Microsoft Corp. is cutting the price of an HD DVD (high definition DVD) player it offers as an add-on to Xbox 360 game consoles and will give away five free HD DVD movies with player purchases, a sign the battle between the HD DVD and the Blu-ray Disc high definition formats is heating up.
The HD DVD player will sell for US$179 in the U.S. starting August 1, down from $199. Between Aug. 1 and Sept. 30 buyers will receive five free HD DVD movies chosen from a selection of 15, Microsoft said. The company indicated the free HD DVD movie offer was the same as that offered by Toshiba Corp., which is offering titles including Apollo 13, Seabiscuit, Constantine, Casablanca, We Were Soldiers, U-571, Blazing Saddles, and more.
Microsoft will also offer the movie “300″ on its online service Xbox Live on demand starting Aug. 14.
The price reduction of the Xbox 360 HD DVD player may be aimed at Sony Corp. The Japanese consumer electronics giant, which is championing Blu-ray Disc technology against HD DVD, reduced the price of the PlayStation 3 in North America by US$100 in anticipation of the launch of a newer version of the game console.
The PlayStation 3, which contains a Blu-ray Disc player, now costs US$499 or in North America with a 60G-byte hard-disk drive. A newer version of the PlayStation 3 with an 80G-byte hard-disk will sell for US$599 when it launches in August. The Xbox 360, on the other hand, sells for US$399 with a 20G-byte hard drive, while the 120G-byte Xbox 360 Elite costs US$479. Neither of the Xbox prices includes the HD DVD player.
Sony and other members of the Blu-ray Disc camp have been able to boast a large base of users of its HD technology because of the number of PlayStation 3s sold.
Microsoft put out the HD DVD player for its Xbox 360 game machines as a way to compete with the PlayStation 3. The company is in the HD DVD corner, with Toshiba Corp. and other companies.
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Pirated software worth $500m (£250m) has been seized as the FBI shuts down a world-spanning piracy outfit.
Before the raids the Chinese counterfeiting syndicate was thought to have sold and distributed software worth more than $2bn.
The FBI and China’s Public Security Bureau arrested 25 people during the two-week operation against the pirates.
Despite recent crackdowns, industry figures suggest that 82% of the software used in China is counterfeit.
Piracy probe
The FBI said it had been building up a case against the piracy syndicate for years before staging the raids on the software production plants in China’s Guangdong province.
During the raids, dubbed Operation Summer Solstice, the FBI seized more than 290,000 CDs with a claimed market value of $500m.
The gang was known to be producing pirated versions of 13 of Microsoft’s most popular programs including Windows Vista, XP and Server as well as Office 2003 and 2007.
The syndicate sold versions of these programs in eight languages including Croatian and Dutch.
In a statement Microsoft said vital information that helped to track down the pirates came from its Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) scheme.
WGA forces users of some versions of Windows to validate their copy of the operating system with Microsoft when updating their software.
Microsoft said information gathered by WGA from more than 1,000 fake copies produced by the counterfeiters and sold around the world helped law enforcement agencies home in on the pirates. Fake software produced by the group was found in 27 countries.
“Countries around the world are expected to experience a significant decrease in the volume of counterfeit software as a direct result of this action,” said Microsoft in its statement.
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Woo-hoo! “The Simpsons Movie” has won its name back on the Internet.
A U.N. agency has ruled that ownership of the domain name thesimpsonsmovie.com must be handed to News Corp.’s Twentieth Century Fox, which owns the rights to the film and the popular TV series.
Twentieth Century Fox complained to the World Intellectual Property Organization over the use of the film’s name in the Internet address of a site registered by Keith Malley of Brooklyn, New York.
Malley was using the address to divert Internet users to a Web site that included sexually explicit depictions of several characters from The Simpsons and, later, to his “Keith and the Girl” Web site. He was demanding a $50,000 fee from Twentieth Century Fox for the domain name, according to the July 22 ruling of the WIPO arbitration panel.
It found that Malley “has no rights or legitimate interests with respect to the domain name” and ordered its immediate return.
The arbitration system, which was set up in 1999, allows those who think they have the right to a domain to gain control of it without having to fight a costly legal battle or pay large sums of money. Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman and Madonna are among the Hollywood stars who have previously won rulings against so-called “cybersquatters.”
“The animated television series ‘The Simpsons’ debuted in 1989, and has become one of the longest running network series in television history,” the ruling said, noting that Friday’s release of the film has generated huge public interest on the Internet.
WIPO said Malley’s “aim in registering the disputed domain name was to profit from and exploit” Twentieth Century Fox’s trademark to promote and sell his own products and merchandise. The domain name has been registered since 1999.
Malley, who didn’t submit a defense in the case, did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment, and his telephone number is not listed.
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