The president of a St. Louis software company that plans to release DVD X Copy, a program that overrides the copy protection on DVDs and allows personal computer users to copy DVD movies, has acknowledged that the software could be used to copy rented DVDs, a violation of copyright law. "We can't distinguish between a rented DVD or an owned DVD," 321 Studios President Robert Moore told today's (Wednesday) USA Today. "We take the position that we don't support making copies of rented material." The software, which requires a special DVD burner, will retail for $100 and will be available for download starting Monday . Industry executives have expressed concern that the software could also be used to produce MP3 versions of films for distribution over the Internet.

Amid reports that AOL Time Warner Chairman Steve Case has been displaying mounting anger over the thrashing he has been receiving from financial analysts, word began spreading Tuesday that he may be seeking a divorce from the company he wed in January of last year and taking his Internet service with him. "He's pissed," media investor Uri Landesman of Arlington Capital told today's (Wednesday) New York Daily News. "He's frustrated," another media source told the newspaper. However, an AOL Time Warner spokesperson denied Tuesday that there were any plans to spin off AOL -- under Case or anyone else. San Jose Mercury writer Scott Herhold pointed out in his column today that the company's $28-billion debt load will likely preclude a deal. If too much of it is transferred to a spun-off AOL, he observed, "the company would be a non-starter." On the other hand, if too much is kept by Time Warner, the company would risk violating its bank covenants.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding may become as popular overseas as it has been in the United States. According to figures published by the British trade journal Screen International, the low-budget indie, which has grossed $177 million domestically and is still in the top five after 28 weeks in release, opened at No. 1 on at the Australian box office over the weekend, grossing $1.9 million on 166 screens, for a per-screen average of $11,174. After six weeks of release in the U.K., the film has earned $17.2 million. (It dropped just 9 percent last weekend.)

The developers of Stapleton Studios on New York's Staten Island filed a lawsuit against the city Tuesday and sought a restraining order that would bar the city from closing the studio down Thursday. The legal action followed a rally near the studio site on Monday at which actor Danny Aiello, one of the studio partners, accused the city's Economic Development Corp. of high-handed tactics. As reported by the Staten Island Advance, Aiello told the crowd: "I'd like to know what the EDC has built in the last year that is tantamount to what we built here." In an interview with New York Daily News columnist Denis Hamill, Aiello commented: "We took this white elephant, and in eight months we have built a state-of-the-art sound stage and already shot our first movie here that otherwise would have run north to Canada." The EDC, however, has maintained that the Stapleton developers are "amateurs" who have failed to make good on their promises.

The Paris prosecutor's office said Tuesday that it has launched a criminal investigation into complaints by Vivendi Universal shareholders who claim that company executives gave them a "false presentation" of earnings and financial outlook. Although Vivendi spokespersons in Paris sought to treat the investigation as a routine matter, today's (Wednesday) Los Angeles Times quoted Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes, professor of finance at the Yale School of Management as saying, "Such criminal probes at this level are relatively rare. ... Vivendi is one of those companies that is a symbol of France." News of the investigation sent Vivendi shares plunging again. On the NYSE Tuesday, they closed at $12.04, down 7.3 percent.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff's office on Tuesday refused to permit ABC's Diane Sawyer to interview Robert Blake at the county jail on Friday, as had been arranged. In a statement, Sheriff Lee Baca said, "In keeping with longstanding policy -- barring any unusual circumstances -- to not allow television interviews of Los Angeles County jail inmates in ongoing criminal cases, a televised interview of Robert Blake will not happen." Blake has previously been interviewed by telephone at the jail. His lawyer, famed criminal attorney Harlan Brown, resigned this week after learning of the planned interview, saying that he could not countenance it.

Fox TV could well have shared in the Anaheim Angels' victory celebrations Tuesday as the weekly Nielsens gave the struggling network an easy win for last week. Still, ratings for the network's coverage of the World Series were well off from a year ago (except in San Francisco and Los Angeles), and on Thursday an episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation beat the baseball telecast. In another surprise, the new ABC series The Bachelor beat The West Wing on Wednesday night. But perhaps the biggest surprise of all was the victory of ABC's Halloween classic, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown on Friday night, which trounced the competition and produced ABC's best ratings in the Friday-night-at-8:00 timeslot in two years. For the week, Fox averaged a 10.2 rating and a 16 share, well ahead of second-place CBS, which scored an 8.4/13. NBC was third with a 7.5/12, followed by ABC, in fourth, with 5.9/19.

Tuesday's season debut of the critically praised Kiefer Sutherland drama 24 on Fox produced ratings that were 11 percent ahead of its premiere episode a year ago. The show's 9.2 rating and 13 share tied the numbers for NBC's Frasier in the 9:00 p.m. hour. Both shows, however, were beaten by CBS's The Guardian, which won the hour with a 10.0/14.

Philadelphia officials on Tuesday were celebrating the decision by CBS to pick up the new David Morse drama Hack for the full season. According to Sharon Pinkenson, head of the Greater Philadelphia film Office, the commitment for "the back nine" episodes will represent an increase of $25 million spent on goods and services in the city. She told the Philadelphia Inquirer that the total economic impact will be $60 million over the full season. "I'm so excited I'm jumping out of my skin," she told the newspaper. "When I got the news, I screamed out to everyone." Meanwhile, Fox has pulled the plug on the new David E. Kelley legal drama, girls club after only two episodes because of impermissible ratings.

Rejecting conventional wisdom that, with movies and videos vying for their attention, many viewers -- particularly younger viewers -- will not watch television on Saturday night, NBC is planning to move some attractive TV shows into that night. As reported by today's (Wednesday) New York Daily News, NBC entertainment president Jeff Zucker, in remarks delivered to the International Radio and Television Society, commented: "It's our goal in the next 18 months to go after Saturday night the way we've gone after Sunday night this past year." CBS has traditionally dominated Saturday night and is the only network to air series programming on that night; NBC and ABC run movies of the week on Saturdays.

The National Organization for Women (NOW) has taken a new swipe at the television networks, accusing them of "serving up an adolescent boy's fantasy world" of women in their programming. Contained in the group's 2002 Feminist Primetime Report is a study that indicates that the six over-the-air networks feature 134 more men then women as leads, and that those women are generally little more than "eye candy ... -- young, thin, white."

Angus Deayton, host of the BBC's satirical news quiz Have I Got News for You, has been fired following a new round of sensational tabloid news stories about his private life. Deayton, who had hosted the show for 12 years, had survived a scandal last May when allegations that he had been having an affair with a prostitute and snorting cocaine first appeared in the tabloids. However, the BBC said on Tuesday: "It is felt by all concerned that continuing stories in the media about Angus' private life have made him the subject of headlines rather than a commentator on them. This has made his position as host of the topical news quiz untenable."