After four years, a federal judge has finally ruled in the counterfeit goods case in which Tiffany & Co. (NYSE: TIF) sued eBay Inc. (NASDAQ: EBAY), demanding it create better polices on its auction site and assume responsibility for the goods traded there.

But the judge ruled in favor of eBay, saying that "the law is clear: it is the trademark owner's burden to police its mark. [...] Tiffany must ultimately bear the burden of protecting its trademark."

No doubt, this is a significant victory for eBay and all online retailers that, while agreeing to take fake merchandise off their sites, want to be alerted to it by the owners of the trademarks. This means e-tailers don't need to police their sites for counterfeit goods, something that would have been quite costly.

If this sounds a little odd to you, maybe that's because of a recent suit regarding copyrighted material on Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG)'s YouTube. Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA) has sued the owner of the video sharing site for $1 billion in damages, accusing YouTube of enabling copyright infringement since users upload copyrighted material to the site.

MAJOR PAPERS:

• The market for private mortgage insurance has narrowed and is tougher to obtain, further pressuring home buyers and affecting the market, the Wall Street Journal reported. "Clearly, the pendulum had swung a little too far in terms of flexibility in underwriting," said Len Sweeney, the chief risk officer at AIG United Guaranty, a part of American International Group Inc (NYSE: AIG).
• In a agreement with Viacom Inc (NYSE: VIA), Google Inc (NASDAQ: GOOG) said it will remove visitor data from YouTube before it fulfills a judge's order to send data to Viacom, as a part of a larger copyright lawsuit, the Wall Street Journal reported.

OTHER PAPERS:

• As part of its effort to emerge from bankruptcy protection, the Detroit News reported that Delphi Corp (OTC: DPHIQ) announced plans to sell its brake business. Delphi has retained W.Y. Campbell and Co to help sell the unit, which has around 1,000 employees worldwide.
• The New York Post learned that Dick Fuld, the CEO of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc (NYSE: LEH), is seriously considering ways to take the company private. The Post said that talks centering on the privatization of Lehman have "gotten very serious consideration," according to sources, although details on how a maneuver may work remain unclear.

Have you checked News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) stock price lately? It's pretty close to the 52-week low. Last Thursday, before the Fourth of July holiday began, News Corp.'s shares closed at $14.76. The 52-week low is $14.58, and the 52-week high is $24.95. As can be seen, it's had quite a fall. And what about competitor Viacom (NYSE: VIA)? The company's stock closed on Thursday with a price of $29.70. That was, in fact, the 52-week low. The 52-week high for Viacom is $44.95. Again, a pretty big dive.

Is it time to enter these two names? From a valuation perspective, considering their growth prospects, the stock prices do make one pause for consideration. They seem cheaper than colleagues Disney (NYSE: DIS) and Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) from certain angles, although the latter two media businesses do have higher dividend yields. But with the big decline in the stock prices, traders certainly have to be looking at them as perhaps candidates for a bounce-back in the second half of the year, especially if the oil situation improves.

I think that's the big problem here. With oil and financials acting in negative ways for the economy, the entire market is one huge growling bear in a bad mood. And that has made me very reticent about initiating a trading position in either News Corp. or Viacom, though I really, really am interested in doing so. I think value trades like this might very well simply be tests of patience at this point. I sense that both these stocks will be higher by the end of the year, but so what? These stocks will probably merely move along with the rest of the major averages, and that movement could be in the downward direction. And News Corp. has been having issues with MySpace.

There's good news and bad news for shareholders of Disney (NYSE: DIS). The good news, according to data published in this Hollywood Reporter article, is that the latest Disney Channel movie, Camp Rock, achieved better ratings than the first High School Musical movie. Rock attracted 8.9 million eyeballs while the first Musical brought in about 7.7 million viewers. The bad news is that Rock unfortunately couldn't match the success of the second Musical project, which captured the attention of over 17 million viewers.

This movie is extremely important. Disney execs want to find out if they truly know the formula for creating new fads for the kids. This is definitely a strong start, although I thought the movie's ratings might come a little closer to the second Musical film since all we've been hearing about lately is how hot the Jonas Brothers act is right now. It at least should have brought in over 10 million viewers.

I don't know, maybe it's me, but I just don't feel the same kind of buzz for this project as I do for the Musical franchise. Here comes the interesting part: Can Disney grow the movie from here? That will depend on how fickle the Disney Channel audience actually is. Don't fool yourself, the powers that be at Disney are under pressure to form a suitable pipeline of intellectual properties to replace the aging Musical and Hannah Montana brands. Make no mistake, they are aging quickly, as these kinds of things don't have terribly high half-lives.

Shareholders will want to see the Jonas Brothers and Camp Rock really grow into a merchandising phenomenon in the coming months. No matter what, though, the cable channel is a great asset, and it is a strong competitor of Viacom's (NYSE: VIA) Nickelodeon network.

Disclosure: I own Disney; positions can change at any time.

I didn't think Get Smart was going to come in at number one, but that's exactly what happened, according to Boxofficemojo. The film, distributed by Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), took in an estimated $39 million at domestic theaters. The film, quite frankly, looks horrible, and I don't get the fascination people have with Steve Carell's supposed "comedic talents." I don't really find him funny. Doesn't matter, though, because moviegoers have crowned Carell king of the box-office weekend whether I like it or not.

I'm actually more concerned with the race for second place between Marvel's (NYSE: MVL) The Incredible Hulk and DreamWorks Animation's (NYSE: DWA) Kung Fu Panda. Both are estimated as of this writing to have booked a little more than $21 million in ticket sales. I'm concerned about this because I own shares of Marvel, and I'm disappointed in the movie's box-office performance. As of now, the new Hulk has about $96 million in terms of total gross. The fact that it hasn't scored over $100 million by now, coupled with it experiencing a 60% drop for this weekend compared to its debut weekend, leaves me less than satisfied.

Viacom's (NYSE: VIA) The Love Guru bombed. Looks like you can't always count on stars to deliver the important opening-weekend audience. Are people getting sick of Mike Myers? (Jonathan Berr wondered the same thing.) He was only able to conjure up about $14 million for Viacom shareholders, bringing his film to a fourth-place debut. That's embarrassing for Myers, but unlike Steve Carell, he is genuinely funny (although maybe not so much in this particular film, it seems). News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) M. Night Shyamalan movie The Happening grossed around $10 million and came in fifth.

Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks baby is preparing to leave Viacom (NYSE: VIA). That sounds bad, doesn't it? I mean, Viacom should, in theory, be freaked out about losing the star asset.

Yet, an analyst working at JP Morgan has a different take on things. According to Bloomberg, Imran Khan thinks that DreamWorks may be perceived as an expensive business asset. He pointed out that the expenses associated with DreamWorks helped drive a 22% decline in operating income for Viacom's film division in 2007. He further pointed out that films with more modest budgets will aid in generating better returns and will, in fact, reduce the risk of investing in the movie business.

Khan is absolutely correct on his call. I've been talking about the need to reduce film budgets for a long time now, probably to the point where people are sick of me, so I'm always glad when I read an opinion such as this. Only problem is, will the studios listen? Well, they should. Disney (NYSE: DIS), Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), and Sony (NYSE: SNE) would all benefit from increased financial restraint when it comes to the business plans of their respective film units.

Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) wants to see if the attention span of its YouTube users can be stretched a bit. According to this Fortune article, YouTube seems to think that short clips might not necessarily be the backbone of long-term growth. Instead, longer videos might make the site more valuable. Why is this? Well, the article intimates that the founders of the site, Chad Hurley and Steve Chen, think there's a market out there that might want something more than simple, user-generated content that focuses on the banal side of life for about three minutes per clip.

I see the point here. Google wants to figure out, once and for all, the best way to monetize its YouTube investment. This isn't the easiest thing to do, since users of YouTube are, in theory, only interested in seeing short content as fast as possible. They don't want to be burdened by ads. But YouTube is betting that maybe, just maybe, by going against theory and putting on longer material of better quality, the eyeballs will become more intrigued and will perhaps be willing to view a greater quantity of videos. It all comes down to the quality of the content.

MAJOR PAPERS:

• Steven Spielberg and his DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc (NYSE: DWA) partners are close to signing a deal with India's Reliance ADA Group for between $500M and $600M that would provide financing to the company as it prepares to leave Viacom Inc's (NYSE: VIA) Paramount Pictures this year, the Wall Street Journal reported. DreamWorks will seek to obtain an additional $500M in debt financing to make about six new films a year.
• The Wall Street Journal also reported that at an investor update yesterday, The Hershey Company (NYSE: HSY) CEO David West said the chocolate-bar maker would boost spending on marketing about 20% this year and next, and slightly increased the company's long-term annual sales targets. West offered little detail on how Hershey will address its reliance on the U.S. market for revenue.

OTHER PAPERS:

• The Economic Times reported that India's Maneesh Pharmaceuticals, a mid-sized company, bought a 51% stake in U.S.-based Synovics Pharmaceuticals Inc (OTC: SYVC). The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
• The Economic Times also reported that General Electric Company's (NYSE: GE) GE Money Financial Services, which was seeking a parter for its personal and home loan portfolios, may have called off the process after it was unable to get the right valuation.
• Bob Nardelli, the chairman and CEO of Chrysler LLC, sent a memo to employees warning them of worsening U.S. sales, the Detroit News reported. The e-mail did not indicate the auto maker would look to soon further cut production or lay off staff, a person familiar with the matter said.

Marvel's (NYSE: MVL) movie The Incredible Hulk was incredibly disappointing (to me at least). No, I'm not talking about the quality of the movie. I didn't actually see it. But Boxofficemojo is reporting that it has grossed an estimated $54.5 million at domestic theaters over the weekend. While that was good enough for first place, it wasn't good enough for shareholders. The movie bombed, plain and simple.

Why am I being so hard on a number-one movie? It's not so difficult to understand. The awful Hulk movie that was released back in 2003 grossed $62.1 million in its opening weekend. There's no way to spin this. We've had five years of inflation between that terrible flick and this new iteration. Simply put, it should have grossed at least $65/$70 million, especially on the heels of Iron Man. I'm a shareholder of Marvel, and I don't like the fact that the success of Marvel's first movie of the summer didn't synergize a little better with the angry green guy.

Focusing on the positive, Marvel was able to beat DreamWorks Animation (NYSE: DWA) and its Kung Fu Panda project. The cartoon took in about $34 million and came in second. M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening, distributed by News Corp. (NYSE: NWS), did okay by coming in third with a gross of around $30 million. Some analysts thought that the horror flick would do a little bit less than that number. Personally, I thought it should have come in second place considering Shyamalan's name, but I guess people aren't as excited as they used to be about his exercises in cinematic twists (the fact that it was rated R also inhibited its blockbuster potential). Sony's (NYSE: SNE) Adam Sandler comedy You Don't Mess with the Zohan did in fact get messed with yet again, dropping two spots to fourth place, grossing about $16 million. I've heard bad reviews on this one. Viacom (NYSE: VIA) and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull were daring enough for fifth place. Everyone's favorite archaeologist has now breached the $275 million level. Great to see a favorite character of mine from the past doing so well.

Another strike for the entertainment industry. And, it comes just as a recession threatens to cut into TV ad revenue and movie ticket sales. That is not good news for companies like CBS (NYSE: CBS), Viacom (NYSE: VIA), and Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), which already trade near 52-week lows.

Investors are understandably worried that consumer concerns could hurt entertainment spending. Who has extra money to see "Spider-Man XII"? Marketers often cut budgets for costly broadcast TV ads when the economy looks grim.

Now, the Screen Actors Guild may go on strike when its contract runs out on June 30. According to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), "The two sides have made little progress on key issues including compensation for actors when their work is used on DVD or new media such as the Internet."

Once again, the internet comes up as the one thing entertainment companies should fear. It has been used for illegal downloads of music and movies. Many younger people would rather hang out on YouTube than watch pay-per-view movies online. Now, actors want a portion of internet revenue.

If the actors are not careful, while they are on strike and the entertainment world is shut down, the internet will eat the whole industry.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Yesterday, I wrote about my nervousness over Marvel's (NYSE: MVL) The Incredible Hulk. Today, I'd like to talk about how I wouldn't be so nervous if the Iron Man sequel ended up being directed by someone other than Jon Favreau. There are two excellent articles on The Motley Fool discussing this issue, one by Nathan Alderman and one by Marvel expert Tim Beyers. At the time those articles were published earlier in the week, it had seemed that Marvel was reticent about ponying up a higher compensation package for Mr. Favreau on the heels of the awesome success of the first movie starring Robert Downey, Jr. David Maisel, chairman of Marvel Studios, apparently wants to be very conservative about the company's above-the-line costs. Alderman thinks Marvel should give Favreau the requested raise, while Beyers understands the Hollywood dynamics going on and can see why both sides are doing what they are doing.

By the time my own piece is published, it's possible Favreau may be confirmed as the director of the second Iron Man (as I write this, there are rumors that a deal has been offered). Regardless of what happens, I'd like to offer my opinion on whether or not Favreau is an absolutely necessary component for an Iron Man sequel.

He isn't. And if shareholders think he is, then they had better rethink their investment in Marvel. What shareholders must ask themselves is this: Is it the director that is responsible for the ultimate success of a Marvel film, or is it Marvel management and the intangible value of the Marvel intellectual-property portfolio? Which element adds more equity? As far as I'm concerned as a shareholder, I'm investing in Marvel. I'm not investing in Jon Favreau. Any investor who believes that any one director is indispensable is going to be in for a stomach-churning ride, because when the day comes that a Jon Favreau or a Sam Raimi (he directed the Spider-Man flicks) decides that Marvel is no longer paying them what they're worth and jumps ship, the stock could easily see an overreaction sell-off.

I knew Disney (NYSE: DIS) was an awesome licensor of its content. Still, I was pretty happy when I read the following Hollywood Reporter piece about the Mouse and its success at growing retail sales of its merchandise. Disney is looking at revenues of $30 billion at retail channels based on products bearing its logo and characters to be booked by the end of its current fiscal year. That would represent a magical double-digit growth rate of 12% if the figure is reached.

Merchandise sales based on characters and intellectual properties owned by companies such as Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), which licenses heroes such as Batman, and Viacom's (NYSE: VIA) Nickelodeon, which has had great success with SpongeBob SquarePants, don't compare.

The article rightfully reminds readers that the total amount generated in retail sales is only an indication of how seemingly popular a company's brands are in the marketplace. It does not point to the amount of revenues or profit a company books on the sales (Disney will only receive a small percentage of those sales, perhaps between 5% and 15%).

The important thing I take away from this as a shareholder is that Disney is doing a reasonably good job of milking its franchises. As one might expect, the usual suspects were cited as drivers: Hannah Montana, High School Musical, the Jonas Brothers music project, and Disney Princesses are doing the heavy lifting for Disney's consumer-products division, along with a property that continues to surprise me: Cars. Amazing that the latter remains a popular seller in the boys category.

Steven Spielberg wants to reboot the DreamWorks brand, according to this article. He's not happy being at Viacom's (NYSE: VIA) Paramount and not having full ownership of his films. What he wants to do now is see if he can summon $1 billion in financing to catalyze this new phase in his life.

Of course, the phrase "see if he can" is probably not the most accurate one to use when talking about Spielberg. When it comes to Hollywood, his word is scripture, and if he asks for financing, he'll have more takers than he can handle. After raising his billion bucks, Spielberg needs to decide which studio will be a perfect home for his new celluloid ambitions. Although the article states that there is a possibility he can land anywhere, to me, there's no ambiguity whatsoever.

Spielberg will end up at General Electric's (NYSE: GE) Universal (if I could be as sure about the price of oil as I am about Spielberg and Universal, I'd be a rich, rich man). He and his Amblin shingle have had a long relationship with Universal, and simply put, that's where he wants to be. It's funny to consider Disney (NYSE: DIS) and News Corp. (NYSE: NWS) as potential new homes for DreamWorks. Disney definitely wouldn't want him since the Mouse is being very conservative in terms of film making, and although News Corp. would love to overpay for him (I think News Corp. enjoys overpaying for things at times), I just don't see Spielberg going to Fox.

The weekend domestic box-office results weren't too shocking. I pretty much knew that DreamWorks Animation's (NYSE: DWA) Kung Fu Panda would kick its way to the top (I wonder how many writers will be using that phrase when covering the movie this week). But when I saw that Boxofficemojo estimated a $60 million gross for the cartoon, I actually was disappointed. These days, a $60 million haul in the summertime doesn't seem impressive. I thought Panda might have been worth a little more. But, after checking some of the historical openings for other DreamWorks pictures, I realized that Panda did all right. It actually was one of the bigger debuts for the studio.

Even though the cartoon seemed a lock for first place, I thought Sony's (NYSE: SNE) You Don't Mess with the Zohan project would be a close second. At a $40 million estimated gross, it wasn't. I don't know if you can mess with Zohan or not, but you apparently can mess with Adam Sandler and best his star power. Viacom's (NYSE: VIA) Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is still going strong in third place. It has crossed the $250 million level, and it is headed for $300 million. Time Warner's (NYSE: TWX) Sex and the City, however, has lost a great deal of thunder, dropping from first to fourth place in its second weekend at the multiplexes. It is just shy of the $100 million mark. Is Sex nothing more than an opening-weekend phenomenon? It seems that way, but we'll have to see how steep the drops are in subsequent weekends.

The Strangers, from General Electric's (NYSE: GE) Universal Pictures, dropped from third to fifth place in its second weekend, a rather predictable event for a horror movie. At a $37 million total gross so far, The Strangers won't go down as a huge triumph, but you've got to love the profit potential for this low-budget flick that succeeded in counterprogramming its way to summertime glory. Universal obviously thought the film's concept possessed a chance to score a $100 million total haul since it placed the movie against the big guns of this busy period, but that's okay, the try was worth it in this case.

Lions Gate Entertainment (NYSE: LGF), the little studio that makes big waves in Hollywood with franchise hits such as Saw and Hostel, distributed its annual earnings numbers on Friday after market close. For fiscal 2008, revenues leaped like a lion (you knew that was coming, don't kid yourself) to $1.36 billion, which represented top-line appreciation of 39%. So far, an excellent start. But, it's the bottom line where things start to get ugly. Lions Gate reported a net loss of $0.62 per diluted share; in 2007, the studio booked net income of $0.25 per share. That can't be pleasing to shareholders. According to Marketwatch, Lions Gate did not meet expectations, as some on Wall Street believed the loss would be closer to $0.50 per share (the company did beat on the top line, though). Things were rosier for the fourth quarter, as revenues jumped over 50% and net income climbed 19% to $0.22 per share. Unfortunately, expectations were again too high, as analysts were hoping for $0.37 per share.

The cash flow is a little more pleasing. Operational cash flow increased just shy of 50% to $89.2 million. And the company adjusted this stat even further to come up with a free-cash-flow figure of nearly $137 million (the company adds back the effect of borrowings for production obligations). The huge problem here is a familiar story: rising costs for marketing and distribution. This isn't unique to Lions Gate; competitors such as Disney (NYSE: DIS), Time Warner (NYSE: TWX), Viacom (NYSE: VIA), and Sony (NYSE: SNE) all face this same issue. Management reported that costs for Lions Gate in this regard rose well over 100%.

Lions Gate is a tough one for me. Here's the thing: I love the movie business, and Lions Gate is definitely a more direct play on the business than what you get through a Disney or a Time Warner due to the scales involved. Lions Gate has some great franchises under its belt, and it tends to go for niche, edgy content. Plus, the cash flow is pretty cool.