Author: Digital Digest | Latest News

The first test of anti-piracy actions under new legislation passed last year could soon see major piracy sites such as The Pirate Bay blocked by most of the country's ISPs.

The new legislation passed last year allowed rights-holders to petition the court and force ISPs to block piracy sites, but it isn't until now that rights-holders have decided to take up this option.

Deciding to test the waters, local movie studio Roadshow Films and subscription TV provider Foxtel have petitioned the Federal Court to block several piracy related sites, including the Pirate Bay. Other sites that have been targeted by Foxtel includes Torrentz, isoHunt and TorrentHound, with Roadshow primarily targeting streaming site SolarMovie.

But the rights-holders have already run into problems with the process, and ISPs have already expressed concern at the technical side of things.

Under the law, rights-holders are required to formally contact the owners of the sites they wish to have blocked before proceeding with legal action. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the piracy scene, it can be extremely difficult to locate real contact details of site owners. Many sites are also cloned or proxied, making it a time consuming process to contact all of the involved site owners.

The lawyer representing both companies, Richard Lancaster, has informed the court that 61 sites need to be contacted, but only 43 have been notified so far. Lancaster noted that for some sites, "there's no obvious or indeed unobvious mechanism for getting in touch with the operators of the sites."

The 50 ISPs being asked to block these sites have so far chosen not to mount a defence, but some have expressed concern at the method of blocking that Foxtel and Roadshow have demanded. ISPs like TPG, Australia's second largest ISP, want to deploy a DNS based blocking method, while Foxtel has demanded IP and URL based blocking, with the option of adding more IP addresses to be blocked as needed in the future.

"We wish to seek to negotiate an arrangement for DNS blocking. If [Foxtel] were pushing for a broader blocking mechanism that might be an issue," a legal representative for TPG warned.

Rights-holders and ISPs return to court on May 6, when they will settle this and other technical matters related to the blocking.

The results and analysis for Blu-ray (and DVD) sales for the week ending 5th March 2016 are in. Creed was the headlining new release for the week, and it was also the overall top seller.

Read the rest of the stats and analysis to find out how Blu-ray (and DVD) did.

A new digital movie platform that aims to bring the latest movies to people's homes the same day as it screens in theaters has now attracted plenty of big name backers, as well as numerous detractors.

The platform, called Screening Room, is backed by Hollywood heavyweights including Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson and JJ Abrams, will give movie lovers a chance to watch the latest theatrical releases in the comfort of their own homes, using a proprietary secure set-top-box.

But the platform has already attracted scores of criticism, from not only users who have balked at the idea of paying $50 per movie (plus $150 for the set-top-box), but also cinema chains afraid of losing their exclusivity window.

To sweeten the deal for the likes of AMC and Regal, Screening Room plans to cut cinema chains as much as $20 for every movie being rented, as well as including two tickets for the user to watch the movie at theaters, to help bolster theater concession sales.

With such a generous offer, it is reported that a deal with AMC may be close, but others like Regal are standing firm against this perceived encroachment into their business model.

Movie studio executives also warned about the potential damage this would cause to cinema chains. "It would be the beginning of the end, and half of the theaters in this country would close," said an unnamed studio executive.

In a further ironic twist, Screening Room is currently being promoted around Hollywood by none other than Napster's Sean Parker, previously the poster boy for not paying for content, who now want users to pay a little bit more than they're willing.

From an upcoming legal battle to the continuing one between the PS4 and Xbox One (NPD time!), read the news roundup for the week ending 13 March 2016

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A new Kickstarter wants to bring the lending of DVDs into the 21st century, but they might be sued into submission before things have barely started.

The new project, called MovieSwap, wants you and others to send in their unwanted DVDs. Then, the service will facilitate the lending and swapping of said discs with millions of other users around the world by ripping and storing the DVDs online for digital streaming and download.

Each disc can only be "lent" to one other user at a time (but MovieSwap will have multiple copies of the same film, sent to them by users), and is stored securely at MovieSwap's HQ. So in principle, it will be no different to lending to a real person, except you can lend to strangers and never have to worry about not getting the disc back (or getting it back scratched!). For those on the receiving end, it also means being able to access the movie in digital form, across multiple devices, including the service's own Kindle Fire like media player stick.

To access the service, users will have to pay a monthly subscription fee (which places one DVD into their library), or send in their old DVDs. Each DVD entitles the user to swap for another DVD.

The project has already received tremendous support from Kickstarter users, having exceeded the €35,000 Kickstarter goal by more than €6,000 already at the time of writing. The project claims that it already backed by investors and suggests that Jean-Baptiste Kempf, synonymous with the VLC media player project (and current president of the VideoLAN non-profit org), is a backer.

But while users and investors may see a bright future for MovieSwap, Hollywood is likely to take a dimmer view. With them cut out of the loop revenue wise, and with DVD ripping and DRM circumvention on the cards, it's unlikely the litigation happy movie studios will sit idly by and allow MovieSwap to prosper.

So it might very well be boxes and boxes of legal documents, not DVDs, that the MPAA lawyers will be sending MovieSwap's way in the near future.

The results and analysis for Blu-ray (and DVD) sales for the week ending 27th February 2016 are in. The Good Dinosaur was the best selling new release, and the overall best Blu-ray seller for the week. The week was up compared to the previous week, but down compared to a year ago - when Big Hero 6 was released.

Read the rest of the stats and analysis to find out how Blu-ray (and DVD) did.

From Slysoft's resurrection to the death of 3D, read the news roundup for the week ending 6 March 2016

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The future of 3D, at least in the home, looks bleak as Samsung and Philips have both announced they will stop supporting 3D in their latest TVs.

It follows reports from South Korea that LG may also be cutting back on the number of TV models that support 3D.

While LG may still be unsure about what it plans to do with 3D support in the future, Samsung and Philips have no such qualms about what they plan to do with 3D. Or rather, what's not in their plans.

Both companies have announced that their 2016 line-ups will no longer support 3D viewing, and instead, the companies are shifting their focus on emerging technologies such as Ultra HD. 

"3D is dead," declared Philips' director of product strategy and planning, Danny Tack. "There are no 3D sources and nobody really wants 3D. It also complicates your TV a lot. The consumer need is simply not there."

Samsung's official statement also cites a lack of consumer demand for 3D.

"The latest 2016 TV models from Samsung will not feature 3D functionality. We have made this decision based on the limited consumer demand for 3D, and the small amount of content being produced in this format. We are instead investing in producing our best ever TV picture, SUHD TV with Quantum Dot Display, as well as innovating elsewhere in our business to deliver an immersive 3D experience," read the statement.

While other manufaturers, like Panasonic, are still sticking with 3D, it seems the general consensus is that the future of home entertainment lies away from 3D. For example, the newly released Ultra HD Blu-ray specs do not include any support for 3D playback.

The results and analysis for Blu-ray (and DVD) sales for the week ending 20th February 2016 are in. 'Spectre' led the week again, and so this week's best selling new release, Black Mass, managed to only get a second place finish.

Read the rest of the stats and analysis to find out how Blu-ray (and DVD) did.

Microsoft Xbox boss Phil Spencer has revealed the company's plans for its gaming division, painting a vision of the future where the Xbox console becomes more like a PC and the PC gaming experience becomes more like the one on consoles.

Speaking at the annual Xbox Spring Showcase, Spencer expanded upon the already in place plans to unify the Windows and Xbox platforms. With game streaming now a possibility on Windows 10 for Xbox One owners, new games created using the Universal Windows Platform can now be ported to work on both the Xbox One and in Windows 10 more easily than ever before.

But it's not just the games that will blur the line between PC and console gaming, the console hardware too may see a radical change to make it more PC like in the future, according to Spencer. The problem, according to Spencer, is that once a console generation is released, it's seven years usually before another hardware upgrade comes along. While slimmer and quieter version of the same console may get released along the way, and developers may be able to unlock more from the console and make the games look and play better, the reality is that unlike PC and mobile gaming, the hardware largely remains static.

"[On PC and mobile] you get a continuous innovation that you rarely see on console. Consoles lock the hardware and the software platforms together at the beginning of the generation. Then you ride the generation out for seven or so years, while other ecosystems are getting better, faster, stronger," says Spencer.

Spencer adds that Microsoft is looking to bring the "capability of hardware iteration" to consoles, suggesting that a more powerful version of the Xbox One may be released in the future, while games will remain compatible across all versions of the console.

Microsoft isn't the only ones thinking about consoles hardware upgrades. Rivals Sony also revealed a similar concept last year that may mean a "Super PS4" that not only adds beefier hardware, also may also add Ultra HD Blu-ray support.