Walt Disney Co, the second-largest US media company, can seek as much as US$65 for each of the hundreds of thousands of videos it claims Blockbuster Inc lost during a revenue-sharing agreement, a judge tentatively ruled.
Disney's Buena Vista Home Entertainment in January filed suit claiming that Blockbuster failed to account for "hundreds of thousands" of missing videos and sold videos prematurely under the agreement they signed in 1997.
Blockbuster argued that Disney should receive no more than US$32 per tape, which could have cut tens of millions from the US$120 million sought by Disney.
Under the contract, Blockbuster was to share rental revenue from Disney films with the studio in exchange for reduced prices on videos.
Blockbuster ended the revenue-sharing agreement with the Disney Co late last year.
The agreement covers only VHS tapes, which matter less to Blockbuster as DVD rentals surge.
"They owe us money. They should pay it," said Sandy Litvack, a lawyer for Disney, during a hearing before US District Judge Cormac Carney in Santa Ana, California.
Carney issued a tentative agreeing with Disney's argument that US$65 per video was a reasonable estimate of damages. He said he will issue a final ruling tomorrow.
Dallas-based Blockbuster is roughly 81 percent-owned by Viacom Inc, the third-largest US media company.
Blockbuster's lawyer Marshall Grossman said that Disney's US$65 per tape calculation was from before the 1997 agreement, and damages of US$25 to US$32 per video tape would be more accurate.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS