So in January he paid an undisclosed sum to acquire his U.K. distributor, with the idea of selling direct to retailers in Europe by year-end.

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Within 18 months it cut its national-distributor partners from 8 to 3, but added 40 provincial distributors as well as its own direct-sales force of 5, 000.

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If the advent of streaming video and direct downloads hadn't already signaled the impending death of video disc sales, add another nail to the DVD distributor's coffin: a technology that lets anyone copy any DVD--and seems to be perfectly legal.

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