Los Angeles - A federal appeals court has ruled that Google is not infringing copyrights with the "thumbnail" photo previews it shows on its search results. [more..]

San Francisco - Several of the seven state Attorneys General who this week demanded information from MySpace on registered sex offenders with profiles on the network, are not satisfied with MySpace's response that federal law prohibits the company from divulging member information without a court order, CNET News.com reported. [more..]

London - Global advertising firm WPP announced on Thursday that it will acquire search engine marketing provider 24/7 Real Media for $649 million. [more..]

Washington - The Entertainment Software Association (ESA), a trade group representing U.S. video game publishers and companies, on Thursday named Michael Gallagher as its new president. [more..]

Palo Alto, Calif. - Stanford University has established monetary fines that students will have to pay to have their network access reconnected, should they receive copyright infringement complaints for file-swapping on the campus network, according to a post on the Recording Industry vs. The People blog. [more..]

Agoura Hills, Calif. - Video game publisher THQ announced on Thursday that its board of directors has authorized the repurchase of an additional $25 million of its common stock. [more..]

Sunnyvale, Calif. -Wireless device giant Motorola said on Thursday that it will acquire Sunnyvale-based Modulus Video, a developer of MPEG-4 Advanced Video Coding (AVC) compression systems used in the delivery of video content. [more..]

Needham, Mass. - TechTarget, a publisher of news and information for IT professionals, announced on Thursday its initial public offering (IPO) of shares, expecting to raise about $100 million from 7.7 million shares sold at $13 per share. [more..]

Atlanta - Concurrent Computer Corp., an Atlanta-based provider of high-performance Linux software used in video-on-demand services by broadband cable providers, has entered into an agreement to raise an expected total of $14 million in a private placement of stock with a group of accredited investors. [more..]

New York - Veotag, a developer of Web video and audio time-stamp tagging technology, has raised $750,000 in a round of angel financing, VentureBeat reported. [more..]

London - Following the major label's announcement yesterday that it would provide DRM-free music for sale on retail giant Amazon.com's forthcoming digital music store, EMI Music said that it has additionally signed deals to provide its artists' tracks free of digital rights management to other European retailers. EMI will offer its catalog to VirginMega in France, as well as to Scandinavian services including Telenor, Musicbrigade, Inprodicon, Basepoint Media, Aspiro and Paragallo. [more..]

San Francisco - Mandolin virtuoso David Grisman, who has recorded with Jerry Garcia and The Grateful Dead, has sued Google's YouTube for copyright infringement, the Associated Press reported. Grisman and business partner Craig Miller, who also co-own the Acoustic Disc record label, filed the suit on May 10 in San Francisco, and are seeking unspecified damages from Google. ''We are looking out for ourselves and all the other people like us -- musicians and independent publishers,'' Miller told AP. [more..]

London - The U.K.'s Association of Independent Music (AIM), a trade group of over 200 independent record labels, announced that it has signed an agreement with the U.K. Podcasters Association that will allow for some 30,000 full-length tracks to be licensed for legal broadcast within podcasts. AIM member labels include Beggars Group, V2, Domino, Ninja Tune and Rough Trade. [more..]

Los Angeles - Concert promotion giant Live Nation on Thursday announced the launch of a new video feature on its site that offers hundreds of live performance clips and interviews. Live Nation TV will offer segments from hundreds of shows recorded in Live Nation venues, such as House of Blues. The site also offers concert tickets, tour dates and information on artists and venues. [more..]

Redmond, Wash. - As part of the upcoming Live Earth climate crisis concert series, a new song from recording artist Madonna has been placed for free download on Microsoft's LiveEarth.MSN.com site, which will also stream the concert series live on July 7. MSN said it will donate 25 cents for each of the first million downloads of "Hey You" -- a song written specifically for the Live Earth event -- to the Alliance for Climate Protection. [more..]

Minneapolis - Consumer electronics and media retailer Best Buy announced that it has added video game ratings created by the non-profit group Common Sense Media to those from the industry-created Entertainment Software Ratings Board (ESRB) on its website. Best Buy is the first retailer to partner with the group, which says its ratings are "based on childhood development criteria for age-appropriateness," and provide detailed accounts of "violence, sexual content and profanity." Best Buy said it plans to add Common Sense's movie reviews as well at a later date. [more..]