Free Republic

Netflix has announced it is ending its DVD rental service after 25 years. DVD rentals formed the basis of Netflix’s original business model when the company launched in 1998. It initially had 925 titles available, and the first it ever sent out was a copy of Tim Burton’s 1988 horror comedy Beetlejuice. Netflix’s rise helped cause the downfall of stores like Blockbuster, before it began transitioning into streaming in the mid-2000s. DVD rentals accounted for $126m (£101m) of Netflix’s $31.6bn (£25.4bn) revenue last year – equivalent to just 0.4 per cent. The company announced $8.18bn in revenue for the first...

Internet video rental company Netflix's legal claims against rival Blockbuster are based on "unenforceable patents," Blockbuster said in a counterclaim filed on Tuesday. In a bid to shut down its online service, Netflix had sued Blockbuster, the leading movie and game rental company. But Dallas-based Blockbuster on Tuesday said the lawsuit is based on patents that Netflix obtained deceptively in a bid to monopolize online rentals. In an April lawsuit, Netflix accused Blockbuster of starting its online service in 2004 despite knowing that the service infringed a Netflix patent. "There is nothing original about renting movies or subscription rental programs,"...