New York - In another battle in the war between old and new media companies to control monetization of content on the Web, NBC has said it won't renew a contract with Apple to sell its TV shows from the iTunes Store, The New York Times reported on Friday. [more..]

New York - Amazon.com is gearing up to launch its long-awaited digital music service in mid-September, the New York Post reported on Friday, citing sources familiar with the situation. [more..]

Washington - The National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA), a trade association that represents over 700 U.S. music publishers, announced on Friday that it has settled its lawsuit against German media conglomerate Bertelsmann, over the company's investment in the Napster file-sharing service in 2000. [more..]

New York - Facebook has asked a judge to throw out a lawsuit filed against it by ConnectU, a rival social network that claims Facebook was created from code stolen from ConnectU's creators, the Boston Globe reported on Friday. [more..]

San Francisco - An independent filmmaker who posted some of his work on YouTube, which was then used without permission by Viacom on a TV show, has seen his posting of Viacom's use of his work removed from YouTube by the media conglomerate, CNET News.com reported. [more..]

Bangkok, Thailand - The government of Thailand has ended a countrywide four-month ban on YouTube, following the company's promise not to allow videos to be posted that violate its laws or "are deemed offensive to Thai people," the Associated Press reported. [more..]

Paris - Dailymotion, a video-sharing site based in France that competes with YouTube, Metacafe, Veoh Networks and others, has raised $34 million in new financing, from Advent Venture Partners and AGF Private Equity, The Wall Street Journal reported. [more..]

Tokyo - Japan has enacted a law making it illegal to bring a camcorder into a movie theater to pirate films, with violators to face up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $89,960, Variety reported. [more..]

Santa Monica, Calif. - Jacked, a developer of interactive TV technology, has raised $6.5 million in its first round of venture capital financing, from Provenance Ventures, Core Capital Partners and Gabriel Venture Partners, PaidContent.org reported. [more..]

Mountain View, Calif. - Six weeks after raising $15 million in its third round of funding, TheFind, developer of a shopping search engine for lifestyle goods, said that it has acquired high fashion shopping website Glimpse.com. [more..]

Jive Records came clean today following the leaked version of Britney Spears' new song and album. [more..]

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Jay Baage blogs about how 17-year old New Jersey hacker George Hotz is already at work on a new iPhone-related project.
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Berlin - Korean consumer electronics maker Samsung this week introduced its line of third-generation Blu-ray Disc players, including a dual Blu-ray/HD DVD player. [more..]

Berlin - DivX, a developer of video compression technology, said on Friday that it has partnered with Accedo Broadband, and will feature the company's TV gaming services on its home networking platform. [more..]

Fairfax, Va. - Electronic Arts and BL Publishing, a division of Games Workshop that publishes fiction set in the "Warhammer" game worlds, announced on Friday that BL will publish an original novel based on EA's forthcoming "Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning" massively multiplayer online roleplaying game.
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San Francisco - CMP Game Group this week announced that it will launch a sister event for mobile games at its Game Developers Conference, which will be held in San Francisco in February. [more..]