Washington - Following more than a year of regulatory scrutiny, XM Satellite Radio's $3.9 billion merger with rival Sirius appears on the verge of completion following a deal between the companies and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to settle two-year-old compliance issues related to signal interference. [more..]

London - Six British Internet service providers have signed on to a voluntary code of conduct -- in the face of looming legislation -- that will see them send hundreds of thousands of letters to suspected illegal file-swappers and work with music and other rights holders "towards a significant reduction in illegal filesharing." [more..]

Washington - A bipartisan group of senators on Thursday introduced the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008, a bill that would authorize the Attorney General to prosecute civil copyright infringement cases, and also includes measures to strengthen both civil and criminal copyright laws and beef up law enforcement resources to fight intellectual property crimes. [more..]

Redmond, Wash. - Microsoft has announced a deal that will expand its relationship with online social network Facebook, in which the company invested $240 million for a 1.6% stake last October, and will now provide Web search and search advertising for the company beginning in the fall, The Wall Street Journal reported. [more..]

New York - NBC Universal and News Corp.'s Fox News Channel and Fox Television Stations have filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Redlasso, an online service that offers clips of news broadcasts and other video and audio content to bloggers for republishing online, The Wall Street Journal reported. [more..]

San Francisco - MySpace will launch its music service joint venture with three of the four major record labels in September, CEO Chris DeWolfe told reporters at the Fortune Brainstorm conference yesterday, TechCrunch reported. [more..]

Pawtucket, R.I. - Toymaker Hasbro has taken its previous demands a step further and today filed a copyright infringement suit against the makers of "Scrabulous," a knock-off version of its "Scrabble" board game that counts over 510,000 daily active users on Facebook. [more..]

Vancouver, Canada - MovieSet, a site that offers behind-the-scenes video of films in production, has received a $1.5 million investment from the British Columbia Discovery Fund as part of a $5 million round of financing, led by Rho Canada. [more..]

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San Francisco - Online social network Facebook has introduced Facebook Connect, which allows outside websites and applications to share data back and forth. The company launched the new feature with 24 partners, including Digg, Movable Type creators Six Apart and Citysearch. [more..]

San Diego - Sony announced on Thursday that its Reader Digital Book devices will be the first to support the EPUB format, an XML-based standard format from the International Digital Publishing Forum. [more..]

New York - Chrissie Hynde and veteran rock band the Pretenders will pre-release their forthcoming album as individual MP3s in the weeks leading up to its physical release on Sept. 23, Billboard reported. [more..]

San Francisco - AddictingGames, a unit of Viacom's MTV Networks, on Thursday announced that it will begin offering payments to developers of the 25 most-popular games on the site each financial quarter. [more..]

Redwood City, Calif. - Electronic Arts said on Thursday that it will launch the 20th anniversary edition of its "Madden NFL" football game with Maddenpalooza, a music, sports and gaming fan festival to take place August 11 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. [more..]