JUDGE SHUTS DOWN ZEDIVA MOVIE-RENTAL WEBSITE

A federal judge has issued a permanent injunction that effectively shuts down Zediva.com, an online movie-rental service that streamed one DVD at a time to individual subscribers. At the same time he ordered Zediva to pay a $1.8-million fine to the Motion Picture Association of America, which had sued the website for copyright infringement. Dan Robbins, a lawyer for the MPAA and a senior vice president, said in a statement “This result sends a strong message to those who would exploit the studios’ works in violation of copyright law, on the Internet or elsewhere.” Zediva has vowed to appeal the court’s decision and posted a message on its website saying, “While we hope to be back online soon, we don’t know when (or whether) that will happen. We are disappointed by this turn of evens and that we are not permitted to serve you.”