London - The British government has threatened to enact legislation that would compel Internet service providers in the country to take actions to curb illegal file-sharing, if ISPs and entertainment industry interests cannot come up with voluntary policies by April 2009. [more..]

Washington - The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced this week that it has sent another round of 401 "settlement letters" to users of campus networks at 12 universities alleged to have engaged in illegal file-sharing, making for a total of more than 5,400 such letters sent since the record label trade group began the practice a year ago. [more..]

Seattle - RealNetworks announced on Friday that it has acquired Trymedia Systems, a provider of digital distribution services for casual games, from Macrovision for $4 million. [more..]

Los Angeles - Online retail giant Amazon.com is set to produce its first full-length motion picture, partnering with 20th Century Fox to adapt "The Stolen Child," a fantasy novel written by Keith Donahue, Variety reported. [more..]

Washington - Despite the recent slowdown in the U.S. economy, angel investors are optimistic about the climate for investments in early-stage companies during 2008, according to a new survey by the Angel Capital Association (ACA). [more..]

Buffalo, N.Y. - As It Is Inc., an intellectual property holding and development company, announced that it has raised $3 million in venture capital, which represents 60% of its $5 million target. [more..]

Los Angeles - The Mozilla Firefox Web browser, an open-source alternative to competitors such as Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator or Apple's Safari, has now been downloaded over 500 million times, according to a note on SpreadFirefox.com. [more..]

New York - Last.fm, the social music discovery service acquired by CBS last year for $280 million, announced on Friday that, since introducing free on-demand music streaming to its service last month, it has seen unique visitors grow 59% and page views jump 58%. [more..]

New York - LimeWire, the company behind the peer-to-peer file-sharing software that runs on the Gnutella network, announced that it has signed a deal with independent music distributor Redeye Distribution, to add 20,000 tracks from over 200 labels to the LimeWire Store. [more..]

New York - IAC's comedy video site CollegeHumor said on Friday that it will offer its original programming through Joost, the peer-to-peer based streaming TV service. [more..]