Washington - The Digital Media Association (DiMA), a trade group that represents webcasters and online retailers like Apple and Amazon, on Friday asked a federal court to rule that online retailers' use of 30-second music preview clips are "fair use," and not subject to royalty payments. [more..]

Los Angeles - Video game publisher Activision, which recently merged with media conglomerate Vivendi's Blizzard Entertainment, has filed a copyright infringement suit against a New York man alleged to have illegally copied and distributed its game titles, Edge Online reported. [more..]

New York - Video game publisher Electronic Arts has decided to loosen the digital rights management (DRM) restrictions on its new game release, "Spore," after consumers complained the terms were too onerous and a pirated version of the game began to see heavy traffic on file-sharing networks, The Wall Street Journal reported. [more..]

Mountain View, Calif. - Americans conducted 11.7 billion Internet searches in August, with Google extending its lead in the market by another 1.1% over Yahoo, according to new figures released by comScore. [more..]

New York - The New York Times Co. announced on Thursday that its total revenues in August decreased 8.8% compared with the same month a year ago, with advertising revenues down 14.1% and circulation revenues up 0.9%. [more..]

Tokyo - Japan has made its first arrest of an individual who uploaded a movie to a file-sharing network before its official release, and Kazushi Hirata now faces up to ten years in prison and a fine of up to $96,000 for sharing the movie "Wanted" on Japan's Winny file-sharing network, according to reports. [more..]

Madrid - A Spanish court has ruled that a site offering links to download media files on third-party sites does not infringe on copyrights, TorrentFreak reported. [more..]

Chicago - Video game publisher Midway Games announced on Friday that it has secured a factoring agreement with parent company National Amusements that will provide the company with up to $40 million to offset the cost of manufacturing its fall 2008 games lineup. [more..]

Silver Spring, Md. - 1worldspace, a provider of satellite radio services in foreign markets, said on Friday that it has been granted a 10-day extension to repay debt while it searches for new financing options.
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Austin, Texas - Challenge Games, a developer of online fantasy sports games including "Duels" and "Baseball Boss," announced that it has raised $10 million in its second round of venture capital financing, led by Globespan Capital Partners. [more..]

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RedBubble ranked as the 2nd most visited website in the Hitwise Entertainment - Arts category for the week ending 13 September 2008, following the much longer established deviantART, blogs Sandra Hanchard. [more..]

Los Angeles - Movie producer Avi Arad has optioned the rights to develop a movie based on "Mass Effect," the popular sci-fi game developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts, Variety reported, citing confirmation by "numerous sources." [more..]

Ghent, Belgium - Netlog, a European online social network that counts over 35 million members, announced on Friday that it has opened its translation and localization capabilities to third-party developers. [more..]