New York - Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. has reached a tentative deal to acquired Wall Street Journal publisher Dow Jones for $5 billion, but must still gain approval from the Bancroft family, which owns 64% of Dow Jones voting power and has expressed reservations about the deal, the Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday. [more..]

New York - Facing an advertising downturn, Time Inc.'s Business 2.0 technology industry magazine may shutter in September, The New York Times reported on Tuesday. [more..]

San Francisco - In the first known case of its kind, the recording industry has been ordered by a court to pay $70,000 in legal fees to a woman it unsuccessfully sued for copyright infringement on file-sharing networks, CNET News.com reported. [more..]

Seattle - Hackers have once again cracked Microsoft's Windows Media digital rights management, allowing average PC users to remove the security technology on music and video files, the Associated Press reported. [more..]

London - Russian music download store Alltunes has won a court case that will reinstate payments from a Russian agent of credit card provider Visa on the service, TheRegister reported. [more..]

Paris - Dailymotion, a France-based video-sharing site that recently launched a dedicated U.S. version of its service, has been ordered by a court in Paris to pay nearly $32,000 in fines for distributing a clip of a copyrighted film, Variety reported. [more..]

Seattle - Oberon Media, a publisher of casual online and mobile games, announced on Tuesday that it has acquired PixelPlay, a developer and distributor of interactive TV games. [more..]

Boston - Venture capital firm Spark Capital announced on Tuesday the closing of its second fund -- called Spark II -- that will have $360 million in investment capital. [more..]

Seattle - A global survey of online gamers has found that 83% are willing to view a 30-second ad in order to play a game for free. [more..]

Seattle - Fisher Communications, a Seattle-based company that owns 19 TV and eight radio stations in the Pacific Northwest, announced on Tuesday that it has acquired Pegasus News, the provider of an online, hyper-local news service. [more..]

Newark, Calif. - Connectbeam, a provider of social networking software for businesses, announced on Tuesday that it has raised $3.5 million in its first round of venture capital financing, led by Gabriel Venture Partners and Startup Capital Ventures. [more..]

Heather Hopkins blogs about how Facebook still has a way to go before it catches MySpace or Bebo, but the trend is clear, the social networking traffic is increasingly going to Facebook in the UK.
[more..]

Rohit Bhargava writes about a new generation of Librarians who are blogging, contributing to wikis, using social media to locate and organize information and along the way, reinventing a profession that is likely to be one of the most important careers of the future. [more..]

Tokyo - Sony Computer Entertainment will release a slimmer version of its PSP handheld game system in Japan on Sept. 20, Reuters reported. [more..]

Los Angeles - NBC Digital Entertainment has announced plans to introduce social networking features on its website in September, alongside the debut of streaming episodes of "Late Night With Conan O'Brien," according to The Hollywood Reporter. [more..]

Nashville - SESAC, the performing rights organization, has signed a licensing agreement with News Corp.'s MySpace social network, giving the site full access to SESAC's entire repertory. [more..]

London - ROK Entertainment Group, a U.K.-based provider of mobile TV delivery services, said on Tuesday that it has completed what it says is the first music concert to be streamed live via GPRS over a 2.5G network to mobile phones. [more..]

Las Vegas - IODA, a digital distributor of independent music, announced on Tuesday its entry into music video and film distribution, with the signing of distribution deals with Heretic Films, Greenline Digital, Lifestyle Media, Cyan Pictures, Crystal Clarity and Cugat, Inc. [more..]

Mountain View, Calif. - Loopt on Tuesday announced the launch of its social mapping service with U.S. mobile carrier Sprint. [more..]

New York - Warner Music Group's Atlantic Records said on Tuesday that it has partnered with Virginia-based Hook Mobile to launch mobile trading card communities for its artists. [more..]

London - 7digital, a U.K.-based music and video download store, said on Monday that it partnered with the Nationwide Mercury Prize, which is awarded to the best music album released in the U.K. each year. [more..]

Toronto - Musicrypt, a provider of secure digital distribution of song singles and other content from record labels to radio stations, announced on Tuesday that it has changed its name to Yangaroo. [more..]

Seattle - RealNetworks announced on Tuesday that it has signed a multi-year deal with toymaker Mattel, to develop, publish and distribute PC and online game versions of its "Scrabble," "UNO" and other titles. [more..]

Los Angeles - Game publisher Conspiracy Entertainment said on Tuesday that it has signed an agreement with developer Data Design Interactive, to publish nine of the studio's titles exclusively for the Nintendo Wii console. [more..]