Seattle - RealNetworks on Monday unveiled a "Music Without Limits" initiative, which includes the launch of a new DRM-free Rhapsody MP3 store and 100,000 album giveaway, full-song streaming and MP3 sales partnerships with iLike, MTV and Yahoo, and an unlimited mobile subscription service deal with Verizon Wireless. [more..]

London - Major record label EMI has filed copyright infringement litigation against online social network Hi5, video site VideoEgg, and ten undisclosed John Doe defendants, TechCrunch reported. [more..]

Beijing - Chinese online video site Youku.com announced on Monday that it has raised $30 million in new private equity financing, led by Maverick Capital, with participation from previous investors Brookside Capital, Sutter Hill Ventures, Farallon Capital and Chengwei Ventures. [more..]

Washington - A federal jury has handed down the first criminal copyright infringement conviction, finding a 26-year-old Virginia man guilty for his role in operating EliteTorrents.org, a peer-to-peer site that offered pre-release movies and other content, the U.S. Justice Department said. [more..]

New York - (RED), the nonprofit campaign spearheaded by U2 frontman Bono whose goal is to help eliminate AIDS in Africa, announced on Monday that it plans to launch a $5-per-month digital music subscription service that will help fund its efforts. [more..]

Emeryville, Calif. - Lithium Technologies, the provider of a platform that lets businesses create their own social networks and online communities, announced on Monday that it has raised a $12 million second round of financing, led by Benchmark Capital. [more..]

San Francisco - Online social network Hi5 announced on Monday that it has acquired PixVerse, the provider of a Flash-based, no-download virtual world platform for social networks. [more..]

San Francisco - Mashery, a provider of services that help companies create APIs that open their content for use across the Web, announced that it has raised $2 million in new financing, led by .406 Ventures. [more..]

New York - PopTok, a service that lets people inject movie, TV and music clips into IM and e-mail conversations, on Monday announced a private beta launch of its application, and seed funding from Jerusalem Venture Partners and GTI Group. [more..]

Los Angeles - Platinum Studios, a company that controls a library of more than 5,600 comic book characters that it adapts for various media, announced on Monday that it is in talks to acquire WOWIO, a digital distributor of digital books and comics. [more..]

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The basic premises on which NBC Universal made its Olympics deal more than four years ago no longer hold. You can't buy exclusivity anymore and it wouldn't be worth paying for if you could. But NBC is stuck trying to pretend that you can, blogs Paul Sweeting. [more..]

New York - Pop culture-inspired fashion retail store chain Hot Topic plans next month to launch its own digital music store, ShockHound, which will sell music from at least three of the four major labels in MP3 format, The New York Times reported on Monday. [more..]

Los Angeles - "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane has signed a deal with Google to release a new project exclusively on the Internet, which will be syndicated via Google's AdSense system to "thousands of Web sites that are predetermined to be gathering spots for Mr. MacFarlance's target audience," The New York Times reported. [more..]

Washington - The U.S. Copyright Office has announced that it will introduce its new online copyright registration system on Tuesday. [more..]

London - European wireless carrier Vodafone on Monday announced a partnership with News Corp.'s MySpace that will see video footage from Vodafone-sponsored music events placed on MySpace sites in Germany, Italy, Spain and the U.K. [more..]

New York - Viacom's MTV Games and Harmonix studio said on Monday that "Rock Band 2," the sequel to their 15 million unit-selling music game with vocal, guitar and drum accessories, will be released to retailers in September. [more..]