Washington - SoundExchange, the record industry entity that collects and distributes digital music royalties, announced on Tuesday an offer to extend the terms of the Small Webcaster Settlement Act (SWSA) through 2010, in a response to Congressional pressure to reach a compromise on the new royalty rates for streaming music set recently by the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB). [more..]

Brussels - The European Commission has approved the $2.19 billion acquisition of BMG Music Publishing by Vivendi's Universal Music Group, Reuters reported. [more..]

San Francisco - Blinkx, a searchable index of Web video, saw its shares rise 40% in their initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange Tuesday, which garnered around $50 million and saw the company valued at nearly $355 million. [more..]

New York - The New York State Senate yesterday passed a bill that would ban the sale of violent video games to minors, GamePolitics.com reported. [more..]

New York - Media conglomerate Viacom announced on Tuesday that it has created a joint venture with India-based TV18Group, which will distribute TV, film and digital media content across numerous brands in India. [more..]

Washington - A software problem caused an unknown number of subscribers to XM Satellite Radio to experience outages in their service for about a day, the Associated Press reported. [more..]

Washington - The number of U.S. youth (ages 8-18) illegally downloading copyrighted works off the Internet has fallen 24% in the past three years, according to a new survey conducted by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), a trade group representing copyright holders. [more..]

Santa Clara, Calif. - Chipmakers Intel and STMicroelectronics, along with private equity firm Francisco Partners, on Tuesday announced plans to create a new independent semiconductor company that will focus on flash memory for cell phones, MP3 players, digital cameras and other consumer electronics. [more..]

New York - CBS Interactive has agreed to acquire Wallstrip, a video blog focused on the stock market, for an undisclosed sum. [more..]

Atlanta - Time Warner's CNN announced on Tuesday that it has made an undisclosed equity investment in Internet Broadcasting, an online publisher of local TV news content, and signed a strategic news and advertising deal with the company. [more..]

New York - Joost, the advertising-supported, peer-to-peer streaming TV service, announced on Tuesday that it has signed with Creative Artists Agency (CAA) to help secure content for distribution on its online entertainment network. [more..]

New York - Microsoft's share of the U.S. search market fell in April, to 9% from 10.1% a month earlier, while Google advanced further ahead of the rest of the pack, growing its share from 53.7% in March to 55.2% last month, according to data from Nielsen/NetRatings. [more..]

Tarrytown, N.Y. - On2 Technologies, a developer of digital video compression and streaming technologies, announced on Tuesday that it will acquire Hantro, a Finland-based developer of video technology for mobile devices, for about $58.4 million in cash and stock. [more..]

Silver Spring, Md. - Travel Channel Media, the travel media business previously owned by Discovery Communications and recently acquired by Cox Communications, said that it has acquired California-based online travel magazine World Hum. [more..]

Atlanta - DiscRevolt, a developer of online music downloading technology for independent musicians, has raised $1.5 million in funding from a group of angel investors, the Atlanta Business Chronicle reported. [more..]

Mountain View, Calif. - Google has launched a new feature called Hot Trends, which allows users to see a list of the current top 100 fastest-rising Google search queries in the U.S. The list will be updated several times daily, and will also be cataloged so users can select specific dates to see what the top-rising searches were at a given point in time. [more..]

New York - Sirius Satellite Radio announced on Tuesday that it has partnered with the surviving members of legendary rock band the Grateful Dead, to launch a new radio channel that will feature the music of the Dead and its members' side projects. Slated to launch this summer, Grateful Dead Radio will feature live performances from the band's archives, bootlegs produced by fans, previously unreleased recordings, and shows hosted by band members. [more..]

San Diego - VMix, an interactive media and social networking community, announced on Tuesday that it has signed an agreement to provide publisher Media General with technology for managing user-generated videos, photos, audio, blogs, ratings, polls and other community content. The VMix technology will be deployed across more than 50 Media General sites, including those of The Tampa Tribune, Richmond Times-Dispatch and Winston-Salem Journal. [more..]

San Mateo, Calif. - RockYou, a developer and distributor of Web widgets, announced that it has partnered with online music firms Snocap, Fliptrack, Pump Audio and Nettwerk Records. San Mateo, Calif.-based RockYou said that it now serves over 360 million free music plays each month on existing widgets, such as Web photo slideshows added to social networks and blogs. The deals will allow users of RockYou widgets to include select tracks controlled by Snocap, Fliptrack, Pump Audio and Nettwerk as background music for slideshows and other widgets. RockYou will also allow for the creation of Snocap MyStores on its site, so users can instantly purchase songs. [more..]

San Francisco - Slide, an online personal media network that lets users create photo slideshows, announced on Tuesday that it has added the ability for users to add music to their slideshows, through deals with Snocap, Bebo Bands, Nettwerk, Pump Audio and Bradstreet Entertainment. Once users create a slideshow on Slide, it can be embedded on blogs or social networks like MySpace, Facebook and Bebo. [more..]