The Blu-ray Disc Association is going for HD DVD’s throat with a new promotion announced this week that will give purchasers of new Blu-ray players five free Blu-ray movies. Any Blu-ray player is eligible, including the Sony PS3. The promotion begins July 1 in the US, and lasts through the summer until September 30.

The five movies will come from a list of 21 titles, including choices like Pearl Harbor, Black Rain, Underworld, and Transporter 2.

Note to entrepreneurs hoping to build a business using illicit content: don’t grant extensive interviews (complete with pictures) to the Wall Street Journal. That’s what a pair of aspiring hackers did back in April when they described how their service, YouTVPC, allowed users to watch streaming TV shows and movies without charge. Now, the MPAA is cracking down on such sites, filing a lawsuit against both YouTVPC and Peekvid this week.

The case was filed Tuesday in a California federal court. The gist of the suit is that businesses should not be allowed to prosper from illicit material, even if they do not host it. Both YouTVPC and Peekvid provide access to some of the most popular video content in the world, but they do so by linking up other sites (many of them outside the US) where the content is stored. This allows them to claim that they are doing nothing illegal, even though providing access to this unlicensed material is the extent of their business

Roughly a third of all teenagers who use the Internet have been subject to some form of cyberbullying, according to a new report by Pew Internet. The telephone survey was conducted on a representative sample of 935 teens in the US between the ages of 12 and 17 and revealed a number of observations about manipulative and bullying activity online. However, despite the fact that so many teens had experienced some level of cyberbullying, two-thirds of the group said that they believed more bullying occurred offline than on.

Video rental chain Blockbuster Inc. said on Wednesday it settled a patent dispute with rival Netflix Inc. that challenged Blockbuster’s entry into online DVD rental, but it signaled that the new business was taking a toll on its finances.

Although terms of the settlement were not disclosed, shares in Netflix jumped more than 6.3 percent to $20.76 in early trading while Blockbuster slipped 1 percent to $4.17.

Blockbuster also disclosed in a securities filing on Wednesday that it plans to seek an amendment to its August 20, 2004 credit agreement that would lower earnings requirements.

Blockbuster said in the filing that it plans to modify its popular Total Access plan before the end of the year to “strike the appropriate balance between continued subscriber growth and enhanced profitability.”