Mark Fleischmann

Do consumers have a right to copy DVDs? That's the central question of a lawsuit pitting the Motion Picture Association of America against RealNetworks, which introduced a DVD copying application called RealDVD last fall, only to see sales suspended a month later. The case came to trial last week in San Francisco and seems to be throwing off new controversies every day.

Are height channels the next big thing in surround sound? If so, Atlantic Technology is ready with the first speaker designed expressly for height-enhanced surround.

You've probably heard about Warner's Red2Blu program--Scott Wilkinson covered it in our News section. It enables consumers who bought HD DVDs to upgrade them to Blu-ray versions of the same titles for $4.95 plus shipping charges of $6.95-8.95. What you may not have heard is that the upgrade may result in a standard edition being replaced by a deluxe boxed set. Our colleague (and former convergence editor) Chris Chiarella writes: "If you swap out your Casablanca, you'll actually be upgrading to the crazy-cool Ultimate Collector's Edition. I believe that this fancy boxed set is the only BD version offered in the U.S., and while I was poking around the Warner Red2Blu microsite I clicked on Casablanca and the UCE appeared in my cart specifically, by name." So now you have more than one potential reason to pay the few bucks to go Blu. Sweet deal!

Hundreds of movies and thousands of TV shows will appear legally on YouTube thanks to a deal involving the video site, Sony Pictures, and 11 other media companies.