Port Washington, N.Y. - The amount of music that U.S. consumers acquired in the U.S. increased by 6% in 2007, but a sharp spike in digital download revenues could not offset declines in CD sales and the market saw a net 10% decline in music spending for the year, according to data from market research firm NPD Group. [more..]

Cupertino, Calif. - Apple announced on Tuesday that its iTunes Store is now the second-largest music retailer in the U.S. behind Wal-Mart, having leapfrogged retail chain Best Buy in the latest figures from market research firm NPD Group. [more..]

Cambridge, Mass. - The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) signaled at a public hearing yesterday at Harvard Law School that the agency is prepared to act, if it finds that Internet service providers are discriminating against certain network traffic, such as file-sharing. [more..]

New York - Internet advertising revenues from 2007 are expected to come in at $21.1 billion, in a year that saw record revenue levels in all four quarters that propelled the market up 25% over 2006's record $16.9 billion, according to data from the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers. [more..]

Sydney - Following similar moves in France and England, where the former has enacted laws requiring Internet service providers to boot customers who repeatedly use illegal file-sharing networks, and the latter has threatened the same, Australia is now also pondering a "three strikes" law that would make ISPs police the file-sharing habits of their customers, Billboard reports. [more..]

Los Angeles - Disney's ABC has announced plans to make its primetime TV series available for free viewing on cable, satellite and telco TV video-on-demand services, with the stipulation that viewers will not be able to fast-forward through commercials. [more..]

Richmond, Va. - Media General, the owner of newspapers, TV stations and websites in the Southeast, said that it has signed a deal with Texas-based NARAE Enterprises to acquire DealTaker.com, an online social shopping portal with more than 100,000 registered users. [more..]

Baltimore - TidalTV, the developer of a broadband TV platform that will feature professionally produced, branded programming, announced on Tuesday that it has secured $15 million in its first round of venture capital, led by New Enterprise Associates and Valhalla Partners. [more..]

New York - Outbrain, a provider of ratings and recommendations for blogs, news and RSS content, announced on Tuesday that it has closed a $5 million first round of financing, led by Gemini Israel Funds and Lightspeed Venture Partners. [more..]

Mountain View, Calif. - FriendFeed, the developer of a social media platform that lets users keep up with what Web pages, photos, videos and music their friends and family are sharing, announced on Tuesday that it has raised $5 million in its first round of financing, from Benchmark Capital and company co-founders Paul Buchheit and Sanjeev Singh. [more..]

Norwalk, Conn. - Wyndstorm, a D.C.-based developer of social network technology, said on Tuesday that it will become a publicly traded company through a reverse merger with Connecticut-based Internet telephony firm PacketPort.com. [more..]

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Islamabad, Pakistan - Just days after initiating a country-wide ban on Google's YouTube -- that in the process inadvertently knocked out access to the site from most of the world for several hours -- Pakistan has restored its YouTube access, the Associated Press reports. [more..]

Palo Alto, Calif. - Stanford Law professor and Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig has decided against a run for Congress, after talking with a pollster who advised him his chances of winning would be slim, Wired.com reports. [more..]

Los Angeles - Gossip blogger Mario Lavandeira (aka Perez Hilton) has been negotiating a deal that would make him an A&R representative with major label Warner Music Group, complete with his own imprint at Warner Brothers Records, and a $100,000 advance against 50% of any profits generated by artists he brings to the label, people familiar with the prospective deal told The New York Times. [more..]

New York - AmieStreet.com, an online music retailer that offers variable song pricing, announced on Tuesday that top independent labels Beggars Group, Matador Records and Polyvinyl Recording have signed on to use its service. [more..]

Amsterdam - Fabchannel.com, a provider of live concert webcasts, announced on Tuesday that it has signed a deal with Universal Music Netherlands, for the rights to offer live recordings of Universal artists performing in Amsterdam. [more..]

Sunnyvale, Calif. - Yahoo on Tuesday introduced Buzz, a news aggregation feature for its homepage that highlights news stories, images, videos, blog posts or other content that Yahoo users have voted for as the most important of the moment. [more..]

Los Angeles - News Corp.'s MySpace on Tuesday launched a new original series, "Special Delivery," a hidden camera show produced in collaboration with Avalon TV that figures as the second to be created specifically for MySpaceTV. [more..]

Los Angeles - Television production company Endemol USA ("Deal or No Deal," "1 vs. 100") announced that it has formed a casual games division, which will first create Web games for its slate of TV gameshows. [more..]