According to a recent survey conducted by TechBargains.com (as reported by CED Magazine), 33 percent of cord cutters would not return to cable, even if the cost was drastically reduced. Cord cutters are consumers who have ditched traditional cable television viewing in favor of using online video services such as Netflix and Hulu.

Families of victims and survivors of the deadly shooting at the Dark Knight Rises opening movie who might want to sue the film studio Warner Bros or other companies such as AMC theaters, but experts say that history shows these lawsuits don't tend to get very far because it's tough to prove a liability. The reason that such lawsuits usually fall flat is because companies are rarely held liable for "intentional crimes of non-employees" and the ruling in Brown v.

Unfortunately CNN contributors aren't the only ones speculating on the motivations of 24-year-old Colorado mass-murder suspect James Holmes.

In his latest video Andrew Eisen plays the part of a The Dark Knight Rises fan responding to critics.

While the video is about the movie and the response to low review scores for the latest Christopher Nolan Batman film on Rotten Tomatoes (which apparently caused some fans to issue some death threats and share some other forms of vile speech), this video could easily apply to Halo, Uncharted, Madden, or any other beloved franchise with a protective fan base...

Some items were harmed during the making of this video. We were not involved.

Steven Davis dropped us a note informing us of a trailer that, he claims, he made for "some Hollywood producers" who asked him to make a movie trailer mock-up of Namco Bandai's classic arcade game Dig Dug. He calls the film "a fan made trailer" and lists all the materials he used to piece it together. The movie borrows scenes from such films as The Core, Tekken, Reign of Fire, 9, Monsters Vs.

According to a story on Courthouse news, Swedish game developer ProCloud Media is suing Paramount Pictures for $10 million in a California court claiming that the movie studio walked away from an agreement that gave them the right to develop games based on popular Paramount films.

The popular indie documentary about indie game development will be the very first feature-length film to be made available on Steam. Indie Game: The Movie will be available on Steam June 12, but those who buy it early before its release can get a ten percent discount. According to filmmaker James Swirsky, the 1080p video "will be DRM'd as much as any other Steam product/game," which means you'll need to be running the steam client in order to watch it.

Movie industry trade organization the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has hired a former Nintendo lawyer to head up its efforts to combat piracy. The group is also responsible for movie ratings. The MPAA announced on Monday that it hired Marc Miller to take control of its international anti-piracy enforcement operations.

He will serve as the senior vice president of Internet content protection and will work closely with the group’s army of lawyers to develop a refined civil and criminal litigation strategy to fight against copyright infringement.

Cory Doctorow, who you may know best as the gentleman behind the wonderful Boing Boing web site, has a brand new column in The Guardian examining why a former defender of SOPA would suddenly decide to switch sides.

The Hollywood Reporter has an interesting interview with the Motion Picture Association of America president Chris Dodd, who you may know better as the man who has served as both a Democratic Congressman and as a Senator from the great state of Connecticut. After having spent 36 years trapped inside the bubble that is Washington D.C., Dodd's first test were getting two bills fast-tracked through congress: SOPA and PIPA.

The film adaptation of 2K Games' first-person shooter BioShock has lost director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, according to a GameSpot report.

"To be honest, by now, I'm completely out of that, and developing other stuff," Fresnadillo told the site at a press junket for his new film Intruders. "Right now it’s on hold. The studio and the video game company, they have to reach some kind of agreement about the budget and the rating."

One of the reasons I dumped HBO was because my cable provider (who ironically, owns HBO) refused to offer HBO Go in my area. Now HBO is apparently in style locally and can be enjoyed on various platforms including iOS and Android devices. Today we learn that the on-demand HBO service will finally make its way to Xbox Live, according to this VOX Games report.

Indie Game: The Movie had a decent showing at the Sundance Film Festival, and now the documentary about the life and craft of several prominent indie game developers is heading to South by South West (SXSW) as a "Festival Favorite."

In case you don't know much about it, Indie Game: The Movie is the creation of first-time filmmakers Lisanne Pajot and James Swirsky who follow indie game developers Edmund McMillen and programmer Tommy Refenes (Super Meat Boy), Phil Fish (FEZ), and Jonathan Blow (Braid) at key moments in the game development process.

The New York Times Media Decoder blog has an interesting story about Michael O’Leary the senior executive vice president for global policy and external affairs of the Motion Picture Association of America. While the story is about toning down SOPA to address "legitimate concerns," the real story is something that opponents knew all along: the MPAA and friends are basically the authors of the bill.

If you are expecting to see HBO's original programming on Netflix anytime soon, you can just forget about that. HBO Co-President Eric Kessler told a gathering of industry executives in New York City that there was "no chance" his company will make its shows available to digital non-subscribers. The industry calls these people "cord cutters," - people who have shifted from cable TV to streaming online services like Netflix.

We have often wondered why the popular and free video service Crackle has not been made available on the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3. Perhaps because it is free... Anyway that has changed this morning, as Sony has added the service in PlayStation Home - it's virtual rest stop on the PS3. Sony has partnered up the service to bring free full-length movies - including the wonderful Final Fantasy: Advent Children - to PlayStation Home. Crackle is a free movie and TV show streaming service available via web browsers or a number of other devices - most notably Roku's various boxes.

EPIX, the premium entertainment service that is a joint venture of Paramount, Lionsgate and MGM, will soon be on some pretty familiar devices. The premium programming is already available on a number of platforms including Android and the iPhone. Emil Rensing, Chief Digital Officer for the company, says that the service will be available next month on Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Apple's iPad.

First Run Features announced the U.S. theatrical premiere of the award-winning documentary Man on a Mission: Richard Garriott’s Road to the Stars, a documentary about Richard Garriott’s lifelong quest to become the first son of an astronaut to go into space. Man on a Mission opens January 13, 2012, in theaters and VOD platforms nationwide. Man on a Mission is directed by Mike Woolf and produced by Brady Dial.

The Company Town Blog on The LA Times web site poses an interesting question: will the launch of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim today cause problems for any movie that just happens to be hitting theaters today? If you asked anyone who purchased either of these games and has settled in to start playing them, the answer would be a resounding "yes."

SyFy President David Howe sat down with The Hollywood Reporter for an exclusive interview to discuss the cable television network's big move into the video game space. Over the last few years Howe has been instrumental in establishing relationships with such game publishers as THQ and Trion Worlds to create partnerships that extend games into the entertainment world.

Starting today, Nintendo 3DS owners in the United States and Canada can download a free application that allows Netflix members to use their unlimited streaming plans. In announcing the news, Nintendo said that the "service adds a huge value to the Nintendo 3DS portable system, and again demonstrates how Nintendo 3DS continues to present new and different experiences for owners almost every day." We'll take them at their word on that.

Naturally, Netflix is delighted as well. Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings said that "Nintendo is a terrific partner with Netflix," and that the company is "excited to extend the partnership to include streaming on Nintendo 3DS."

Netflix is sending out an email alert to customers who have streaming plus DVD plans letting them know that things will change on September 1. The popular entertainment steaming company said that it plans to separate Disc-based DVD plans from its unlimited streaming plans. Netflix says that it is doing this to "better reflect the costs of each."

As an example, someone who has a $19.99 a month membership for unlimited streaming and 3-disc at a time will be split into 2 distinct plans:

Plan 1: Unlimited Streaming (no DVDs) for $7.99 a month Plan 2: Unlimited DVDs, 3 out at-a-time (no streaming) for $15.99 a month

The new price for these plans will be $23.98 a month ($7.99 + $15.99) plus any aplicable tax..

Other plans at a glance:

Netflix will be making its way to Latin America and the Caribbean later this year. All told the popular streaming movie and television service will be available in 43 countries by year's end. The news follows rumors and hints from Netflix about its future expansion plans. While many predicted that Netflix would break into the European market, the company decided to stay on this side of the planet and expand southward.

Netflix said its streaming entertainment services would launch in Mexico, Central America, South America and the Caribbean. Netflix did not give specifics on which countries in the Caribbean it would launch in first. Netflix in these regions will be available in English, Spanish and Portuguese languages. Much like its launch in Canada last year, Netflix will only offer streaming video in these new markets.

While it is probably only a short-term problem, Sony Pictures and Netflix are in negotiations to continue their relationship related to various movies and television shows. Unfortunately, while they sort out their "temporary contract issue" Netflix subscribers won't be able to stream any of the company's content. Subscribers that have Sony Pictures DVD-based content in their queues will not be affected. The content was pulled last Friday and affects much of the Starz content on Netflix.

Netflix said the situation is a "temporary contract issue" between Sony and Liberty Media Corp.'s pay-TV distributor Starz. Starz has been negotiating with Netflix over a renewal of its digital distribution deal with Sony, which runs through early 2012. Starz said in a statement that "all parties are working diligently to resolve the issue."

So you want to watch a disc-based movie on your Wii U when it is released sometime next year? Well apparently Nintendo's new console won't support DVD or Blu-ray playback capabilities. Unlike Sony and Microsoft's current generation game consoles, Nintendo apparently has no interest in creating a multi-purpose entertainment machine that does anything beyond gaming.

This news was revealed during an investor Q&A:

"We feel that enough people already have devices that are capable of playing DVDs and Blu-ray," explained Satoru Iwata, Nintendo's president, "in such that it didn't warrant the cost involved to build that functionality into the Wii U console because of the patents related to those technologies."

Iwata also addressed weak sales of its 3DS hand-held. Iwata admitted that sales of the system have not met Nintendo's expectations, adding that he expected more early adopters to buy the system.

Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) and Sony Network Entertainment International announced that they will "fully restore" all Qriocity by day's end on June 9 in "all serviced territories, excluding Japan." That means that PlayStation Network and Qriocity services which were shut down on April 20 due to a massive security breach are available and working as they were prior to the incident.

SCE says that Video On Demand and Music Unlimited services powered by Qriocity are now "fully functional" on all compatible devices. PlayStation Network has been up for a few weeks in most territories, and last week SCE relaunched the PlayStation Store and gave users access to free games as a "thank you" for their patience.

An announcement related to the restoration of the remaining services on Qriocity in Japan will be made at a later date, said SCE.

The Associated Press is reporting that Tennessee lawmakers have passed a bill that makes it a crime to login into to another person's account to listen to songs or movies from services such as Netflix and Rhapsody. The law doesn't make a distinction between logging in with or without the account holder's permission either.

The bill only needs the governor's signature to become law. The AP reports that Gov. Bill Haslam is expected to sign the bill. As you can probably guess, the law was heavily pushed by the music industry in the state, looking for a new way to fight against illegal music sharing. 

While the bill was supposedly meant to target hackers and those that sell passwords of such services online, the bill's sponsor admits that it could be used to target those who use a friend's or relative's subscription.

Netflix has finalized a deal to bring right around 700 of Miramax's films to its streaming service on Xbox Live, PlayStation Network, and Wii. Given the current staleness of Netflix's streaming options (yeah I said it) some new movies will keep subscribers coming back for more. According to Shacknews, Netflix will add such movies as Clerks, Pulp Fiction, Swingers, Scream, Black Hawk Down, Bowling for Columbine, and The Animal.

The Miramax deal was announced on May 16, though at the time only 83 films were mentioned. A Wall Street Journal report drops the 800 film number, and claims that the five-year deal is worth about $100 million dollars.

Streaming media service Hulu has decided to compensate PlayStation Network Hulu Plus users with one-week credits via email today. The company said in a letter to customers that the credit can be redeemed any time over the next two weeks and pointed out that "no personal Hulu Plus account information was compromised as part of the Sony intrusion." The letter:

Hulu also mentioned the obvious: Hulu Plus users can use other devices to view media content. No doubt many subscribers had no choice over the last 6 - 8 days. On a related note, later this week Hulu Plus subscribers will have another out to watch content on: Xbox Live. Hulu Plus goes live on Xbox Live April 29.

The letter being sent to customers below:

A live chat with Will Wright (who you may know better as the founder of Maxis and the creator of such hits as SimCity, The Sims, and Spore) will be held on April 26 from 8:00 - 9:00 PM EST. Wright won't be there to talk about games; he's answering questions from attendees about his community-developed television series, which is inching towards the season finale.

This might be the last chance for viewers to ask Wright questions about the show this season, so if you want to participate log in here on the aforementioned date and time, and post your questions to the Bar Karma page.