Though its Cloud Drive and Cloud Player have just launched this week, allowing customers to store and access content from remote servers, Amazon is already contemplating the next steps. One imperative is to patch things up with the music industry. Another is to make the technology more convenient, replacing the unwieldy upload process with a slicker content-ownership recognition system.

First the record company politics: Amazon rushed the Cloud Drive and Player introduction to steal a march on Apple and Google, which are planning similar moves. In doing so it unnerved the major labels. One of them, Sony Music, has aired its complaint in public, commenting ominously through a spokesperson: "We are keeping our legal options open."

Netflix recently announced it would start investing in original programming. Now producers who license their content to Netflix are retaliating against a partner that they increasingly see as a competitor.

Both Showtime and Starz have announced that they will withhold shows from Netflix.

In a rough economic climate where many of its competitors are closing stores, Best Buy may downsize some of its stores, redirecting attention to online retailing.

That doesn't mean Best Buy is giving up on its brick-and-mortar stores, which allow consumers such niceties as salespeople and the ability to pick up items purchased online. But the store is reconsidering its square-footage requirements and "redefining the optimal big-box store size," CEO Brian Dunn said in a phone conference with analysts.

A new form of digital rights management from Microsoft has been adopted by Sony and Samsung, among others. Its first high-profile use is in the Sony BDP-S380 Blu-ray player, available since February.

PlayReady DRM allows downloading and streaming of video, audio, games, and images on multiple home and mobile devices. Supported formats include MPEG Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), AAC+, Enhanced AAC+, H.264, Windows Media Audio (WMA) and Windows Media Video (WMV). Embedded licenses allow content to play without a constantly active broadband connection.