Movie-streaming sites claim legal cover with DVD-ownership models

Blu-ray discs are displayed at a Best Buy store on February 19, 2008 in San Francisco. Toshiba Corp. announced that it is discontinuing production of its HD DVD players and recorders effective immediately after longtime partner Warner Bros. decided to move to Sony's Blu-ray format. Sony and Toshiba have been in a longtime battle for market share of high-definition DVDs. AFP PHOTO/Justin Sullivan/Getty Images FOR NEWSPAPERS, INTERNET, TELCOS AND TELEVISION USE ONLY

LOS ANGELES: Hollywood studios, which have long patrolled the Internet to stamp out copyright-infringing activity, are grappling with a new gambit to sidestep their usage restrictions: websites claiming that users who own DVDs can stream those movies any which way they want. 

The latest trying this approach is French startup MovieSwap, which says it has compiled a library of more than 200,000 DVDs. Subscribers will be able to choose to either send in their physical DVD collections and then be able to stream them online; "swap" them with other users; or pay to receive DVDs that are added to their digital collections.