The first Multi-Drive Blu-Ray system with both duplication and recording functionality has begun shipping from Microboards Technology.

DRM-buster DVD Jon has a new target in his sights - the company behind the propietary format and DRM loving iTunes and iPod. He has reverse-engineered Apple’s Fairplay and is starting to license it to companies who want their media to play on Apple’s devices.

Toshiba has launched a slimline HD DVD drive for notebook computers in a bid to boost support for the next-generation optical disc format. The drawer-mechanism unit not only reads and writes all ther usual DVD and CD formats, but also HD DVD recordable and rewriteable media.

Lite-On IT plans to begin volume production later this quarter, according to industry sources.

The leader of the pro-filesharing Swedish Pirate Party is co-ordinating a pan-European electoral assault for 2009's European Elections.

Apple is apparently leaning on Hollywood studios telling them to co-operate better with its plans for global domination of online distribution of flicks.

Another file-sharing software maker has been found guilty of causing copyright infringement. A US judge has said the Morpheus software produced by StreamCast breaks the law.

A Mandarin-dubbed version of Superman Returns is to be released early on DVD in China to deter piracy.

According to reports, HP has introduced three high-definition products based on the Gen-Next HD-DVD digital media format.

Microsoft has filed a federal lawsuit against an alleged hacker who broke through its copy protection technology, charging that the mystery developer somehow gained access to its copyrighted source code.

A long-running digital music royalties spat between record companies and organisations collecting on artists' behalf has been settled.

Microsoft has said its new Zune music player will be sold at a price matching Apple's market-leading iPod and, as a result, lose money this Christmas.

In response to the the newly adopted, very controversial DADVSI French law, three French DRM activists have turned themselves in to Police for breaking the new law.

Sony's new PS3 games will cost punters a little more than a pretty penny when the machine is finally released. According to Japanese site Impress Watch, citing "multiple information sources", PS3 games will be concentrated in the £39-52 range. Currently only bigger titles on the PS2 reach the £39 mark.

Philips has revoked CD-R disc patent licenses for CMC Magnetics and Ritek, the top two producers of optical discs in Taiwan, as well as Prodisc Technology and Lead Data, two second-tier makers, according to a list of CD-R licensees published on Philips Intellectual Property & Standards' (PIPS') global website.

An international group of computer security experts and human rights workers has released an anonymous, fully portable web browser based on Mozilla Firefox. The Torpark browser comes pre-configured and requires no installation. It runs off a USB memory stick, and claims to leave no tracks behind on the browser or computer.

Fox is running a 30-second television spot with just one static image in an effort to reach viewers who fast forward through ads using digital video recorders like TiVos.

Although CMC Magnetics stressed that its Thailand plant operation has not affected by the recent Thailand coup, industry players still worry that the supply of CD-R may be aggravated amid a seasonal increase in demand.

Panasonic has unveiled what it claims is the world's first Blu-ray Disc (BD) recorders that can play back BD-Video discs.

A pair of in-house Warner engineers have developed and filed a patent for a triple format disc. The disc is of great interest, as it can store Blu-ray, HD DVD and standard DVD content, all on the same disc on the same side!