Washington - The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday approved the PRO-IP Act, a bill pushed for by Hollywood studios that would beef up law enforcement dedicated to protecting intellectual property, as well as increase penalties for piracy. [more..]

Philadelphia - Comcast, the nation's largest cable TV operator and provider of high-speed Internet to 14.1 million subscribers, is considering placing a 250GB monthly cap on the amount of bandwidth that subscribers may use for downloading content, a source from the company tells BroadbandReports.com. [more..]

Seattle - RealNetworks announced on Thursday that it will spin off its casual games business, and distribute shares in the newly created company to its shareholders. [more..]

Palo Alto, Calif. - Online social network Facebook on Thursday introduced a number of new privacy protections intended to safeguard younger users from sexual predators and cyberbullies, the Associated Press reported. [more..]

Washington - The Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) annual undercover sting operation where underage consumers try to buy R-rated movie tickets, DVDs and M-rated video games has found a dramatic improvement at video game retailers, where its secret shoppers were able to buy M-rated games just 20% of the time -- down from 42% in 2007 and 85% in 2000. [more..]

London - U.S. consumer electronics and media retail chain Best Buy announced on Thursday that it paid $2.1 billion to acquire 50% of the Carphone Warehouse, a mobile phone retailer that counts over 2,400 stores in nine European countries. [more..]

Mexico City - America Movil, a provider of wireless services in Latin America that claims 159.2 million subscribers in 16 countries, has announced a deal with Apple to launch the iPhone in the areas it serves later this year. [more..]

Los Angeles - Live Universe, the company started by MySpace founder Brad Greenspan, has acquired MeeVee, a provider of TV and online video listings, for an undisclosed sum, TechCrunch reports. [more..]

Dubai - KIT digital (formerly ROO Group), a provider of video distribution and interactive marketing services, announced on Thursday that it has raised $15 million through a private placement of equity. [more..]

New York - Giant Realm, an online entertainment portal whose sites target males 18-34 and attract 4.2 million unique monthly visitors, announced on Thursday that it has received a $2 million investment from SoftBank Capital. [more..]

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New York - Despite its much-publicized removal of its programs from Apple's iTunes Store in December, NBC has begun offering streaming full-length episodes of shows including "The Office" and "30 Rock" for free on the iPhone, Silicon Alley Insider reports. [more..]

Los Angeles - Microsoft recently doled out one-time bonus checks to independent digital music distributors including The Orchard and IODA, apparently to balance out the reported $1 per Zune sold it has granted to major labels including Universal Music Group, Hypebot reported. [more..]

Los Angeles - Warner Music Group has added DRM-free songs to Wal-Mart's online music store, which dropped songs from Warner as well as Sony BMG and Universal Music when it decided to offer only MP3s, Hypebot reports. [more..]

New York - Last.fm, the social music discovery service owned by CBS, has signed a deal to power AOL Europe's online radio service, beginning in the U.K., France and Germany. [more..]

Somerville, Mass. - The Echo Nest, a developer of enhanced music search, recommendation and interactivity technology, on Thursday launched Recommend, an API that can be used to offer a music discovery and recommendation tool n ay website, blog, social network or retail site. [more..]

Redwood City, Calif. - Electronic Arts has launched a new sub-brand, EA Sports Freestyle, which will target what it says is the growing casual sports games audience. [more..]

New York - Marvel Entertainment said on Thursday that it has entered into an exclusive licensing agreement with video game developer THQ, which will create video games based on the Marvel's kid-friendly Super Hero Squad franchise. [more..]