Port Washington, N.Y. - U.S. video game sales were up 9% in August, to $1.08 billion, representing the smallest jump in over two years, according to a report from market research firm NPD Group. [more..]

Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. - The National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) has filed a countersuit against CBS, which last week asked a federal judge to issue a ruling stating that its fantasy football games do not infringe on players' rights. [more..]

Washington - Following criticism from Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) over the existence of terrorist recruitment videos on the site, Google's YouTube has taken the step of banning videos that incite others to violence, The Washington Post reported. [more..]

Los Angeles - A consortium of over 20 consumer electronics firms, service providers, retailers and Hollywood studios on Friday announced the creation of the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem, which aims to define and build a new framework that will enable consumers to acquire and play content across a wide range of services and devices. [more..]

Sunnyvale, Calif. - Yahoo is planning to open its Yahoo Music section to third-party music service providers including YouTube, Pandora, Last.fm, Amazon and iTunes when the company unveils a redesign in late October, Wired.com reports. [more..]

Mountain View, Calif. - Google has acquired Korea-based blogging software platform company TNC for an undisclosed sum. [more..]

Santa Monica, Calif. - Video game publisher Activision announced on Friday that it has acquired U.K.-based music game developer FreeStyleGames. [more..]

Seattle - Big Fish Games, a provider of online games and interactive entertainment, announced on Friday that it has landed a new $83.3 million round of funding, from General Catalyst Partners, Balderton Capital and Salmon River Capital. [more..]

San Francisco - Envivio, a provider of IP video convergence encoding technology, announced on Friday that it has raised $25 million in new venture capital funding, led by Harbourvest and Atlantic Bridge, as well as Samsung Ventures. [more..]

San Diego - Legend Films, a San Diego-based entertainment and digital media company, said on Friday that it has raised $5 million in its fifth round of funding, led by Augustus Ventures with participation from Par Investment Partners. [more..]

Illusion Labs is an iPhone game developer which is getting a lot of attention for its latest creation, an advergame called called iPint for Carling beer. [more..]

Los Angeles - The Los Angeles Times reported on Friday that News Corp.'s MySpace, which has been searching for a chief executive for its forthcoming MySpace Music service for the past six months, has narrowed its search to finalists including Andy Schuon and Owen Van Natta. [more..]

London - Passionato this week launched its digital music store offering over 18,000 DRM-free classical music recordings, available as 320 kbps MP3s or in the lossless FLAC format. [more..]

Santa Monica, Calif. - Film studio Lionsgate said on Friday that it has teamed with Spain-based mobile content distributor Zed to co-develop mobile entertainment projects based on its movies, TV programming and music, as well as original properties for mobile. [more..]

Los Angeles - Viacom's Paramount Digital Entertainment unit has partnered with Sweden-based Accedo Broadband to offer a range of movie-themed video games on Asian telco TV and IPTV services, Variety reports. [more..]