In the face of unreasonable threats by Universal Music Group, Veoh has filed an action in Federal court to reinforce its rights as a copyright compliant company under the safe harbor provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Veoh is making use of widely available Internet technology to enable viewers and content holders to come together in a new market for the consumption of online video. In this market, Veoh is actively taking steps to create a copyright friendly environment.

Blockbuster has acquired Movielink, one of the nation's leading movie download services. The acquisition gives Blockbuster access to one of the largest libraries of downloadable movies and a large array of television content. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. With thousands of movies and television shows available in its digital library for downloading, Movielink offers customers the ability to legally download entertainment content for rental and for purchase.

The acquisition of Movielink, which has VOD and EST license agreements with the five founding studios, as well as more than 30 other studios, television-content distributors, and foreign and independent content providers, enables Blockbuster to offer consumers downloadable entertainment content via their PCs, portable devices, television-connected home networks and approved set-top boxes.

JumpTV has agreed to acquire Cycling TV for approx $4.95 million. The deal includes $2.21 million in cash payable on closing, $2.74 million in common stock, and will be issued on 28 September 2007. Application to the AIM Market of the London Stock Exchange will be made in due course. The transaction is expected to close this week. The agreement also includes performance shares equal to $6.79 million that may be earned based on pre-determined revenue targets. To earn all of the performance shares, revenue for the 24 month period ended July 31, 2009 would need to exceed $10.99 million.

COMEDY CENTRAL and AtomFilms announce that "Super Sam" is the grand prize winner of the second annual "COMEDY CENTRAL Test Pilots," an online competition in search of the next big broadband show. In addition to being featured on comedycentral.com and atomfilms.com, "Super Sam," from Wilmington, North Carolina creator Brent Triplett, will also be featured on-air in COMEDY CENTRAL's late night series "Web Shows."

RealPage has licensed Espial's Evo IPTV Service Platform. RealPage provides products and services to more than 20,000 apartment communities across the United States, representing over four million dwelling units. Its on-demand product lines include property management systems, sales and marketing systems, revenue management systems, and billing and payment services that help real estate professionals automate and enhance key business processes.

Espial's flagship Evo IPTV Service Platform, which includes the carrier-grade Evo Server, Evo Client middleware, the open Evo Future-Proof Framework, and various applications including Evo EPG and Evo VOD, was designed as a more open, modular, scalable and faster alternative to other more monolithic solutions on the market.

ESPN360.com will adopt a new programming strategy this fall, becoming a live sports-driven programming service. Under the new programming strategy, the ESPN Digital Media and ESPN Programming units will collaborate to present more than 2000 live events on ESPN360.com in the next 12 months, dramatically growing the service's programming and delivering to fans live, multi-sport broadband action.

If you've already experienced ESPN360 or visit Find Internet TV for live online event listings, you'll know that ESPN360 already features many events online. Some of the most notable were the World Cup and UEFA Soccer/Football Games. According to ESPN, ESPN360.com delivered more than 200 live online sports events in 2006, and through July 2007, had featured more than 500 live events.

Unlike sites offering pay-per-view Internet packages, ESPN360 has a rather unique approach and forms partnerships with broadband providers. Some of the largest providers, including Time Warner, Cox and Comcast, have not reached agreements with ESPN360 so anyone using their services will be unable to view programming on ESPN360.com. For those with a high-speed Internet connection from Charter Communications, Verizon, AT&T, or another afiliated provider, ESPN360.com is free. The service has more than doubled its distribution since August 2006 and will expand again this fall when it will become available to all RCN high speed Internet service subscribers.

"We do not like the current business model that ESPN is using for ESPN360," said Scott Hightower, vice president of data product development and support at Cox Communications. He said the ESPN360 model would force Cox to add additional fees onto customers for paying for a service they may not want when they sign up for broadband.

Verizon and AT&T feel differently. "It is sort of like an arms race" right now in the video-online world, said Bill Heilig, Verizon's executive director for portal and content services. They view ESPN360's exclusive live World Cup coverage as an advantage that gave Verizon another weapon toward winning more customers.

The roles of mobile TV and IPTV relative to traditional broadcast TV are set to be thoroughly debated when 45,000 broadcasters and film-makers gather for IBC 2007 in Amsterdam, September 6-11.

Celebrating its 40th anniversary, IBC has evolved from its roots in terrestrial broadcasting to become the leading international event for professionals involved in the creation, management and delivery of entertainment, sports and news content worldwide.

Attracting more than 1,000 exhibitors, including the major technology suppliers, IBC is also the launch pad for the latest state-of-the-art developments that will inspire and empower multimedia content creators into the future. The Internationally-renowned IBC conference debates all the cutting-edge business, creative and technical issues.

Competitrack introduces advanced video fingerprinting technology for policing online video piracy and copyright infringement. This solution can effectively help video sharing websites like YouTube and Metacafe avoid unlawfully displaying copyrighted materials.

A combination of rack-mounted hardware and client software invented by German developer Dr. Ulrich Hienzsch, this technology uses advanced digital pattern recognition technology and can locate content from movies, music videos, television programs, and even B-roll. Full motion and still video clips each have their own unique fingerprint of sound and light patterns that are detectable with advanced software algorithms.

SeaChange is delivering the foundation for telecommunications giant KDDI's new on-demand television business. KDDI provides VoIP-phone, backbone Internet and other IT services to more than 60 cable television operators across Japan. Leveraging technologies and professional services from SeaChange through Panasonic, this summer KDDI's fully managed, end-to-end on-demand platform will empower cable operators across Japan to quickly launch their own on-demand services.

On-demand services will be centrally managed at KDDI network operations centers initially, with the ability for each cable operator to expand and enhance their service according to their regional coverage. Popular television and movie content will be provided by KDDI, and cable operators will have the ability to provide their own local content, which will also be managed through the KDDI central site.

Narrowstep has completed a private placement of its common stock and warrants resulting in gross proceeds to the company of $10,510,000. In this placement, the company issued 42,040,000 shares of common stock and five-year warrants to purchase an additional 21,020,000 shares of common stock at an exercise price of $0.50 per share. As part of this transaction, the company's convertible note issued earlier this year, will also convert into shares of common stock.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal filed an emergency petition asking the Department of Public Utility Control to order AT&T to seek a cable license for its fledgling IPTV service, setting the stage for statewide competition in cable television.

Blumenthal's petition says a recent U.S. District Court ruling that IPTV is cable television nullifies changes to state law weakening regulation of cable television and requires the company to obtain a state franchise for the service.

Because AT&T serves virtually the entire state, the company needs to apply for a statewide license requiring it to eventually provide IPTV service to all households, Blumenthal said. AT&T, which already offers IPTV in a few communities, had wanted to provide the service without state regulation and only in selected areas.

Akamai released a study today exploring two fundamental elements related to the future success of online video: consumer preferences around video consumption and consumer reaction to low-quality viewing experiences. The most compelling results reveal that, having experienced poor video performance at an Internet site, more than half of online video users would seek content from a competing Website, and a quarter would leave with a more negative brand perception and be less likely to return to the poorly performing site.

Online video ad campaigns can be targeted more precisely than ever before as SpotXchange announces that it will be providing video audience measurement information from comScore Video Metrix to clients using SpotXchange’s auction-based online video advertising marketplace. According to comScore Video Metrix reports, “primetime U.S. video streaming activity occurs on weekdays between 5 and 8 p.m.”. Information like this is invaluable for advertisers getting into the online video ad game. Now, advertisers using the SpotXchange marketplace can leverage comScore’s measurement service for targeting online video ad campaigns.

UTStarcom announces that the company's award-winning RollingStream end-to-end IPTV solution currently supports more than 310,500 live subscribers in 19 commercial deployments with both China Telecom and China Netcom with a total system capacity of nearly 625,000 subscribers between the two operators.

According to a recent IDC report titled "China IPTV 2007-2011 Forecast and Analysis" released in March 2007, the (Asia/Pacific excluding Japan) region is the most rapidly growing IPTV region in the world with the largest equipment market share. IDC predicts that APeJ will have 29.7 million IPTV users by 2010. Within the APeJ region, China is the most promising IPTV market with forecasts of approximately 10.5 million subscribers by 2010 and 14.9 million by 2011.

The Weather Channel launches "Blue Box," a state-of-the-art video player on weather.com. The flash-based player, designed to showcase the vast library of video content on weather.com and provide additional opportunities for advertisers to target consumers, is powered by technology from Brightcove and DoubleClick.

The player features made-for-broadband content as well as programming from The Weather Channel network, including new shows such as Epic Conditions. Visitors to weather.com can now easily search and tab-through video content as well as share favorite videos with friends. Enhancements for advertisers include the ability to place brand-messages in three different areas on the IAB compliant player.