Topic: News

Music lovers are being forced to pay high prices for downloading songs from the internet by record companies keen to protect sales of conventional CDs, according to industry experts.

Philips this week launched its first Blu-ray Disc drive, and was quickly followed by Lite-on and BenQ. Both the Philips and the Lite-on models are due to ship in the UK in August, the two companies said separately.

CMC Magnetics, Ritek, Prodisc Technology and Daxon Technology, the top four makers of CD-R discs in Taiwan, jointly filed a legal complaint with Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission (FTC) against Philips for its Veeza CD-R patent licensing scheme, claiming that it violates Taiwan's Fair Trade Law.

Microsoft acknowledged that it needs to better inform users that its tool for determining whether a computer is running a pirated copy of Windows also quietly checks in daily with the software maker.

HD DVD will be launched in Europe in the fourth quarter of this year, according to the HD DVD Promotion Group representatives.

DVD lodestar Flash - in his latest review - has turned his attention to the rapidly emerging market of pen drives as the new storage medium of choice. He seems impressed for an old fella, as they are "amazingly fast and efficient and I am sure I will make good use of them". Read the whole review here.

Scots are Britain's biggest customers for pirate DVDs. 35% of Scots have pirate DVDs whilst one in four only care about price and 31% don't even know it's a crime.

Demand is increasing for 18x DVD burners with sales volume in 2007 expected to catch up with that of 16x models, currently the mainstream writing speed, according to sources in Taiwan's optical disc drive (ODD) industry.

As the recording industry tries to block file trading of songs across peer-to-peer networks, blogs and other viral distribution channels, the major labels suddenly have a whole new piracy concern: music videos.

Consumers should be told exactly what they can and cannot do with songs and films they buy online, says an influential group of MPs in the UK.

Owners of pirated DVDs in Edinburgh are being encouraged to take them to be shredded tomorrow as part of a national amnesty.

In a bid to preserve shelf space and fight slowing DVD sales, major U.S. retailers including Wal-Mart have held talks with Hollywood's studios to develop kiosks where consumers can copy movies and TV shows onto DVDs and devices, industry executives said.

Pioneer will stop developing DVD recorders on its own, as stiff price competition is causing the firm to lose money in this segment and is looking to link up with Panasonic to cut costs.

Disney is to start selling films over the internet via CinemaNow, including new films on the day they come out.

The BBC will broadcast all its World Cup games live on broadband, it has announced.

Reports of the Pirate Bay's demise have been vigorously denied by its owners.

Microsoft, Toshiba, JVC, NTT DoCoMo, Creative, iRiver and three other firms have banded together in a bid to prevent Apple's iPod from completely dominating the portable music player market.

CMC Magnetics, in light of a tight global supply for CD-R discs, plans to raise its OEM quotes for CD-R discs by 5-10% in June, according to company chairman Robert Wong.

AMD has announced the AMD LIVE! PC -- which they claim is a full-featured, easy-to-use media center PC, designed to enable consumers to organize, distribute, share, and enjoy their content collection throughout the home and on the go.

An electronic gadget that promises to unshackle consumers from their TV sets became available in Europe for the first time on Tuesday, opening up new ways for users to watch television wherever they go.