In 2013, the company changed its name to Filmed Entertainment Inc.[3] The sale of the DVD division at bankruptcy auction was announced August 10, 2015.

Licensors were guaranteed a minimum number of sales, but were held to exclusive, restrictive contracts, which led to price-fixing allegations against the club in 1962, followed by 7 years of mostly ineffective litigation.

[5] The Columbia Record Club was also notable in continuing to issue product in formats no longer available on the commercial market.

[5] Also, during that same time period, Columbia House and The Cannon Group founded the UK-exclusive mail-order VHS distribution service Videolog.

[5] The influence of Columbia House and other music clubs reached its peak in 1994, accounting for 15.1 percent of all CD sales.

The merger was abandoned in early 2000, with Columbia House's poor finances and stiff competition from online giant Amazon.com cited as factors.

[9][10][11] Within months, CDNow was purchased by Bertelsmann, which partially merged it with BMG Direct into a venture called BeMusic.

This event gave rise to concerns over the website's capability of keeping private information secure from hackers or devastating scams.

[12] In 2002, Sony and AOL Time Warner sold 85% of Columbia House to The Blackstone Group L.P., a New York-based investment firm.

[13][14] In 2008, the company, including its Canadian branch,[15] was acquired from BMG by investment firm JMCK Corp., a Najafi Group company based in Phoenix, Arizona, and the name was changed to Direct Brands, Inc.[13][14] Direct Brands consolidated the remaining facilities, and shut down music mail-order operations on June 30, 2009.

[4] In December 2015, Columbia House's owner, John Lippman, announced his intention to begin a vinyl subscription service that will allow subscribers the ability to choose which records and genres of music they receive.

There were many underage customers who legally could not be bound to this agreement; Columbia House knew these were unenforceable, but they apparently did not care (though eventually this policy did change).

Customers would join the club several times under different names with no intention of paying—in extreme cases receiving recordings with a retail value of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

[22] Columbia House practiced negative option billing,[14] a form of commercial distribution in which services are automatically supplied to the consumers until a specific cancellation order is issued.

[24] The Federal Trade Commission has published information to protect customers against this practice,[25] specifically referencing a $0.49/video offering.

When such memberships expire, the old rules return where a response is required in time to prevent shipping of full-price movies without customer input.

[citation needed] BMG Music Service parent Direct Brands confirmed on 23 December 2008 that they stopped accepting new members.

[27] On August 4, 2011, a nationwide class action was filed against Columbia House (Direct Brands Inc.) seeking monetary damages and an injunction stopping Direct Brands Inc. alleged business practices of unauthorized credit card charges, inability to cancel, unwanted products being mailed to homes and several other alleged issues.

There were a number of restrictions to the use of Fun Cash, which generally made regular re-enrollment a lower cost and more tangible option for those interested in savings.

For a few years, Columbia House offered a CD-ROM club, allowing customers to buy computer games.