Washington - A bipartisan group of lawmakers on Wednesday introduced a new bill that would increase civil penalties for copyright infringement, bolster criminal enforcement, and create a new federal agency tasked with copyright protection, CNET News.com reported. [more..]

Washington - Large Internet radio purveyors AOL, Yahoo, RealNetworks, Pandora and Live365 earlier this week sent a letter to key lawmakers in Washington, asking them to consider performance royalty parity for broadcast, satellite, cable and Internet radio. [more..]

London - Artist management firms representing more than 400 performing artists, including Radiohead, Arctic Monkeys and KT Tunstall, have joined together to try to secure artists a share of secondary online concert ticket sales. [more..]

London - Radiohead will end the choose-your-own-price experiment with the online release of its "In Rainbows" album on Monday, and is now in talks with Apple on an iTunes Store release for the record, Billboard reports. [more..]

Reston, Va. - More than $14 billion has been spent online so far this holiday season, up 17% from the same period a year ago, according to new statistics from Internet audience metrics provider comScore. [more..]

San Francisco - Music Intelligence Solutions, a developer of digital music and media discovery services, announced that it has raised $7 million in new funding from angel investors. [more..]

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Los Angeles - Comedic actor Will Ferrell and his FunnyOrDie.com comedy site venture on Thursday announced that Ferrell will host a nationwide college campus comedy tour, along with fellow comics Zach Galifianakis, Demetri Martin and Nick Swardson, to promote the upcoming release of Ferrell's film, "Semi-Pro." [more..]

Mountain View, Calif. - Google has released a new iPhone application that integrates multiple services, including Gmail, Calendar, Reader and other Google Mobile products on a single interface. [more..]

San Francisco - Friendster, which claims to be the top social network in the Asia Pacific region -- according to comScore Media Metrix data -- announced on Thursday that the service is now available in Japanese in Korean. [more..]

New York - Verizon has announced the addition of HD video-on-demand to its FiOS TV Internet-based digital TV service. [more..]

Los Angeles - OurChart.com, a social networking site for lesbians, announced on Thursday that it will host an exclusive online premiere of the fifth season of Showtime Networks' original series "The L Word" on Dec. 30, a week before its broadcast premiere. [more..]

Kirkland, Wash. - Digeo, makers of the Moxi digital media recorder set-top box device, announced on Thursday the beta release of a PC application that lets PC users with a TV tuner card and Windows XP to watch, record and play TV content from their PC. [more..]

San Mateo, Calif. - Video game publisher Capcom announced on Thursday that it has begun development on "Street Fighter IV," the first new installment in the fighting game series in nearly eight years. [more..]