Digital Trends
Electronics giant Sony has made a deal with Netflix to enable Netflix subscribers to stream Netflix video to Sony Bravia Internet-enabled televisions beginning “in the fall.” The deal marks the latest in a spate of agreements that open up Netflix’s streaming video capabilities to a number of services and devices, including Blu-ray players and dedicated set-top boxes from the likes of TiVo, Roku, and LG, and (of course) the Xbox 360 via the Xbox Live service.
Earlier this year, electronics giant Sony had forecast sales of some 5 million Blu-ray disc players by the end of 2008, and while the company still expects Blu-ray devices to be top sellers during the end-of-year holiday season, the company now expects to miss that mark by as much as 10 percent. In comments to Reuters, the head of Sony’s U.S. electronics unit Stan Glasgow also indicated that, despite a global economic slowdown, Blu-ray players were doing well.
Lawyer Tony Meagher was outlining his defense strategy on the second day of a civil case in which the Australian recording industry is suing Kazaa’s owners for widespread copyright infringements bythe global network’s estimated 100 million members.
Kazaa members download 3 billion files each month, record industry lawyers said Monday. Those files can include songs, movies and other copyrighted material.
Meagher cited a 1984 U.S. Supreme Court ruling which said electronics giant Sony wasn’t liable when people used its Betamax videocassette recorder to copy movies illegally because the technology had significant uses that did not violate copyrights.
“Burke’s lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court earlier this week alleges that the Xbox DVD drive has a propensity to fail “after unreasonably, unconscionably, unusually and unexpectedly short amounts of time.”
Unusually, Microsoft responded to the suit in a statement. “We’ve designed and manufactured the Xbox with the highest quality standards and our customer satisfaction is very high,” representatives said, according to reports from Reuters news service. “
Here is a thought: instead of paying your attorney, buy a new Xbox. This is looking like another “get-rich” scheme to pull some money out of the Redmond giant. Sony has had similar drive problems with early versions of their Playstation 2 console, but nothing spurred a lawsuit like this.
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