Los Angeles - News Corporation's MySpace online social network announced on Monday that it has implemented technology to block videos containing copyrighted content from being posted to the site. [more..]

Washington - U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who recently announced his intention to run for President, has become the first candidate to launch his or her own online social network. [more..]

Sacramento, Calif. - Digital Music Group, Inc. (DMGI), an owner of various video content and digital distributor of independent music, announced on Monday an agreement with Google's YouTube to license some of its classic film and TV catalog for distribution on the video-sharing site. [more..]

New York - Online entertainment site Bolt.com has agreed to pay several million dollars to settle a copyright infringement lawsuit with major record label Universal Music Group, The New York Times reported on Monday. [more..]

Palo Alto, Calif. - Azureus, a BitTorrent-based peer-to-peer file-sharing application, announced on Monday that it has signed an agreement with Liberty Media's Starz, to distribute Starz video content on its Zudeo file-sharing network. [more..]

Barcelona - U.K.-based mobile music firm Omnifone on Monday announced the upcoming launch of its mobile music download service in Europe and Asia. [more..]

Austin, Texas - Gamecock Media Group on Monday announced its launch as an independent publisher that will help finance and release titles from smaller game developers. [more..]

Barcelona - Discretix, a provider of security and digital rights management (DRM) technologies for mobile devices and Flash-based memory, announced on Monday that it has raised $20 million in a new round of financing, led by Sequoia Capital. [more..]

Santa Monica, Calif. - Bellrock Media, a developer of premium entertainment content, announced on Monday that it has acquired Moderati, a publisher of mobile entertainment content. [more..]

Ramat Hasharon, Israel - Zlango, the developer of an icon-based language for use in SMS text messages, announced on Monday that it has raised $12 million in a new round of venture capital financing, led by Benchmark Capital and Accel Partners. [more..]

Santa Monica, Calif. - Canadian film studio Lionsgate announced on Monday that it will make more than 150 of its films available for purchase and download from Apple's iTunes Store this month. The deal includes titles like "Terminator 2," "LA Story," "Basic Instinct" and "The Blair Witch Project." The iTunes Store's film library now includes over 400 titles; the site has sold a total of over 1.3 million movies. [more..]

San Diego - MP3tunes, the digital music firm started by MP3.com founder Michael Robertson, announced on Monday the launch of unlimited, free online music storage with its Oboe service. The Oboe music locker allows users to upload and stream their digital music collections from any Internet-connected computer, as well as some digital video recorders and mobile phones. San Diego-based MP3tunes also offers a premium version of Oboe for $39.95 per year, which includes support for a greater number of devices, unrestricted album cover art, and music files larger than 10MB. [more..]

Cambridge, Mass. - Internet TV distributor Brightcove announced on Monday that it has signed new agreements with publishers Time Inc. and TV Guide. Time Inc. already uses Massachusetts-based Brightcove's technology on Time.com, and plans to produce original video content for a number of its websites, which will supported by ads and distributed by Brightcove. TV Guide Broadband will use Brightcove to publish and manage online video for syndication to its website affiliates, including AOL Video and Google Video. [more..]

New York - The Associated Press said that it has signed an agreement with NowPublic.com, a Vancouver, Canada-based site that features contributions from "citizen journalists," that allows AP to use photos, videos and news from the site. AP's vice president and director of strategic planning, Jim Kennedy, said that AP editors will work with the site to ensure the accuracy of its content, which will be chosen at AP editors' discretion to supplement the work of AP journalists. NowPublic.com members will be compensated and credited for their work. [more..]

Barcelona - The Sundance Institute on Monday introduced the five original made-for-mobile short films it commissioned as part of the Sundance Film Festival Global Short Film Project at the 3GSM World Congress in Barcelona. The short films will initially be available only at the mobile industry conference, with wide distribution to mobile audiences to begin on Feb. 15. "We hope that the Global Short Film project inspires filmmakers and artists to think outside of the realm of traditional venues for cinema, and experiment with mobile as an intimate new avenue -- with global potential -- for their work," said John Cooper, director of programming for the Sundance Film Festival and creative director for Sundance Institute. [more..]

Orlando, Fla. - The HD Digital Radio Alliance, an industry group promoting the digital radio broadcasting technology, on Monday announced the availability of the first car radio add-on accessory that permits virtually any car radio to received HD radio programming. The $199 HD Car Connect Radio from Directed Electronics, available from retailer Crutchfield, features a multi-line display that shows station information, as well as artist and song titles available on free HD Radio stations. [more..]

New York - The Nielsen Company announced on Monday that it will consolidate its digital TV set-top box data into a new service, Nielsen DigitalPlus. The service will incorporate set-top box data from cable and satellite TV firms, with TV measurement data from Nielsen Media Research; commercial activity data from Nielsen Monitor Plus; retail and scanning information from A.C. Nielsen; and modeling and forecasting information from Claritas, Spectra and Bases. [more..]