Movies available online A cartel of movie studios are on the verge of offering (NY Times subscription needed) a video-on-demand service over the Internet. It's a step in the right direction, but it's not clear if studios are hoping to control their content or maximize its value. Customers can download movies onto their hard disks where they will hang out for 30 days before expiring, or 24 hours after the first viewing. They're also planning to release films through this service when they enter the pay-per-view section of their lifecycle. So it's definately metered, crippled media carefully positioned not to cannibalize existing distribution channels. I'm not sure what the pricing is, but I doubt it customers are interested. It'll be interesting to see how the industry reacts when crackers break their cryptography system.

More patent absurdity But not on software -- looks like stem cell research (NY Times subscription needed) is owned by one group of people.