Islamabad, Pakistan - Just days after initiating a country-wide ban on Google's (NASD: GOOG) YouTube -- that in the process inadvertently knocked out access to the site from most of the world for several hours -- Pakistan has restored its YouTube access, the Associated Press reports. The country had ordered its 70 Internet service providers to block access to YouTube in light of a "blasphemous" video from a Dutch lawmaker working on a movie that would purportedly portray Islam as "fascist and prone to inciting violence against women and homosexuals," AP reported. That video has since been removed.

Palo Alto, Calif. - Stanford Law professor and Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig has decided against a run for Congress, after talking with a pollster who advised him his chances of winning would be slim, Wired.com reports. Lessig said last week on his website that he was considering a run for the seat vacated by the death of Rep. Tom Lantos earlier this month. The pollster told Lessig he would not likely be able to defeat veteran California politician Jackie Speier, who had already announced her intention to run for Lantos' seat -- and gotten Lantos' endorsement as well.

Los Angeles - Gossip blogger Mario Lavandeira (aka Perez Hilton) has been negotiating a deal that would make him an A&R representative with major label Warner Music Group (NYSE: WMG), complete with his own imprint at Warner Brothers Records, and a $100,000 advance against 50% of any profits generated by artists he brings to the label, people familiar with the prospective deal told The New York Times. Lavandeira's PerezHilton.com, where he sometimes posts album reviews and unreleased songs, attracts some 2.8 million visitors per month, according to comScore.

New York - AmieStreet.com, an online music retailer that offers variable song pricing, announced on Tuesday that top independent labels Beggars Group, Matador Records and Polyvinyl Recording have signed on to use its service. The Amazon.com-backed company offers "fan-driven" pricing, where songs are initially free and then rise in price based on popularity, up to 98 cents. With the new deals, AmieStreet.com will now offer songs from artists including Cat Power, Sigur Ros, Pavement, Yo La Tengo and Interpol.

Amsterdam - Fabchannel.com, a provider of live concert webcasts, announced on Tuesday that it has signed a deal with Universal Music Netherlands, for the rights to offer live recordings of Universal artists performing in Amsterdam. The concerts will be offered for global viewing on the ad-supported Fabchannel.com site, and also offered for sale as video and audio downloads both through the site and Universal Music's own channels.

Sunnyvale, Calif. - Yahoo (NASD: YHOO) on Tuesday introduced Buzz, a news aggregation feature for its homepage that highlights news stories, images, videos, blog posts or other content that Yahoo users have voted for as the most important of the moment. The service is similar to existing offerings such as Digg or Reddit. The beta version of Buzz includes content from nearly 100 publishers; stories on Yahoo Buzz that receive the most votes from users will also be "submitted to Yahoo.com's editors for possible coverage on the Yahoo homepage."

Los Angeles - News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) MySpace on Tuesday launched a new original series, "Special Delivery," a hidden camera show produced in collaboration with Avalon TV that figures as the second to be created specifically for MySpaceTV. The show follows on the heels of other MySpaceTV programs such as "Prom Queen," "quarterlife" and "Roommates."

Los Angeles - Television production company Endemol USA ("Deal or No Deal," "1 vs. 100") announced that it has formed a casual games division, which will first create Web games for its slate of TV gameshows. The company named Eric LaVanchy, who previously served as VP of creative development at advergaming firm Bottle Rocket, to head the new games unit.

Los Angeles - Disney's (NYSE: DIS) ABC has announced plans to make its primetime TV series available for free viewing on cable, satellite and telco TV video-on-demand services, with the stipulation that viewers will not be able to fast-forward through commercials.

Norwalk, Conn. - Wyndstorm, a D.C.-based developer of social network technology, said on Tuesday that it will become a publicly traded company through a reverse merger with Connecticut-based Internet telephony firm PacketPort.com.

Sydney - Following similar moves in France and England, where the former has enacted laws requiring Internet service providers to boot customers who repeatedly use illegal file-sharing networks, and the latter has threatened the same, Australia is now also pondering a "three strikes" law that would make ISPs police the file-sharing habits of their customers, Billboard reports.

Richmond, Va. - Media General (NYSE: MEG), the owner of newspapers, TV stations and websites in the Southeast, said that it has signed a deal with Texas-based NARAE Enterprises to acquire DealTaker.com, an online social shopping portal with more than 100,000 registered users.

New York - Internet advertising revenues from 2007 are expected to come in at $21.1 billion, in a year that saw record revenue levels in all four quarters that propelled the market up 25% over 2006's record $16.9 billion, according to data from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers. Still, the gain of $4.2 billion in revenue in 2007 was still less than the $4.3 billion in growth, and 35% revenue increase registered between 2005 and 2006.

Cambridge, Mass. - The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) signaled at a public hearing yesterday at Harvard Law School that the agency is prepared to act, if it finds that Internet service providers are discriminating against certain network traffic, such as file-sharing. FCC chairman Kevin Martin said in a prepared statement that "network operators can take reasonable steps to manage traffic, but they cannot arbitrarily block access," adding that "the commission is ready, willing and able to step in if necessary to correct any practices that are ongoing today."

Port Washington, N.Y. - The amount of music that consumers acquired in the U.S. increased by 6% in 2007, but a sharp spike in digital download revenues could not offset declines in CD sales and the market saw a net 10% decline in music spending for the year, according to data from market research firm NPD Group. The firm also estimated that one million consumers dropped out of the CD buyer market in 2007 -- a flight led by younger consumers -- as 40% of U.S. teens said they did not purchase a CD in 2007, compared to 38% in 2006.

Cupertino, Calif. - Apple (NASD: AAPL) announced on Tuesday that its iTunes Store is now the second-largest music retailer in the U.S. behind Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT), having leapfrogged retail chain Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) in the latest figures from market research firm NPD Group. The company pulled ahead of then third-place U.S. music retailer Amazon.com (NASD: AMZN) last June, according to NPD's rankings.

Baltimore - TidalTV, the developer of a broadband TV platform that will feature professionally produced, branded programming, announced on Tuesday that it has secured $15 million in its first round of venture capital, led by New Enterprise Associates and Valhalla Partners.

Mountain View, Calif. - FriendFeed, the developer of a social media platform that lets users keep up with what Web pages, photos, videos and music their friends and family are sharing, announced on Tuesday that it has raised $5 million in its first round of financing, from Benchmark Capital and company co-founders Paul Buchheit and Sanjeev Singh.

New York - Outbrain, a provider of ratings and recommendations for blogs, news and RSS content, announced on Tuesday that it has closed a $5 million first round of financing, led by Gemini Israel Funds and Lightspeed Venture Partners.