What a difference 10 months can make ... Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) CEO Reed Hastings unveiled the company’s plans to take its business international next year—albeit streaming-only, not mail-order rentals. “We’re looking to the second half of 2010 to make our streaming offering international,” he said, during the company’s Q309 earnings…

After being kicked off the Swedish stock market for not providing evidence of the funds needed to buy giant BitTorrent tracker The Pirate Bay, Sweden’s Global Gaming Factory X is facing a bankruptcy filing from a former director claiming to be owed more than SEK1.3 million (£116,000).

Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) is joining forces with UK supermarket Tesco to offer consumers additional online-only movie content, as an incentive to buy physical DVDs. The pair announced that, from this autumn, Tesco will be giving access to full-length films in Microsoft’s Silverlight format (with quality claimed to be “similar to”…

The new Pirate Bay is born: Global Gaming Factory X’s long-running and controversial attempt to buy the infamous and often outlawed Torrent-tracking site has been approved by the company’s shareholders. It’s against all the odds: key investors pulled out of the the SEK60 million (£5.1 million) deal in the last…

With hours to go until its deadline, would-be Pirate Bay buyer Global Gaming Factory X is having to perform a financial contortionist act to convince shareholders and market authorities its acquisition can work. Though it last week said funding for the acquisition had been secured, just hours before presenting the…

—Broadband VOD survey: More than half of people wouldn’t be tempted to watch more online video if they had faster broadband, according to a Deloitte/YouGov survey. Of the 2,123 respondents, 52 percent said a faster connection would make no difference to their viewing habits while 23 percent attached “little importance”…

Despite the recession people are less willing to give up their broadband connections compared to a long list of other out-goings, according to a report from Ofcom. Only 10 percent of respondents to Ofcom’s survey in the Communications Market Report 2009 said they would cut their broadband, compared to 19…

Glowria, a European Netflix clone, has raised $8.3 million, NetEco reports (in French). (via Alarm Clock Euro.) The company received the investment from existing investors Seventure (Groupe Natixis), Crédit Agricole Private Equity, and Mousse Partners. Mihai Crasneau, Glowria’s founder and CEO, recently left the company. In addition to its DVD…

A deal with NBCU’s Universal Pictures International Entertainment and NBCU International Television Distribution gives Deutsche Telekom’s T-com “first” status when it comes to digital download-to-own major films in Germany. As Variety explains, the deal for the “legal and secure” download-to-own option also includes renewal of VOD rights to a “wide…

One of the two competing hi-def DVD standards is finding more favor with European movie distributors than the other, FT reports. Some 35 titles are available in Toshiba’s HD-DVD format compared with just 10 on Sony’s Blu-Ray discs. Studio Canal and Pathé (France), Filmax and DeAPlaneta (Spain), and Imagion and…

This is an interesting intermediate idea, though not sure if you can build a company based on this: Sofatronic, a Hamburg, Germany-based developer of casual games that can be played on standard DVD players, has received venture funding from Neuhaus Partners. The games are Flash based, and there’s is no…

Good news for Microsoft and Nintendo - and bad news for kids with Sony’s PS3 on their Christmas lists. The UK/Europe launch is delayed again, this time until March 2007 due to a shortage of the blue laser diodes needed for the machine’s Blu-ray DVD player. I should say that…

Two of the biggest online DVD (and increasingly download) rentals firms in UK, Lovefilm and Video Island, are to merge to create what they claim will be a subscriber base of 400,000 and a 17% market share of all DVD rentals in the UK. Sales of the two companies totalled…

UK online DVD rental service Lovefilm, which has just launched a movie download service, has bought out Irish DVD rentals firm Screenclick.com, for about $3.6 million. SC will be rebranded as Lovefilm.ie, and plans to offer online VOD too…This will be the second rebranding Screenclick has had in recent times;…