynamic Media Solutions to that list.

Netflix is synonymous with online DVD rental, but its pioneer status hasn't been much help in fending off ferocious competition Stateside. On worse than expected US figures, stock crashed by 35 per cent and the company said it's cutting fees and delaying its UK launch. All this despite turning in its best ever profit: $22.6m after adjustments, on revenue of $141.6m.

The Japanese will soon be able to download full-length, CD-quality songs to their cellphones under a cunning plan invented by Japan's second biggest phone outfits.

Microsoft have threatened severe penalties on for those who circulate a stolen copy of "Halo 2", the hotly anticipated Xbox game set to go on sale next month.

A report titled "The Market Prospects for DVD Recording" by an american research group called Understanding & Solutions has projected that sales of consumer DVD recorders will surpass DVD players in 2006. The study also indicated that devices using the DVD-RAM format currently make up the majority of sales of consumer DVD recorders -- a trend the RAM Promotion Group feels will continue into the future.

Ten major motion picture studios have sued a suspended Los Angeles police captain for alleged copyright infringement in her scheme selling pirated and counterfeit DVDs.

Geordies spend the most money in Britain on CDs and DVDs, new research has claimed. On average people in the Newcastle area spent £79 on music and films in the past three months, compared with the UK average of £47.

The British music industry has been granted a court order forcing internet service providers (ISPs) to reveal the names of illegal music swappers. ISPs have 14 days to hand over names and addresses of 28 alleged uploaders - those who make music available to share with others - to the BPI trade group.

Is Apple fine-tuning an enhanced iPod with roughly 50 percent more storage and a color screen to video? The Internet sites that follow Apple's coming product releases are buzzing with speculation that the iconic computer maker is preparing to unveil a 60-gigabyte iPod that would become its top-of-the-line offering.

JVC, has signed up to the Blu-ray format and joined the Blu-ray Disc Association. Although the public commitment to the next generation DVD standard is new, JVC has apparently been working behind the scenes with the association for some time. In fact it was one of the first Japanese companies to show a prototype Blu-ray Disc player in 2002.

Sony will next month ship what it claims is the world's first external DVD recorder that can also operate without a host computer.

Microsoft chairman and chief software architect Bill Gates tomorrow will officially launch the latest version of Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 operating system, complete with extensions that play or record video, music and other media.

Kazaa, once a top nemesis of record companies and movie studios, appears to have lost its role as the world's most popular file-swapping software, network watchers have said.

Sony's PSX home media systems have experienced a major sales boost following heavy price cuts at the end of summer, with the hybrid DVD recorder and games console units topping the DVD recorder sales charts for the end of September.

Retail prices of 16x DVD DL (single-sided double-layer) burners last week dropped to NT$3,500 (£58) for some local brands in Taiwan, NT$3,700-3,900 (£61-£64) for Hitachi-LG Data Storage (HLDS) and Toshiba-Samsung Storage Technology (TSST) models and NT$4,000 (£66) for Pioneer and Sony units, according to sources in the local retail channel.