When not bawdlerizing movies or trying, and failing, to kill Netflix, Blockbuster has been busy planning to develop and ship a set-top box that will allow customers to download movies at home. The company purchased online movie download service Movielink for $6.6 million last August. But it still hasn't integrated…

Viacom is determined not to fall into the music industry's technophobic trap. Instead, it's embracing the online-video frenzy by releasing Jackass 2.5 directly onto the Web next week. Initially offered as a free streamed video on Blockbuster's Movielink, it will eventually move to pay outlets like iTunes and, yes,…

Here's what no one's saying about Blockbuster's acquisition of Movielink, the Hollywood-backed movie-download site: It's a desperate move to shore up Blockbuster's online failures. Blockbuster, remember, has been promising video downloads for most of this decade. First came a deal with Enron's broadband division, and,…