The men behind Britain's biggest DVD piracy ring have been ordered to pay back £1.5 million of their fortune. Mastermind Sidney Austin, 48, and Dino Simm, 31, made up to £4 million selling pirate copies of films in offices, pubs and clubs across London's East End.

With Pioneer and NEC soon expected to release OEM orders for 16x DVD burners, the intense competition among Taiwan and South Korean makers is likely to cause OEM prices to drop from US$45-50 currently to as low as US$35 in the fourth quarter of this year, according to industry experts.

The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) has announced that it has selected the Advanced Access Content System (AACS) as its protection scheme for next generation DVD media. By choosing AACS, the BDA matches the rival HD-DVD (backed by the DVD Forum), which has chosen the same system.

CMC Magnetics and Ritek, the top two producers of optical discs in Taiwan, will cooperate with an investigation by the European Commission (EC) into the suspected dumping of blank optical discs into the European Union (EU), according to the two companies.

The recent decision by 20th Century Fox to use Sony's Blu-ray next-generation DVD format, rather than Toshiba's rival HD DVD, is likely to spark a lengthy format war, industry experts have warned.

Pioneer has started shipping their new DVD burner, the sexily titled DVR-110D. It features 16x DVD, 8x DL and 40x CD burning (amongst others).

The European Commission is investigating whether three Asian countries are selling recordable DVDs in Europe at below cost, a practice known as dumping.

A website has started a petition for SuperDrives in various Macs -- PowerBooks, Mac minis and iMac G5s in particular -- that fail to write DVD media at the advertised rate, instead writing at a maximum 2X speed though a faster speed may be indicated by software displays.

A new European Union directive actually goes further than it's U.S. counterpart, in that it makes indirect copyright infringement a crime. The proposal would also set the maximum criminal penalty for piracy by a "criminal organization" to four years in prison and a 300,000-euro fine. Additionally, it seeks to address disparities in anti-piracy criminal penalties across Europe by obliging different EU member countries to draft uniform maximum prison sentences into their sentencing guidelines.

Leading manufacturers of optical discs in Taiwan are leaning ever so slightly toward support of HD DVD, as opposed to Blu-ray Disc, as the standard for next-generation DVD format. This is because makers will incur much lower costs if they adopt their production equipment to the HD DVD platform, according to local industry experts.

A married couple arrested for music, film and game piracy have received jail terms of between six and 21 months.

Press Release: Sonic Solutions announced a powerful new addition to its industry-leading line of AuthorScript download and burn solutions for the growing online music and audio content market.

Scotland'S biggest pirate DVD and CD racket was sunk in a series of co-ordinated raids yesterday. Computer gear capable of churning out millions of pounds worth of counterfeit discs was seized.

According to a study, broadband internet surfers in North America watch two fewer hours of television per week than do those without Internet access, while those using a dial-up connection watch 1.5 fewer hours of TV.

Going through the specs of the new Windows operating system - Vista - it looks probable you will not only need a new PC will need to upgrade your monitor too. According to a US tech consultant Stephen Speicher, Vista will make protected digital content all fuzzy unless it is viewed on high bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) compatible monitor.

Microsoft's Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) Programme has been cracked only days after the software giant activated the antipiracy scheme. Since the service went live on Monday the 25th of July, Windows users wishing to receive software updates from the Microsoft Download Centre or from Windows Update were obliged to join the WGA authentication program.

HD DVD supporters last week alleged Blu-ray Disc's chosen copy-protection scheme could introduce "playability and reliability issues for consumers".

Optical disc maker CMC Magnetics has decided to cease producing DVD recorder through its subsidiary Actima Technology due to an inability to compete in the market, according to CMC vice president and spokeswoman Andria Wong.

The digital cinema revolution has moved a step closer after Hollywood studios reached a landmark deal that will consign reels of film to history.

Nero announced the release of NeroLINUX 2.0.0.2. This upgraded version of Nero's Linux OS solution for CD/DVD Burning features Layer-Jump Recording (LJR), DVD-Video and miniDVD mastering, user interface improvements like selectable ISO track recording options and assignable sounds that alert the user to the burn process results.