Washington - Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-MT) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) on Wednesday introduced the International Intellectual Property Protection and Enforcement Act of 2008, legislation intended to crack down on the theft of U.S. intellectual property around the world. [more..]

New York - A group of Apple senior executives, including CEO Steve Jobs, has agreed to settle a derivative lawsuit that alleged they damaged the company through their involvement in the backdating of Apple stock options, the Associated Press reports. [more..]

Dulles, Va. - Time Warner's AOL for the first time plans to open its AOL.com portal to outside content, allowing users to access email accounts from other providers and check their social networking pages directly from the site. [more..]

Washington - A 26-year-old found guilty of conspiracy and felony copyright infringement as an administrator of EliteTorrents, a BitTorrent file-sharing tracker site shut down in 2005, has been sentenced to 18 months in prison. [more..]

Seattle - Amazon.com announced on Wednesday that it has scored exclusive distribution rights to the biographies of potential first ladies Michelle Obama and Cindy McCain for its Kindle e-book reader device.
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London - Finetunes, a Germany-based digital music distributor, has sent a cease-and-desist letter to social music discovery service Last.fm, alleging the company is streaming songs that it is not authorized to offer, the company tells Billboard. [more..]

San Mateo, Calif. - VideoSurf, a new online video search service backed by Current Media co-founders Al Gore and Joel Hyatt, on Wednesday launched a beta version of its service at the TechCrunch50 conference in San Francisco.
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San Diego - SpinSpotter, a new online service that purports to be able to identify instances of bias and inaccuracy in any online news story, has announced the launch of its service, and an undisclosed sum of initial funding provided by Epic Ventures and angel investors. [more..]

Reston, Va. - Mpowerplayer, a developer of software that allows content providers to offer online demos of mobile games, said on Wednesday that it has secured $2.5 million in its first round of funding. [more..]

Seattle - Mobile game publishers Reaxion and Mobliss on Wednesday announced that they have merged to create PressOK Entertainment. [more..]

San Francisco - NBC, which pulled its TV shows from Apple's iTunes Store for a year over differences on pricing and bundling, was able to get Apple to allow some older shows to be sold for 99 cents, and won the rights to set its own pricing on some bundles on TV episode compilations when its shows returned to the store yesterday, CNET News.com reported. [more..]

New York - CBS announced on Wednesday that it will begin offering free live streaming of SEC college football games this year, the Associated Press reported. [more..]

Paris - French telecommunications equipment maker Alcatel-Lucent announced on Wednesday that it has partnered with Penn State University to jointly develop a mobile video social networking application. [more..]

San Francisco - RealNetworks on Wednesday announced the release of Cutting Tune, a service that mobile network operators can use to allow subscriber to select any portion of songs made available from content partners as ringtones or ringback tones. [more..]

New York - Warner Music International has signed a deal with France-based, ad-supported music service Deezer, that will see Warner tracks made available on Deezer in France, the U.K. and Germany. [more..]

Philadelphia - Comcast said on Wednesday that its Fancast broadband site will exclusively host the third season premiere of the ABC Family series "Lincoln Heights" for a week before its broadcast debut. [more..]

Madrid - Spain-based mobile content distributor Zed announced on Wednesday that it signed an agreement with the National Basketball Association (NBA) to distribute NBA mobile content in North America, Europe and parts of Asia. [more..]

Basking Ridge, N.J. - Verizon Wireless on Wednesday announced a slew of content additions to its V CAST Video service, which costs $15 per month. [more..]