Saturday, May 28, 2011

Entertainment industry moves yet again to prove they run the Net

The Motion Picture Association of America asked a federal judge on Thursday to grant a preliminary injunction to stop Zediva, an online movie rental outlet, from operating.

Zediva is the latest in a long line of upstarts to look at how Hollywood does business with release windows and bifurcated rights and think there must be a simpler way.

In Zediva's case, the company saw that on one hand, brick-and-mortar DVD rental stores are allowed to rent its users the latest DVD releases, and on the other hand, online streaming services like Netflix can't because of a perceived need to get permission from Hollywood studios.

So Zediva cut through the red tape by splitting the middle: The company believes it operates a DVD rental store. The only difference here is that its customers rent both DVDs and DVD players and remotely control each over the Internet. By doing it this way, Zediva claims that it doesn't need Hollywood approval. The studios, unsurprisingly, are challenging that assessment.


Read more here.

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