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ABC-Disney has entered into its second video distribution deal with a third-party website. The company is providing some of its most popular television shows on Veoh.com including Lost, Ugly Betty, Desperate Housewives and Grey's Anatomy. The ... company will also provide short clips from ESPN such as SportsCenter Right Now and Mike and Mike in the Morning. (Source: reuters.com ) Even though ABC is starting to sign on distribution partners, the network still plans to keep an iron grip on its most valuable content. ESPN clips will be embedded into Veoh's environment, but ABC network programming is ... (view more)

Some users of Windows Vista Media Center have been reportedly blocked from recording some NBC Universal TV shows, receiving error messages that read "restrictions set by the broadcaster and/or originator prohibit recording of this program" instead. ... One person prevented from recording the NBC shows is an IT director in Northern California who says this is indicative of why the current Digital Rights Management (DRM) schemes are flawed. DRM schemes affect people who intend to legally consume content, with no intention of stealing the content. People intent on stealing content already have ways ... (view more)

Rumors emerged earlier this week that Sony would begin offering a video download service for the Playstation 3 (PS3). The company is also reportedly in talks with the major studios and television networks, providing the third incarnation of the ... service after the abysmal failures of Movielink (sold to Blockbuster) and Sony Connect (recently discontinued). Has Sony already squandered its chances? Its main competitor, Microsoft's Xbox 360, already delivers movie and television shows with its Xbox Live service. Then there are the other set-top boxes such as Apple TV and Tivo. (Source: slashdot. ... (view more)

Google is launching an ambitious project to become the Internet's leading source of information on just about every subject. Their plans appear to be a direct attack on Wikipedia's popularity. According to a blog by Google's Vice President of ... engineering, the company wants to make it easier for experts to share knowledge. They plan to do this through a project titled 'knol' (a term they are also using to refer to each entry). The idea is for Google to take care of the hosting and formatting, leaving the experts to concentrate on the information. The goal is for the 'knol' to be "the first ... (view more)

The movie download site CinemaNow.com is partnering with Sonic, makers of the Roxio CD and DVD burning software, to allow consumers to legally burn movies bought online for playback in DVD and HD-DVD players. Curt Mavis, president and CEO of ... CinemaNow, said that his company is, "pleased to unlock a vast collection of previously unavailable content for consumers to instantly access in the home and burn to DVD." (Source: I4U News ) The deal would seem to solve the problem of transferring downloaded content from computer to television. Several products are already on the market to accomplish ... (view more)

Google has vehemently denied allegations that the company has entered into secret deals with UK news companies for the rights to use the companies' material on Google News. The allegations were sparked from an article published in Scotland's Sunday ... Herald newspaper. The article claimed that Google had made arrangements with several large news groups in the UK over how Google would carry their content on Google News. The article further asserted that "the deals are reputedly being kept strictly secret for fear that Google will end up having to pay for similar licenses with all of the 4500 news ... (view more)

After countless threats of legal action and allegations of a carefree approach to copyrighted material, two of the most powerful media companies are embarking on a joint venture that will showcase their own material on some of the Internet's biggest ... websites. The move puts the two media giants in direct competition with YouTube and the other online video-sharing sites that hold no copyright for the material they provide. The News Corporation and NBC Universal will distribute their latest content, like television episodes and movies, on AOL, Yahoo, MSN and MySpace. It is estimated that 96 ... (view more)

Last Thursday, Yahoo announced a new beta version of its personalized My Yahoo start page. The launch will be gradual and will begin over the next few months. Although only a limited number of Yahoo members will be able to try out the beta version, ... these users will have access to create their personalized space by simply dragging and dropping the content they would like to include on their My Yahoo start pages. Beta testers will also have access to a pre-created My Yahoo page based on the other Yahoo services that they use. For example, members who often use Yahoo's shopping service will see ... (view more)

Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group have agreed to provide music downloads from America and distribute other western content directly onto mobile phones for sale in the Asian market. The two will operate out of China in association ... with the already established ACCESS China Media Solutions. ACCESS China Media Solutions is its own international joint venture, combining ACCESS Ltd. of China and Melodeo of the United States. ACCESS China Media Solutions was formed in early 2006 as a means for Melodeo to distribute its technology to wireless carriers and handset makers in China. ( ... (view more)

While traditionally known for beer and chocolate, Belgium is now making a name for itself as a strict enforcer of copyright laws. Copiepresse, Belgium's copyright enforcement group, has recently taken a stand against Yahoo. "We sent a formal letter ... to Yahoo [last week], requesting it to remove all links to our newspapers' content," said Margaret Boribon, secretary-general of Copiepresse. She adds that failure to comply will leave Copiepresse no choice but to take Yahoo to court. (Source: latimes.com ) Yahoo, like many other search engines, provides snippets of information and links to news ... (view more)