New York - Viacom's (NYSE: VIA) Harmonix Music Systems, a unit of MTV Games, announced on Friday that gamers have purchased more than 2.5 million downloadable song packs for the music-based game since its launch on Nov. 20. The top-selling song pack features three songs from Metallica, followed by packs from The Police, Queens of the Stone Age and David Bowie. Pricing is $0.99 to $2.99 per track, with the majority sold for $1.99. "The incredible response to the downloadable content we've released to date motivates us even more to establish this platform as a way for people to discover new, up and coming artists through the game -- in addition to delivering great game play experiences set to the music of mega-artists," said MTVN Music Group/Logo/Films president Van Toffler.

Seattle - Amazon.com (NASD: AMZN) on Friday launched its new Indie & Art House store, which features a range of over 25,000 independent films as well as a place where users can preview, review and discuss them. Many of the films are available via Amazon's CreateSpace DVD on Demand service. The company said actor, director and producer John Favreau will be the first curator of the site's "Independent Voices" section.

Los Angeles - Joost, the streaming TV service, this week added four channels from independent film and music content from OurStage to its offering. OurStage lets creators upload their video and music content, which users can browse, buy and rate.

New York - Mobile game developer and publisher Gameloft on Friday released its "Grey's Anatomy" mobile game, based on the ABC TV series. The game, which is composed of "skill-based surgery mini-games taken from actual episodes of the show," is available from most U.S. carriers.

Roslyn, N.Y. - Fifth Generation Systems, the parent company of social networking site Zude, announced this week that it has raised $5.3 million in its second round of venture capital financing.

Think video is the future of online media? Broadband revolution, right? Apple perfecting the digital video experience? Well, not if everyone decides to embrace that future all at once. Time Warner Cable is experimenting with caps on broadband usage, which means too much movie downloading and suddenly you’re paying $30 per movie.

There once was a time when the release date of an album was exciting. For our favorite artists we knew when the last album came out and when the next album was due. If you loved the artist you bought it. If you didn't you either bought the single or you listened to the album with your friends and then decided. As the price of records and then CDs increased year by year, spending 20 bucks for a CD became a purchase you needed to be sure of rather than a no brainer or impulse buy.

Washington - The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has announced plans to resume testing prototypes of devices designed to transmit broadband service over unused portions of the broadcast TV spectrum, the Associated Press reported.

Denver - Digital music distributor IODA has advised the independent record labels it represents not to sign streaming deals with free services like Imeem and Lala.com until it can negotiate more favorable royalty rates, Billboard reported.

San Francisco - A glitch in News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) MySpace website has for months allowed users to view the pictures on profiles whose owners, including 14 and 15 year-olds, had deemed them as "private," Wired.com reported. The report details several instances where groups of self-proclaimed pedophiles or voyeurs have used the glitch to access and share such private pictures online.

New York - U.S. video game sales jumped 43% in 2007 to a record $17.9 billion, fueled by strong growth in every product category, including a 54% rise in hardware sales for the year and a 28% overall increase in the key month of December, according to sales data compiled by market research firm NPD Group. "While hardware sales realized the greatest percentage growth over 2006 due to the closely scrutinized console hardware transition, each category under the video games industry umbrella reached their own 'personal bests' in terms of annual sales," said NPD analyst Anita Frazier.

Chicago - Fave Media, the developer of a local search engine that utilizes video ads, announced this week that it has raised $1.6 million in a new funding round, from unnamed investors.

San Francisco - Triggit, the developer of a toolbar that lets users easily post images, videos and other media to blogs and websites, has received a $500,000 investment from Bay Partners and launched a beta test of its service, GigaOM reported.

San Francisco - Following eight years in business, including the past four turning a profit, San Francisco-based Granicus, a provider of government webcasting and public meeting management software and services, said that it has raised $10 million in its first round of funding from JMI Equity.