Online DVD-streaming service Zediva has been getting a lot of attention since it was sued for copyright infringement by the MPAA. But set the legal battles aside for the moment—how does the fledgling video service measure up from a technical point of view? I recently put Zediva to the test,…

The MPAA has filed another volley in the looming battle over the Zediva online DVD-streaming service. They’re hoping the Los Angeles federal judge overseeing the case quickly slaps Zediva with an injunction.

Zediva is a quirky online movie rental business, launched in March. By using only physical DVDs—one per customer at a time—Zediva hopes to be able to create a video-on-demand business without getting licensing deals from the owners of the movies it streams. That wasn’t going to work for the MPAA,…

Zediva launched just a few weeks ago and quickly produced some buzz among copyright lawyers and tech geeks who debated its legality. Now it’s been sued by a group of movie studios, who, unsurprisingly, argue that the service is clearly illegal and want a court to order it shut down.

Other publications are starting to pick up The New York Times’ weekend report that former Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd is set to become the next head of the Motion Picture Association of America. Dodd will be taking the position at a time when copyright enforcement is on the mind of…

UPDATE: Viacom (NYSE: VIA) spokesman Jeremy Zweig has clarified that Mandil’s primary responsibility at Viacom will be managing litigation, not specifically anti-piracy. Mandil will report to Viacom Deputy GC Mark Morril. Viacom is one company that’s willing to carry the banner of fighting piracy, even when it means taking on…

So-called “cyberlocker” sites have been a growing piracy problem for a couple years now, but big entertainment companies haven’t—until now—gone after them in court the way they’ve successfully gone after peer-to-peer file-sharing sites like Grokster and Limewire. But it looks like the battle is going to start. The Motion Picture…

When Immigrations & Customs Enforcement agents seized 82 web domain names over the Thanksgiving weekend, it was an unprecedented event—not just because of the scope of the seizures, but also because the web sites grabbed included a search engine and some well-known music blogs. That’s outside the scope of the…

The “first sale” doctrine in copyright law limits the rights of copyright holders to sue for infringement after they’ve sold their work—it allows for used and re-sale markets in books and DVDs, as well as library lending. In Costco v. Omega, a Supreme Court case argued earlier this week, the…

RealNetworks (NSDQ: RNWK) chairman and CEO Rob Glaser debuted on the company blog this afternoon with his explanation of how his company and the MPAA wound up on a collision course in the courts over RealDVD. To review the bidding, Real launched its new RealDVD software app today, designed to…

We reported this morning on RealNetworks (NSDQ: RNWK) filing a lawsuit against the major movie studios, pre-empting a suit that MPAA was supposed to file today…that MPAA suit is now in progress. In its complaint,  filed today in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, MPAA is asking for a temporary…

Updated below: Always trust Rob Glaser to stir the pot, even if in the end Steve Jobs ends up taking the credit for everything. RealNetworks (NSDQ: RNWK) has filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against major studios, in an attempt to ward off any attempts to stop the launch of its DVD…

The MPAA isn’t a publicly-traded, for-profit entity, so CEO Dan Glickman’s presentation at the UBS Global Media & Communications Conference was sparsely attended. But there is decent contingent of folks here interested in the film business, from the financial side, so there’s interest in what Glickman’s organization is doing to…