Hollywood

Times have been good for aficionados of Jim Henson.

Not only did we see a new Muppets feature film over the holidays, last week we also saw the posting of a "lost" Henson short: "Robot," made for an AT&T data-communications seminar in 1963. And now a kind of "sequel" to "Robot" has made its way online.… Read more

Kim DotCom, the colorful and controversial founder of cyberlocker service MegaUpload, must remain in police custody for at least three more weeks, a New Zealand court decided today.

DotCom, 38, and a half dozen of MegaUpload's managers are accused in the United States of criminal copyright violations, money laundering, and racketeering. According to the indictment filed against them in Virginia, the government alleges that MegaUpload was a criminal enterprise that banked more than $175 million by helping the masses pirate films, music, software, and videogames.

At the request of the FBI, DotCom and three other MegaUpload employees were arrested … Read more

You'll have to keep dusting off those stacks and shelves of DVDs for the foreseeable future--and maybe forever.

Kaleidescape, a company that has long sought to help consumers create copies of their DVDs and store the digital files to a media server, has lost another legal battle.

In 2004, the DVD Copy Control Association (DVD CCA) sued Kaleidescape. That group, which includes all the major Hollywood studios and some consumer electronics companies, licenses the anticopying protections on DVDs and Blu-ray discs.

The DVD CCA accused Kaleidescape of violating the terms of the CCA license when it began releasing servers … Read more

Contrary to recent media reports, the FBI did not arrest MegaUpload founder Kim DotCom after being pressured by managers at the four major record companies, who supposedly feared DotCom would launch an unlicensed music service, sources close to the investigation told CNET.

Numerous film and music industry sources have discussed some of the events that preceded the January 19 raid in New Zealand on DotCom's home. What becomes clear is that two years ago, when the FBI began investigating the cyberlocker service, the film studios were far more intent on taking down MegaUpload than their counterparts at the music … Read more

The 56-day rental window Warner Bros. has reportedly tried to impose on its partners didn't go over too well with Redbox.

The kiosk-rental company announced yesterday that its contract with Warner Bros. had expired and that it had no intention of entering into a new agreement with the film studio. The company did assure customers that it has other ways of getting access to Warner Bros. movies and TV shows, and that they'll still be available in its kiosks.

"Redbox will continue to provide our consumers with affordable access to new release movies from all major studios … Read more

If the names Walter White, Jesse Pinkman, Heisenberg, and "The Blue" mean anything to you, you're going to love this.

There are many stories that seem like obvious candidates for getting the 8-bit role-playing game treatment, but "Breaking Bad" wouldn't have been at the top of my list. But the good folks at College Humor have taken that hit AMC show and boiled its four seasons down into a fantastic video, old-school RPG style.

It's hard to summarize. Let's just say that in the first scene, we see our troubled main character, … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--When you're a startup trying to upend a business dominated by a powerhouse like YouTube, and adding users far faster than Twitter did during its first serious growth spurts, it's essential that you take care of the famous people who want to come along for the ride.

For Gardner Loulan, the director of community and content at Tout, a company that's pioneering the way people use mobile devices to create short, sharable, and interactive video, catering to the needs of celebrities is something that can happen at any time.

That's why, in the middle of … Read more

Jeez, Reed, don't sugarcoat it. Tell us what you really think of the DVD's future.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, who has sent mixed signals for the past year about whether the company was committed to DVDs for the long term and whether he believed discs still had a long life left, sounded a very loud death knell today for the format.

During the company's earnings call to discuss fourth-quarter earnings, BTIG analyst Rich Greenfield pointed out that Hastings had sounded much more optimistic last year about DVDs and was now making comments that suggested the company was … Read more

The Netflix bears are salivating.

When the video-rental company reports earnings later today, Netflix's financial performance is expected to show sluggishness due to higher costs of streaming content and an international expansion. The company's increased dependency on streaming movies over the Internet is supposed to mean slimmer margins than when the business was focused on renting DVDs.

In the immediate future, movies from Disney and Sony Pictures are supposed to disappear next month. Netflix obtained those films via a deal with Starz, the premium cable-TV service, but the contract was not renewed. This will diminish an already slim … Read more