Analysis and opinion on the hottest issues in the home entertainment industry, including technology, copy protection, high-definition DVD and digital rights management

OPINION: Political Plans                  
By Paul Sweeting - 02/18/2008
Feb. 18 | WASHINGTON— The studios’ anti-piracy agenda here has begun to run into a political and regulatory headwind that could jeopardize their hopes of persuading Internet service providers and other network operators to crack down on unchecked file-sharing. More

OPINION: A third party                
By Paul Sweeting - 02/11/2008
Feb. 11 | It’s too early yet to know the full impact of Warner Bros.’ embrace of Blu-ray Disc on the battle between Blu-ray and HD DVD, but the expectation that it would bring clarity to the high-def DVD business still looks like a long shot. More

OPINION: No surrender                  
By Paul Sweeting - 02/04/2008
FEB. 4 | There’s a scene near the beginning of Gladiator where the Roman army under Marcus Aurelius is preparing for its set-piece battle against the Barbarian tribes. Thomas Arana, playing Quintus, turns to Russell Crowe’s Maximus and says, “People should know when they are conquered.” More

OPINION: Web numbers                   
By Paul Sweeting - 01/28/2008
JAN. 28 | The 2008 Digital Music Report released this week by the IFPI, the global music industry association, is a truly remarkable document. More

OPINION: Ripe or rotten?
By Paul Sweeting - 01/21/2008
JAN. 21 | It took investors a day to figure it out, but they got it about right in the end. More

OPINION: The race for fourth
By Paul Sweeting - 01/11/2008
JAN. 11 | In the high-def DVD sweepstakes, Paramount and Universal have lost the race to be third. More

OPINION: The Content/Technology Agenda for 2008
By Paul Sweeting - 01/04/2008
JAN. 4 | The International Consumer Electronics Show has become a major meeting place for the technology and entertainment industries, sometimes to cooperate, sometimes to argue, sometimes just to look each other over. More

OPINION: Piracy billing
By Paul Sweeting - 12/14/2007
DEC. 14 | WASHINGTON—The most ambitious intellectual property bill since the Digital Millennium Copyright Act got its first hearing before the House Judiciary Committee. One reason the bill has not encountered dug-in opposition is that both sides have agreed to keep the most contentious issues out. More

OPINION: Seeking copyright parity
By Paul Sweeting - 12/07/2007
DEC. 7 | The massive intellectual property bill introduced this week by the bi-partisan leadership of the House Judiciary Committee is a marked departure from previous IP legislation. More

OPINION: Sony plays hardball
By Paul Sweeting - 11/30/2007
NOV. 30 | Whether out of desperation or strategic planning, Sony finally seems to be taking bold steps to reclaim some of its lost stature. More

OPINON: Web 2.slow
By Paul Sweeting - 11/21/2007
NOV. 21 | The report released Monday on the limits of Internet capacity, by Mokena, Ill.-based Nemertes Research, should be required reading for anyone involved in developing new, bandwidth-heavy applications for the Web, like video delivery. More

OPINION: High-def tortoise and the hare
By Paul Sweeting - 11/16/2007
NOV. 16 | While the two warring hardware camps lurch through another inconclusive fourth-quarter, keeping befuddled consumers on the sidelines, high-definition video is starting to find its way onto the Internet as technology providers begin to piece together the necessary infrastructure. More

OPINION: Contract talks
By Paul Sweeting - 11/09/2007
NOV. 9 | What we’re seeing in the current dispute between writers and producers over residuals for new media is simply the first step in what is likely to be a long and probably painful process by which the media industry comes to grips with the profound changes being worked by digital technology. More

OPINION: Copy regime
By Paul Sweeting - 11/02/2007
NOV. 2 | A proposal by three studios to establish a managed-copy regime for DVDs could get derailed this week by continued legal skirmishing between the DVD Copy Control Assn. and Kaleidescape Systems, a maker of high-end home media servers. More

OPINION: Movie downloads 101
By Paul Sweeting - 10/26/2007
OCT. 26 | The five studios behind Movielink sank $148 million and change into the download venture over six years before selling it to Blockbuster earlier this year for a kind word and a handshake. Call it the price of an education. More

OPINION: Filtering YouTube
By Paul Sweeting - 10/19/2007
OCT. 19 | The digital-rights management wars more or less officially entered a new phase this week with the unveiling of Google’s long-promised content filtering system for YouTube. More

OPINION: Leveling the scale
By Paul Sweeting - 10/12/2007
OCT. 12 | “BitTorrent” is still a dirty word in Hollywood. But with its announcement this week that it has begun licensing its Digital Network Accelerator (DNA) service to online video providers, BitTorrent Inc. has taken a significant step toward resolving scalability. More

OPINION: By the numbers
By Paul Sweeting - 10/05/2007
OCT. 5 | The Institute for Policy Innovation, a Texas-based pro-business think tank, released a report this week that estimates total losses to piracy for four “core” U.S. copyright industries at $58 billion per year. More

OPINION: No high-def tipping point
By Paul Sweeting - 09/28/2007
SEPT. 28 | When Paramount Home Entertainment made the switch from supporting both high-definition formats to supporting HD DVD exclusively, PHE president Kelly Avery stressed the need to concentrate on a single, low-cost format that would kick-start the high-def market. More

OPINION: Fueling the fire
By Paul Sweeting - 09/14/2007
SEPT. 14 | Hopes (or fears) that Warner Home Video would drop its support for Blu-ray in return for a pile of cash from the HD DVD camp, thus returning the high-def format war to its original three-to-three studio balance, were dashed this week—at least for now. More 

OPINION: High-def lite
By Paul Sweeting - 08/31/2007
AUG. 31 | Upconversion circuitry is becoming a standard and expected feature in replacement DVD players. And as consumers wait out the format war between HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc, it’s becoming the default reference spec for “high-def” DVD. More

OPINION: Choosing sides
By Paul Sweeting - 08/24/2007
AUG. 24 | Much has been made that the decision by Paramount and DreamWorks to support HD DVD exclusively was greased by cash payments and “promotional considerations.” While I have no trouble believing that promotional considerations were involved, as an explanation for such a significant step at this stage, it doesn’t add up.
More 

OPINION: Ark, anyone?
By Paul Sweeting - 08/17/2007
AUG. 17 | Bret Swanson of the Discovery Institute wrote an influential article earlier this year called “The Coming Exaflood,” referring to the flood of data threatening to swamp the Internet as new bandwidth-heavy applications grow in popularity. More

OPINION: Web kin
By Paul Sweeting - 08/10/2007
AUG. 10 | Blockbuster and Netflix have been copying each other’s moves for years, so it’s no great surprise that the bricks-and-mortar chain would make a move to buy Movielink. The key will be how well Netflix and Blockbuster are able to leverage their core businesses to exploit Internet distribution. More

OPINION: Irritant or more?
By Paul Sweeting - 08/03/2007
AUG. 3 | WASHINGTON—The unskippable copyright warning at the beginning of DVDs is one of life’s perennial, if minor, irritants, like listening to the twice annual lecture from your dentist about flossing more often. You just have to put up with it. More

OPINION: Battle of PR
By Paul Sweeting - 07/27/2007
JULY 27 | For a group that claims to have already won the format war, the Blu-ray Disc camp is sure fighting this one pretty hard. More

OPINION: Strategy game
By Paul Sweeting - 07/13/2007
JULY 13 | Sony and Microsoft did their best to maintain the hoopla around their respective videogame platforms at this week’s E3 industry summit. Away from the press conferences, however, their actions told of the serious strategic challenges facing both platforms. More

OPINION: Trust’s worth
By Paul Sweeting - 07/06/2007
JULY 6 | What is it about Blu-ray backers that they can’t seem to shake the interest of anti-trust investigators? Investigators for the European Commission have stepped up their probe of Blu-ray and HD DVD. More

OPINION: Chasing the downside
By Paul Sweeting - 06/29/2007
JUNE 29 | The DVD Copy Control Assn. secured a revision to the CSS master license to allow burning of downloaded movies. Why did it take so long? Somewhere along the way, the industry stopped chasing the upside. More 

OPINION: Copy right
By Paul Sweeting - 06/22/2007
JUNE 22 | FOR HOW MUCH longer can the studios forestall a fair use reckoning on DVD format shifting? Perhaps not much longer if they keep pursuing their case against Kaleidescape Systems. The studios’ real purpose isn’t to put Kaleidescape out of business but to assert control over personal-use copying. More 

OPINION: Deal or no deal
By Paul Sweeting - 06/15/2007
JUNE 15 | The folks at AT&T must like being at the center of controversy. In 2005, AT&T touched off the still raging ’Net neutrality debate when then-CEO Ed Whitacre declared, “For a Google or Yahoo or Vonage or anybody to expect to use [our] pipes for free is nuts!” More

OPINION: New strategy
By Paul Sweeting - 06/08/2007
JUNE 8 | Sony basically has two choices: It can forget about trying to compete against the Wii and concentrate on positioning the PS3 as an integrated home media hub that happens to play games. Or it can cut the price of the PS3 dramatically and try to reclaim some share and drive more software sales. More