London - Apple (NASD: AAPL) will not reduce the cost of music downloads at its U.K. iTunes Store, as it has said it would do in January, to bring parity to the cost of downloads between the U.K. store and other iTunes Stores in Europe, Billboard reports. Currency exchange rates have since fluctuated to the point that the cost of music on iTunes is now essentially the same in the U.K. as it is in the rest of Europe. Consumers in North America continue to enjoy much cheaper prices for music at the iTunes Store than their overseas counterparts.

San Francisco - Social music network imeem has announced that it will offer streaming previews of the forthcoming reissues of Universal Music Group act U2's early albums "Boy," "October" and "War." The deluxe versions of the albums include "a wealth of b-sides, live tracks and rarities."

New York - Music industry trade publication Billboard announced that it will now publish a chart of the top 25 revenue-generating albums and songs on TuneCore, a service that offers artists 100% of royalties and cheap distribution of their works via iTunes, Amazon and other digital retail platforms. The top-selling albums in April on TuneCore were from Jay-Z, Nine Inch Nails and Katt Williams, while the top songs were from artists State of Shock, Jonathan Coulton & GLaDOS, Michael Giacchino, Crank Squad, Z and MGMT.

San Francisco - Mobile media distributor SendMe Mobile on Wednesday announced a deal with Warner Music Group, to offer content from Warner artists such as ringtones on its various portal sites. The companies will also create a series of custom premium SMS subscription products for various artists.

Campobello, S.C. - SC Launch, a provider of investment and support to entrepreneurial start-up companies in the Southeast U.S., has invested $200,000 in GET Interactive, a provider of technology for delivering online entertainment content. GET Interactive's technology supports access to content through the Internet or mobile devices, as an opt-in service for consumers to identify, browse and purchase products they find desirable. SC Launch thus far has provided 53 companies with seed funding in the form of grants, loans or equity investments and provided counsel and support to more than 80 start-ups, according to the organization.

New York - Viacom's (NYSE: VIA) MTV on Wednesday introduced a website that will allow viewers to identify the roughly 1,500 music cues -- outside of music videos or performances -- that are integrated into its programming each week.

Brussels - The European Union has done away with the byzantine music royalty collection scheme that forced digital music services to acquire licenses to operate in each individual country, opting to instill a Europe-wide license for such services. Companies like Apple had pointed to the previous system as the cause of delays in rolling out its iTunes Store across Europe, and U.K.-based digital music retailer 7digital described the decision as "a blessing for us" to PaidContent UK.

McLean, Va. - Shares of Gannett (NYSE: GCI) dropped more than 7% by midday Wednesday after the publisher of USA Today and 84 other daily papers said that its second-quarter profit dropped 36%.

Santa Clara, Calif. - PlaySpan, a Santa Clara, Calif.-based developer of in-game search, commerce and micropayment technologies, said on Wednesday that it has acquired PayByCash, a Virginia-based developer of an alternative payment system for online games, virtual worlds and social networks.

Los Angeles - Sony Computer Entertainment America (NYSE: SNE) on Wednesday announced the launch of its long-awaited movie and TV download service for the PlayStation 3 and PSP handheld in the U.S., which will initially offer around 300 films and 1,200 TV episodes in both standard and high-definition from partners including Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox (NYSE: NWS), Lionsgate, MGM, Paramount (NYSE: VIA), Warner Bros. (NYSE: TWX) and Disney (NYSE: DIS). Rentals on the PlayStation Network will cost between $2.99 and $5.99 for movies and $1.99 for TV episodes; purchased movies will cost from $9.99 to $14.99.

Dulles, Va. - Media giant Time Warner (NYSE: TWX) may be on the verge of a deal to sell AOL to either Yahoo (NASD: YHOO) or Microsoft (NASD: MSFT), Reuters reported on Wednesday. Citing a source close to the situation, the news agency said that the talks have taken on "new urgency" as Yahoo's board prepares for a proxy battle against billionaire investor Carl Icahn at the company's annual meeting August 1.

Mumbai, India - The Valuable Group, an India-based media and technology firm, announced on Wednesday that it has completed its purchase of the assets of video-on-demand service Moviebeam from from Dar Capital Limited.

El Segundo, Calif. - OGPlanet, a publisher of multiplayer online games, announced on Wednesday that it has received an undisclosed sum of new funding from DFJ Athena, which the company said will be used for continued growth.

New York - BlogHer, an ad network and community of over 2,200 women's blogs, announced on Wednesday that it has received a $5 million second round investment from NBC Universal-affiliated (NYSE: GE) Peacock Equity and Venrock.

The two Heathers (Hopkins and Dougherty) have both written about the growth of Twitter in the US recently, so here is some UK data on the micro-blogging service. As you can see from the chart below, the site’s growth has really ramped up this year. UK Internet visits to www.twitter.com have increased by 631% over the last 12 months, with 485% of that growth coming this year. Twitter is more popular with Brits than Americans: last week the site’s share of UK Internet visits was 70% higher its share of visits in America.