Zediva

Smart money followed Aereo--but is it still doomed?

Ordinarily, I would write that Aereo, the Internet video company slammed yesterday by lawsuits from nearly every major TV broadcaster in New York, is doomed.

I would write that Aereo is headed for the same gloomy ending as ivi.TV and Zediva. These were goofy, legal-loophole plays that were shut down by the courts faster than you can say permanent injunction.

But hold up.

Aereo is supported by some very smart people. Barry Diller, one of the savviest media tycoons around, is an investor and is on the board. There's no doubt that he and the company anticipated a … Read more

MPAA wins permanent injunction against Zediva

Zediva, a start-up that tried to exploit what it considered was a loophole in copyright law to build an online video service, has received a death blow.

U.S. District Judge John Walter issued a permanent injunction against Zediva's operators that will force them to shut down the service for good.

According to a statement from the Motion Picture Association of America, the trade group representing the six major film studios, Zediva's operators have also agreed to a payment of $1.8 million to the studios.

The MPAA accused Zediva of copyright violations in a lawsuit filed in … Read more

MPAA sets sights on Zediva founder

The major film studios have forced Zediva to shut its doors, but the case is far from closed.

A federal court yesterday officially issued a preliminary injunction against Zediva, a start-up video-rental service that made a name for itself last year by employing a legally iffy business model. Earlier this month, a U.S. District judge announced his intention to issue a preliminary injunction but waited for some legal housekeeping chores to be completed before making it official.

Last week, Zediva suspended operations, and now the case moves to the next and very important stage of determining whether the company … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 1523: Global cyber cold war imminent? (Podcast)

On today's show, security researchers report that Anonymous and LulzSec are, if anything, just distracting us with their antics while the true threat is a years-long cyberwarfare campaign that's stolen everything from private intellectual property to high-level government secrets. So, that'll probably lead to some reasoned and logical cyber-security discussions, no? No. Also, is the Amazon App Store screwing developers, and are you finally getting what you pay for, broadband-wise?

Federal court to order film service Zediva shut down

Zediva, the video service that attempted to build a business by exploiting loopholes in copyright law, suffered a serious setback today when a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction against the service.

U.S. District Judge John Walter has ruled that Zediva violates copyright law and granted a preliminary injunction motion made by the Motion Picture Association of America for Zediva to be shut down. The judge is waiting a week for a legal technicality before officially issuing the injunction, but Zediva's fate is sealed.

Zediva billed itself as a DVD rental service that enabled users to rent physical … Read more

Buzz Out Loud 1495: Lytro: the "magic camera" that's blown our minds (Podcast)

On today's show, we fall in love with Lytro, the game-changing photo technology that we can't wait to get our hands on. Get in line, geeks. Also, will Yahoo buy Hulu? And can we call it Ya-Hulu if they do-do? Plus, Apple scores the broadest patent ever, which makes us wonder if the patent office is even trying anymore, and Shazam is coming to your TV.

MPAA files copyright suit against Zediva

The trade group representing the six major Hollywood film studios filed a copyright suit in federal court against online video distributor Zediva today.

The suit has started the process that almost certainly will end with Zediva's demise.

"Zediva illegally streams movies to its customers without obtaining required licenses from the movie studios," the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) said in a statement today. "Zediva claims it is like a brick-and-mortar DVD 'rental' store and therefore not obligated to pay licensing fees to copyright holders. But the DVD 'rental' label is a sham. In reality, Zediva … Read more

Crazy Zediva streams movies only out on DVD

Want to stream a movie over the Internet that's not available for streaming on a service like Netflix or Amazon? Zediva can stream films that you can only get on physical DVDs--through a goofball workaround that actually has strong legal precedent.

Zediva rents you a DVD but keeps the DVD in a player in its own facility. You then control this player remotely from your computer, and the output is piped over the Net to you. Think of it as a wall of Slingboxes, available for rent. If you want to watch a movie online that's only available on disc because it's in the pre-streaming, DVD-sales-only "window," this will punch through that restriction.

Or will it? The service just launched today, and in my quick test, at about 5 p.m. PT, only 6 of the 49 "new releases" on the site's main movie selection screen were available for viewing. The marquee title, "The Fighter," was available, but "127 Hours," "Megamind," "Due Date," and most other titles were marked as "rented out." Unlike services such as Netflix, which can stream as many copies of a single video as it has bandwidth to support, Zediva only has so many copies of each DVD, and each lives in its own dedicated DVD player. When all the players holding a given movie are in use, nobody else can rent the film.