Redwood City, Calif. - Video game publisher and developer Electronic Arts announced on Thursday an agreement with Elevation Partners to acquire VG Holding Corp. -- the owner of both BioWare Corp. and Pandemic Studios -- in a deal valued at over $775 million. [more..]

Warren, N.J. - Virgin Mobile USA, the mobile virtual network operator joint venture between Richard Branson's Virgin Group and wireless carrier Sprint Nextel, has raised $412 million in its initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. [more..]

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a digital civil liberties advocate, will file a friend-of-the-court brief supporting Jammie Thomas' appeal of a jury verdict ordering her to pay $220,000 to the record industry for offering music in a shared folder on a file-sharing network, Wired News reported. [more..]

Minneapolis, Minn. - A recent survey of 980 U.S. teens conducted by Piper Jaffray found that 64% said they download music illegally, down from 72% a year ago, while 36% said they purchase music from online services, up from 28% last year. [more..]

San Francisco - The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has asked a federal judge to rule that the movie files linked to through BitTorrent search engine TorrentSpy infringe their copyrights, and also that the site has no "substantial noninfringing uses," CNET News.com reported. [more..]

Seoul, South Korea - Sony Computer Entertainment Korea plans to launch a service next month that will enable the PlayStation 3 to act as a set-top box to receive telecom KT's Mega TV IPTV service, The Korea Times reported. [more..]

Sacramento, Calif. - Digital Music Group, Inc. (DMGI), an owner and digital distributor of independent music, TV and video catalogs, said on Thursday that it has scheduled a special stockholder meeting to vote on its proposed merger with fellow digital distributor The Orchard. [more..]

Dallas - Worldwide shipments of video-capable portable media players will hit 132 million units in 2011, growing at an annualized rate of 30% over the next five years, according to a report from market research firm Parks Associates. [more..]

New York - CBS has acquired Dotspotter, a San Francisco-based celebrity gossip blog, for around $10 million, Valleywag reported. [more..]

Montreal - Bluestreak Technology, the developer of a platform for interactive TV and mobile phones, has raised $20 million in its fourth round of financing, led by Iris Capital, PEHub.com reported. [more..]

New York - Despite tightening credit markets, private equity firms continue to find limited partners eager to invest in their new funds, according to Dow Jones Private Equity Analyst. [more..]

Madonna is leaving Warner to accept a $120 million recording and touring offer from Live Nation. [more..]

The NBC show "Deal or No Deal" managed to capture the most traffic to television show web sites during the important TV premiere week at the end of September, followed by ABC's "Dancing With The Stars." [more..]

Rohit Bhargava blogs from the eMarketing Summit at the Innotech Conference where he keynoted on marketing in a Web 2.0 world. [more..]

San Francisco - New York Senator and presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton expressed support for continued negotiations between webcasters and SoundExchange over royalty rates for streaming music online, in an e-mail reply sent to constituents who queried her on the issue, Wired News reported. [more..]

Hollywood, Calif. - EMI and Capitol Records has made much of the late George Harrison's solo catalog available from digital retailers, marking the last of the former Beatles' works to be made available digitally. [more..]

Mountain View, Calif. - Google has launched a new feature on YouTube that allows users to find YouTube videos connected to specific locations through its Google Earth application. [more..]

New York - Viacom's MTV Networks on Thursday unveiled a redesigned TVLand.com website, which now features full-length streaming episodes of classic TV series including "The Andy Griffith Show," "Leave It To Beaver" and "Gunsmoke." [more..]

New York - Korean electronics firm Samsung on Thursday introduced the Beyonce Special Edition B'Phone, a limited edition handset it will release exclusively to Sprint subscribers in the U.S. [more..]

New York - Inc. Magazine has announced the launch of a new social network exclusively for the CEOs of privately held companies featured in the publication's Inc. 5000 list. [more..]

New York - Universal Music Group's Island Def Jam Music Group has announced plans to launch a mobile radio subscription service powered by mSpot. [more..]

Paris - Deezer, a France-based, ad-supported music service (formerly Blogmusik, an unlicensed service), has announced a licensing agreement with major label Sony BMG France. [more..]

Indianapolis, Ind. - MediaMouth (formerly Digital Kiosk Technologies), a maker of diital music retail kiosks, on Thursday introduced a Facebook application that lets users pick individual tracks and create custom CDs for themselves and their friends. [more..]

Los Angeles - Aniboom, a multi-platform animation network that features the work of independent animators from around the world, announced on Thursday that it is launching a branded, ad-supported animation channel on the Joost streaming TV service. [more..]

Agoura Hills, Calif. - Video game publisher THQ announced on Thursday a partnership with toymaker Mattel's American Girl division, to publish games based on the company's line of dolls and books. [more..]

Ottawa, Canada - Mobile game publisher Magmic Games said on Thursday that it has signed a deal that will make fellow publisher In-Fusio's mobile games available from carriers supporting BlackBerry devices, as well as on Bplay, Magmic's BlackBerry entertainment portal. [more..]