Los Angeles - The Motion Picture Association of American (MPAA) has submitted a position paper to the Change.gov website set up by the incoming Obama administration, in which it argues for the adoption of technology that will block unauthorized sharing of movies and TV programming online, Wired.com reported. The MPAA urges the Obama administration to make "the fight against online piracy, including through automated detection and removal of infringing content," a top priority.

Palo Alto, Calif. - Donald Graham, chairman and CEO of The Washington Post, will join Facebook's board of directors, the online social network announced on Thursday. Graham, who previously served as the Post's publisher for 21 years, joins Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Marc Andreessen of Ning, Jim Breyer of Accel Partners and Peter Thiel of Clarium Capital and Founders Fund.

Tokyo - Sales of Blu-ray Disc recorders beat sales of DVD recorders in Japan for the first time in November, and further are replacing DVD recorders 1.5 times faster than DVD replaced VHS, GameDaily.com reported, citing data from GfK Retail and Technology. GfK credited falling prices for the uptick in sales of the Sony-backed (NYSE: SNE) Blu-ray format, which surpassed a 50% market share in Japan for the first time last month.

Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. - CBS (NYSE: CBS) said on Thursday that its CBS Sports division will stream select games from the 2008-09 SEC college basketball season live on its website, beginning on Dec. 13 with Indiana at Kentucky. A total of 12 games will be streamed live online for free, including the SEC Championship Game on Sunday, March 15.

London - Last.fm, the social music discovery service acquired by CBS (NYSE: CBS) for $280 million last May, is laying off about 20% of its 95-person staff as part of a cost-cutting initiative at CBS Interactive, PaidContent reports.

New York - Major record label Sony Music (NYSE: SNE) has agreed to pay $1 million to settle charges brought by the Federal Trade Commission that the company violated online privacy rules when it improperly accepted registrations on websites from children under 13 without parental consent. The FTC alleged in a lawsuit, filed via the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan, that Sony collected personal information from at least 30,000 underage children on 196 of its websites, in violation of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).

Los Angeles - After much speculation about whether Microsoft (NASD: MSFT) will be introducing a "Zune Phone" -- or device that mixes its Zune digital media player with Danger's Sidekick phone -- at the Consumer Electronics Show next month, Zune Group Manager Brian Seitz told Kotaku there will be "no Zune phone at CES."

Los Angeles - PaidContent reported on Thursday that CBS (NYSE: CBS), which acquired CNET Networks for $1.8 billion in May, plans to merge its CBSNews.com and CNET newsrooms, and in the process lay off an unknown number of staffers.

London - Arts Alliance Media (AAM), a European provider of digital cinema technology, announced on Thursday that it has secured $57.4 million in new financing to support its deployment of digital cinema projection systems in Europe.

New York - Tumblr, the provider of a publishing platform for mixed-media blogs and social networks, announced on Thursday that it has closed a $4.5 million second round of funding, led by Union Square Ventures and Spark Capital.

New York - Facebook backer Accel Partners' announcement of a new $480 million late-stage venture fund is fueling speculation that the venture capital firm will make a new investment in the online social network, according to published reports.