bankruptcy

As it fights for survival, video-rental chain Blockbuster is preparing to file bankruptcy next month, according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.

Blockbuster executives met with the six largest Hollywood film studios recently to brief them about the company's plan, the Times reported. The move by Blockbuster, which closed down nearly 1,000 retail stores in the past year, appears designed to help the company get out of leases on perhaps as many as 800 underperforming stores, according to the report. The chain operates more than 3,400 stores.

Blockbuster reportedly plans to file something called a &… Read more

Round up the usual suspects.

Playlist.com filed for bankruptcy protection and undoubtedly the major record companies will be blamed. In filing for Chapter 11 on August 6, the music service reported that it has $2.2 million in total assets (only $203,000 in cash) and owes the four largest record companies a combined $25 million.

For years, online music stores have claimed consumers just don't spend enough on music anymore to support big licensing fees. Label critics will argue case closed, greedy record executives caused Playlist's downfall. The story, however, is much more nuanced.

While licensing … Read more

Music service Playlist.com, formerly known as Project Playlist, has filed for Chapter 11, the start-up said Friday.

"The company expects to conduct business as usual and emerge from Chapter 11 as quickly as possible," Playlist said in a statement.

In July, CNET reported that the company had run into money trouble and was looking for funding.

Playlist.com enables users to create and share digital music playlists with friends. A couple of years ago, the service had built a reputation as a potential challenger to some of the other ad-supported music services, such as MySpace Music and … Read more

A now-defunct Web site that catered to gay youth is now ensnared in a federal bankruptcy proceeding that the founder says could result in as many as 1 million profiles being sold to creditors, putting its former subscribers' privacy at risk.

XY, which billed itself as a young gay men's magazine and could be found at XY.com, ceased publishing in 2007. Its founder filed for bankruptcy protection earlier this year, which could put names, addresses, e-mail addresses, unpublished personal stories, and other information about gay minors into creditors' hands.

The Federal Trade Commission recently expressed its concerns, saying … Read more

Telecommunications equipment maker Ciena won an auction to acquire a division of Nortel Networks that develops equipment for transmitting data and voice traffic for about $769 million in cash and stock.

Ciena outbid Nokia Siemens Networks, a joint venture between Nokia of Finland and Siemens of Germany. The auction, which started Friday, was part of Nortel's bankruptcy proceedings, and its goal was to sell Nortel's Metro Ethernet division.

Metro Ethernet is a technology that is used to provide communications companies with more capacity in what is called a backhaul network. This is a part of the network that … Read more

There's something that looks like a wedding ring. A wedding ring, I tell you.

I don't for a moment believe it belongs to Gov. Arnold Schwarzernegger's fair wife. However, it's the governor who is inviting you to "bring the family" and take items such as this ring off his hands. Because California needs to find cash wherever it can.

Please, go to Craigslist or eBay and take the ThinkPad ($200) and the the Dell laptop ($200). Or even these 10 office chairs ($5 each). The LG Flip Phone ($9) and the Blackberrys ($25) have … Read more

A bankruptcy court judge has denied a request by the SCO Group to sell off part of its business, a move that could have helped it pursue court cases against Novell and IBM.

SCO, which has been in bankruptcy court since 2007, had proposed to sell off most of its Unix business assets to a company called Unxis, the latest in a series of proposals aimed at allowing the company to exit bankruptcy and continue its high-profile Unix litigation.

IBM and Novell, on the other hand, had requested that SCO's assets be liquidated, effectively putting an end to the … Read more

Nokia Siemens Networks will buy Nortel Networks' wireless technology business for $650 million.

Struggling Nortel, a one-time giant in telecommunications equipment, had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January in hopes of reorganizing. But that is unlikely now.

Nokia Siemens said Friday that it will use Nortel's CDMA and LTE technology to expand its presence in North America. CDMA, or code division multiple access, is one of the two major networks operating in the U.S. and is used by Verizon Wireless and Sprint. LTE, or Long Term Evolution, is 4G wireless technology that will potentially replace today's … Read more

Prior to last year, bankruptcy court would not have sheltered Jammie Thomas-Rasset from the $1.92 million debt she owes the music industry. But a decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco could enable her to walk away from the debt, several legal experts said on Friday.

In a stunning jury decision on Thursday, Thomas-Rasset was found liable for willful copyright infringement and ordered to pay damages of $80,000 for each of the 24 songs she was accused of illegally file sharing. The 32-year-old is the first person accused of online music piracy by the … Read more