The results and analysis for Blu-ray (and DVD) sales for the week ending 5th May 2012 is in. Another very quiet week, despite 3 new releases in the top 10. I think it says it all that the box office flop Haywire was easily the week's top selling title.

Releases for 2012 so far has been pretty weak, it has to be said, but that has more to do with the calibre of theatrical releases of a few months ago, than anything about Blu-ray or DVD ... the big hitters are still to come.

You can read the rest of the stats and analysis here

A Russian start-up says they've been given financial backing by Microsoft to develop a way to block BitTorrent downloads.

The tool, called 'Pirate Pay', has already been used in practice to hinder the download of several Russian films, and has already been used by Hollywood studios like Sony and Disney to protect their movies.

Andrei Klimenko, the company's chief executive, explains that the origin of Pirate Pay related to network traffic management, and not piracy management, but quickly evolved to the latter when it was clear that the tool had the potential to stop pirates from getting the files they need.

While much of the inner workings of Pirate Pay remain a trade secret, security researchers, such as Richard Clayton from the University of Cambridge, believe the trick lies in seeding fake data throughout the BitTorrent network, frustrating downloaders in the process. But Clayton, speaking to the BBC, feels that this technique at best hinders downloads, but not stop them eventually, saying "the networks are robust about this in the long term".

Mr Clayton believes that the real solution to the BitTorrent piracy problem won't arrive as a technical solution, but rather, a 'social solution'. "The social issue here is that a lot of people think that the legal offerings are too expensive and don't provide what they want. Once you solve that, nobody's going to want to mess around with complicated bits of software to get what they need."

The MPAA has welcomed recent court decisions around Europe that have seen orders to censor the BitTorrent indexer website, The Pirate Bay. 

Writing on their official blog, the MPAA welcome rulings in the Netherlands, UK, Austria, Belgium, Denmark and Finland, and says that censorship helps "not only the creative community but also consumers".

This suggestion will no doubt incense Internet Freedom activists, who say that censorship of The Pirate Bay and other websites are not only heavy handed, but also ineffective at stopping visitors to these websites.

But the MPAA says such blocks are needed to promote innovation, to allow more legitimate sites to "provide consumers with content when they want it". Critics also attacked this point, saying that the MPAA's history on innovation (having been against VCRs at one point, and with members believing nothing good has ever come out of the Internet) nullifies their argument, and if anything, websites like The Pirate Bay have been instrumental in forcing Hollywood to start offering competitive products and services for the Internet age.

Lastly, the MPAA warned that more actions are needed and that "it is imperative that the content not be siphoned off and distributed illegally by those seeking to profit from the work and creativity of others", another contentious point considering The Pirate Bay claims they've been running at a loss, and that the users of the website are not paid to upload or download content.

Terry Hancock writes a regular column for the Free Software Magazine, has helped to educate and promote astronomy, space exploration, is currently working on his own animated sci-fi video series - and he also wants to create a DRM-free alternative to Blu-ray!

And it's work on his sci-fi video series, Lunatics!, that has inspired Hancock, a long time free software advocate, to produce the standard for his own disc based video format, which he calls "Lib-Ray".

Based on the open source MKV container, and using the equally open-source VP8 codec, Hancock is currently working on standardizing the HTML-5 based menu system. A simple software wizard will then allow videos to be published to SD cards, and compatible media players will be able to play it, with no royalties required in any step of the project.

And the plans for Lib-Ray extends beyond even Blu-ray, with planned support for 60FPS 3D, and 4K video.

Those that want to support Hancock in his efforts can contribute via his Kickstarter, with the money raised used to fund the time-off from work that Hancock needs to take, in order to see his project come to fruition.

But in this day and age of digital distribution, does the world really need another physical media format, even if it is a DRM-free, open source variety? Hancock feels there is a need, at least for his own film releases. "I don't like the idea of selling an inferior copy of my film on DVD to people in a Kickstarter and then having the really high-quality version available only as a free download. That just seems backwards to me. The collector's edition offline version I sell to somebody should be the very best experience I can put in a box," explained Hancock.

And others seem to agree, with the project already attracting 186 backers, and with Terry only $7000 short of his $19000 goal. So while Lib-Ray may not replace Blu-ray, it might just offer independent filmmakers like Terry another option, without having to pay tens of thousands for DRM.

At a time when discs are starting to lose the war of convenience against digital content, the MPAA and their government allies decide it's time to make discs even more inconvenient to use, all in a bid to continue the fruitless war against downloads. The ironic thing is that movie studios are likely to make less money from digital distribution than compared to discs, and their short-sightedness may very well push consumers towards the less profitable alternatives (which includes piracy).

The Pirate Bay scolds Anonymous for attacking the website of Virgin Media, Windows 8 removes DVD playback support, while MPAA inserts even more copyright warnings onto those DVDs. All of this and more for the week ending the 13 May 2012.

Continue reading ...

These days, studios are not only fighting web pirates, but also digital distribution and theater owners, in a bid to keep physical disc revenue, the mainstay of the home video industry, from falling into further decline. Although the digital distribution business is booming, revenue wise, physical disc revenue still account for a huge chunk of home video revenue, and Time Warner CEO Jeffrey Bewkes, speaking to Charlie Rose, wants to ensure disc sales remain healthy.

Tensions has been brewing for a while between studios and theater operators. Theater operators have complained that studios are attempting to shorten the traditional 17-week theatrical release window, while studios argue the need for a smaller window to allow consumers to buy (and rent) the movies they want quicker, and to minimize the effect of piracy. Bewkes predicts that, in the age of digital distribution where timely access is key, release windows will have to be shortened, although he was also clear to point out that action should be only be taken that doesn't "undermine the theater experience".

But theater owners say the unfair revenue split arrangement, in which studios get 90% of opening week revenue (and then with a gradually decreasing spoil of the profits as the weeks go by) means that they're the ones that will lose out if release windows are further shortened. 

Bewkes also says there's "bad news" on the disc sales front, as he also predicts that DVD and Blu-ray prices will "have to be cheaper", in order to combat not only piracy, but also the better value proposition being offered by streaming services. Recent research conducted by IHS Screen Digest showed that consumers only pays 51 cents for movies consumed online, compared to $4.72 for disc based titles.

Louis CK may not be the first name you think of when thinking about the crusade against DRM, but oddly enough, he may have been the most successful so far. Last year, the comedian (CK to his friends, and people who are lazy at typing) released one of his live shows for $5, in a no fuss, DRM free, download as many copies as you want, format, and it was a huge success, generating over $1 million in revenue in just a few weeks.

With less fanfare, Louis has just released the audio-only version of his HBO special, Shameless, as well as the audio version of an older Carnegie Hall show he performed in 2010. The price point is still at $5, and it's still DRM free.

With HBO catching a bit of flak over copyright issues, specifically with Game of Thrones officially one of the most pirated shows ever, it was interesting to hear Louis, via an email sent out to buyers of his first DRM-free show, praise HBO for allowing the release of Shamless on the comedian's own website, and in the only way he prefers: without DRM!

So it's time again, for those rallying against DRM, and in need of a bit of good comedy, to put their money where their mouth is and splurge a whole $5 on Louis' latest old stuff.

Anonymous has attacked the website of ISP Virgin Media, one of the ISPs that was forced by the UK High Court to ban visitor access to The Pirate Bay. But The Pirate Bay has come out condemning the attack, calling it a form of censorship.

The website of Virgin Media, virginmedia.com, as taken down on Tuesday after a sustained distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. A faction of the hacktivist group Anonymous, calling themselves @AnonAteam on Twitter, was later identified as being responsible via twitter.

Many instantly criticized the target of the attack, saying ISPs have been forced to adopt these filters and are as helpless as their own customers when it comes to having a choice about the matter. British ISPs have been fighting in the courts to prevent filtering from happening. AnonAteam defended their actions, calling them necessary to "protect freedom of expression". "ISPs are the gateways to democracy in this technology age, to censor access to websites with such an abuse of the legal process, outside parliament our a Humans Right court is unlaw and an abuse of power," the group posted on their Tumblr.

But The Pirate Bay says DDoS attacks are no different to the block being put in by ISPs like Virgin, and "are both forms of censorship", a post on the website's Facebook page noted.

The Pirate Bay says there are better ways to help, if you truly believe in an open Internet, including setting up your own proxy, as well as getting involved in the political process, including joining a local branch of The Pirate Party, to get your views heard.

The annoying anti-piracy messages people have to sit through at the start of DVDs and Blu-rays have just gotten worse - twice as worse!

Instead of just a single screen warning of the dire consequences of movie piracy, movie lovhaers will now have to wait through two, possibly unskippable, warnings screens. And it's not just the FBI that's threatening to jail people for 5 years for torrenting a movie, the Department of Homeland Security adds its badge to the first warning screen, while the menacing eagle logo of the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (IPR Center) graces the newly added second screen.

The first of the two new anti-piracy warning screens coming to a DVD, Blu-ray near you ...

... and the second warning screen

The second screen also shows a link to www.iprcenter.gov, the tax-payer funded website that some critics have labeled as nothing more than an outlet to espouse pro-copyright views, often at the expensive of reality.

Movie fans, especially those that choose to do the right thing and pay for their movies, have often expressed their frustration at at these types of potentially unskippable warning screens. Ironically, pirated copies normally make the screen skippable, or remove them entirely, and gives movie watchers a much better user experience as a result.

For those that want to stay on the right side of the law, but also don't want to watch these condescending screens, can opt for certain subscription streaming or legal downloads that allow movie lovers to get right into the action in seconds, as opposed to minutes. For those that don't, well, they can still get their favourite movies via the usual places, still free of all annoying warning screens.

Our annual "State of Play" feature looks at Blu-ray sales results from the last year, and identifies the major milestones (hello, Star Wars!), as well as looking at trends involving both Blu-ray market share (goodbye, DVDs!) and revenue. Click on the link below to read our analysis: 

Blu-ray: The State of Play - May 2012

The results and analysis for Blu-ray (and DVD) sales for the week ending 28th April 2012 is in. A very very quiet week this one, with the only major new release being Contraband, unless you count the 10th anniversary release of The Princess Diaries as a big release.

You can read the rest of the stats and analysis here

The expected most popular version of Windows 8 will not feature built-in DVD playback or include Media Center, both of which are currently available as part of the equivalent Windows 7 Home Premium version.

Microsoft has simplified the Windows 8 line-up, and in a blog post last month, revealed that there will only be two purchasable versions of the new OS, the mainstream standard version simply labeled as "Windows 8", and the more fully featured "Windows 8 Pro".

But since that announcement, and subsequent press releases to clear up the issue further, a mini furor has erupted over the removal of both built-in DVD playback and the Media Center component from the mainstream version of Windows 8. Even buyers of the Pro version would still have to shell out extra money to add Media Center, and DVD playback, back to the OS. The upgrade is expected to cost less than $10.

Unlike DVD playback, Blu-ray movie playback has never been built in to any version of Windows, and this remains unchanged in Windows 8.

Microsoft cites the diminishing popularity of DVDs and even Blu-ray on PCs as the reason for this move, and the "significant amount in royalties" required to offer support. It is estimated that including DVD and Blu-ray playback would cost the Redmond giant $5 to $15 in terms of additional licensing fees.

Some analysts also say this is also Microsoft's way of promoting its "physical disc free" video streaming offerings, available via Windows 8's Video app, allowing users to buy, rent and even streaming purchased videos to their Xbox 360 console.

For those that still do use their PCs to play DVDs (and Blu-rays), the free VideoLAN (VLC) seems like the perfect alternative. Based in France where software patents do not exist, the team behind VLC is able to offer DVD (and Blu-ray) playback without having to pay royalties. Its hard working developers have also promised to provide Windows 8 support and enhanced Blu-ray playback by the time the new OS is released.

The Pirate Bay blocked in the UK. Judge says IP address can't be used to identify a person. And subscription streaming revenue rises more than 6 fold in the last year. All of this and more for the week ending the 6 May 2012.

Continue reading ...

It seem the music industry's attempt to have The Pirate Bay blocked in the UK by ISPs may have backfired, at least temporarily, as The Pirate Bay reports a surge in traffic in the last few days.

Some ISPs have already turned on their filter for The Pirate Bay after a High Court decision earlier in the week, including blocking DNS resolution (which converts domain names to the IP addresses of the website) and also IP address filtering. 

But despite these measures, a site insider speaking to TorrentFreak said that traffic to the BitTorrent indexer has actually increased, dramatically, over the last week. 12 million more, to be exact.

The extra visits most likely came from those who had previously had little knowledge of the Swedish based website, and had been informed about its existence via the various news reports covering the UK filtering court order. And TPB is making the most of these extra visits, by informing incoming visitors the various simple ways to defeat any filters the UK and other countries may be implementing.

A blog post on the website lists the various ways to defeat these filters, such as using a VPN (including The Pirate Bay's own iPredator service, or free alternatives such as VPNReactor), using anonymizer tools such as Tor and I2P. At the very least, people can circumvent any DNS based blocks by switching to Google's DNS servers or OpenDNS, or using the MAFIAAFire plugin, although these would only work if the associated IP addresses for The Pirate Bay aren't being filtered as well. An even simpler solution, provided by the UK branch of the Pirate Party, is a web based proxy URL that lets users get access to the website without the need to install anything.

The increasing use of VPNs, Virtual Private Networks, where activities cannot be monitored for anti-piracy purposes, will present anti-piracy groups with enormous problems in the future. And it appears that the hard-line actions they've been taking around the world has only served to drive more customers to VPN providers. A recent study in Sweden showed a 40% jump in the number of VPN subscribers in the last two and half years, with nearly 8% of the Internet using population, and 15% of all young people, now subscribers to some sort of VPN service. 

VPN services can also be used by bypass the geographical locking of legitimate content delivery services, such as Netflix, in countries where the service is not yet available. This week, British ISPs called on the entertainment industry to also improve legal alternatives for content access, to further combat the piracy problem.

In what could turn out to be a landmark ruling, a New York district court judge has lambasted the use of IP addresses as identification evidence, especially in mass copyright lawsuits, which he also called a "waste of judicial resources."

Making the ruling in a BitTorrent lawsuit involving the alleged download of a pornographic video, Judge Gary Brown also urged other judges to reject similar cases in the future.

But on the issue of identification based solely on IP address evidence, Judge Brown clearly spelt out the case against linking an the subscriber that leases the IP address, to the person or persons who actually committed the infringing action.

"The assumption that the person who pays for Internet access at a given location is the same individual who allegedly downloaded a single sexually explicit film is tenuous, and one that has grown more so over time," Judge brown wrote in his ruling.

"Thus, it is no more likely that the subscriber to an IP address carried out a particular computer function – here the purported illegal downloading of a single pornographic film – than to say an individual who pays the telephone bill made a specific telephone call."

Judge Brown also made the observation that the popularity of Wi-Fi routers meant that has now made it much harder to link an IP address to the actual individual that committed the infringement. 

"While a decade ago, home wireless networks were nearly non-existent, 61% of US homes now have wireless access. As a result, a single IP address usually supports multiple computer devices – which unlike traditional telephones can be operated simultaneously by different individuals," Judge Brown added.

"Different family members, or even visitors, could have performed the alleged downloads. Unless the wireless router has been appropriately secured (and in some cases, even if it has been secured), neighbors or passersby could access the Internet using the IP address assigned to a particular subscriber and download the plaintiff's film."

The ruling mirrors one made in Italy, where also in a piracy case, the judge there ruled that IP addresses alone are insufficient to identify the pirate. And last year in the UK, a judge also questioned the tactics employed by one of the country's most notorious mass copyright law firms, also questioning the use of IP address evidence for identification purposes.

Following a court ruling in February which found The Pirate Bay guilty of committing copyright infringement, a court order this week will now force a collection of UK ISPs to start blocking access to the BitTorrent indexer.

A collection of major music labels first brought the case to the UK High Court, following previous rulings that allowed for the successful blocking of Usenet website Newzbin2. The music industry's lawyers argued that the precedent set by the Newzbin2 blocking can be applied to The Pirate Bay.

Major ISPs, including Sky, Everything Everywhere, TalkTalk, O2 and Virgin Media, will now have to block access to The Pirate Bay in the coming weeks, blocking both access to the domain name via the DNS settings, as well as filtering out any and all IP addresses associated with the website.

This follows similar censorship ruling across Europe, in countries like Italy, Denmark and the Netherlands.

Critics called the decision both "pointless" and "dangerous". Following the Newzbin2 blocking, the website released a tool that allowed easy circumvention of the block, and a spokesman for the website says 93% of all UK visitors that visited site prior to the block have now successfully made their way back using the tool, and other techniques. One such technique include the use of reverse proxies, and the The Pirate Party UK has already made available one such proxy that circumvents any potential filters.

But critics are more worried about the expansion of these rulings to cover other websites, and not only those that engage in copyright infringement. "Blocking the Pirate Bay is pointless and dangerous. It will fuel calls for further, wider and even more drastic calls for Internet censorship of many kinds, from pornography to extremism," warned Open Rights Group's Executive Director Jim Killock.

ISPs are also concerned about the effectiveness of this type of censorship, with Virgin Media instead suggesting that providing more legal alternatives are a better way to fight piracy. “As a responsible ISP, Virgin Media complies with court orders addressed to the company but strongly believes that changing consumer behavior to tackle copyright infringement also needs compelling legal alternatives, such as our agreement with Spotify, to give consumers access to great content at the right price,” said a Virgin Media spokesman.

Regardless, the UK's music industry group, the BPI, hailed the victory as a significant one, accusing the operators of The Pirate Bay of lining their pockets by "commercially exploiting music and other creative works without paying a penny to the people who created them", according to BPI chief Geoff Taylor.

The results and analysis for Blu-ray (and DVD) sales for the week ending 21st April 2012 is in. One of the biggest new releases of the year so far, the $200m box office hit Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol was this week's best selling Blu-ray, outselling the nearest title by more than 13 to 1.

Despite this, total disc revenue was at a relative low for 2012, but not too surprising given seasonal factors. 

You can read the rest of the stats and analysis here

Photo credit: MARCUS BRANDT, Getty Images

The home video industry has managed to record its first rise in consumer spending in years, as both Blu-ray and the booming streaming market helped revenue to rise 2.5% for the first quarter of 2012, according to figures composed by DEG: The Digital Entertainment Group.

While disc based sales were still down, the decline seems to have stabilized, with discs sales down only 1% compared to a year ago. Blu-ray revenue was up 23%, which helped to offset most of the losses from DVD sales. Overall, consumers spend $2.06 billion on disc buys in Q1 2012.

But the real star was subscription based streaming, dominated by Netflix, and to lesser extents by other players including Hulu and Amazon. Revenue rose a spectacular 545.5% to $548.6 million. Video-on-demand services also posted a rise in revenue, but at a much slower pace of 6.8%.

The cloud part of the silver lining was largely caused by the brick-and-mortar disc rental industry, with a decline of 39.4%, and Netflix disc rentals, down 48%. Revenue from Redbox and other kiosk rentals, on the other hand, were up 30.1%.

So the overall pictures points to consumers embracing the new, at the expense of the old, with streaming and VOD playing an ever more important role in video delivery. Even the much maligned UltraViolet cloud based movie storage service managed to increase its number of subscribers to 2 million.