Washington - The U.S. Senate on Friday approved the PRO-IP Act, which will beef up penalties and enforcement of intellectual property laws -- but the bill as passed did not include a controversial provision that would have granted the Justice Dept. new authority to prosecute civil copyright infringement cases. [more..]

San Francisco - A federal appeals court has overturned a $1.5 billion damages award that Microsoft had been ordered to pay France's Alcatel-Lucent over patents related to MP3 technology, CNET News.com reported. [more..]

Los Angeles - After independent record label bodies including Merlin and A2IM criticized MySpace for not offering them an equity position in its MySpace Music joint venture with the major record labels, MySpace responded in a statement saying it offered all labels the same deal, while independent music digital distributor The Orchard, which signed on with MySpace Music, explained its decision. [more..]

Los Angeles - The creator of online mixtape service Muxtape has posted on his website the details of how the site was shutdown at the behest of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) last month, at a time when he was in active discussions with the major labels on licensing deals, and how he walked away from the licensing deals and will re-launch the service from scratch as a promotional tool for bands. [more..]

San Francisco - Major record label Universal Music Group is developing an online hub for music videos that will be similar in scope to Hulu, the website joint venture of News Corp. and NBC Universal that streams a range of TV shows and movies from its partners, CNET News.com reported, citing a source close to the company. [more..]

Miami, Fla. - The Florida Supreme Court this week permanently disbarred Miami attorney Jack Thompson, a vocal critic of violence in video games who had specifically targeted Take-Two Interactive and its "Grand Theft Auto" franchise. [more..]

Los Angeles - The Pirate Bay, the notorious Sweden-based file-sharing tracker site, is now once again legally available in Italy, after the site successfully appealed the ruling last month of an Italian judge, TorrentFreak reported. [more..]

Helsinki - Nokia will introduce the company's first touch-screen phone model to challenge the Apple iPhone next week, Reuters reports, citing two industry sources. [more..]

McLean, Va. - Bulletin News, a provider of business-focused news content, has raised $5 million from Dubilier & Co., a private equity firm. [more..]

London - Shazam, the developer of a mobile music discovery application that can identify tunes played within earshot of a mobile phone's microphone, said this week that its application for Apple's iPhone has been downloaded over 1.5 million times in its first six weeks of availability. [more..]

San Diego - MP3tunes, the digital music locker storage and streaming service launched by MP3.com founder Michael Robertson, this week introduced a new feature, Load2Mobile, which allows users to load songs to their phones from any computer, music website or their MP3tunes Music Lockers. [more..]

New York - Viacom's Atom.com digital comedy network said this week that it has signed a first-look production deal with writer-director Sandeep Parikh, whose "Legend of Neil" series on the site has generated 700,000 plays since debuting in August. [more..]

Fairfax, Va. - Game developer Mythic Entertainment announced that in the first week since the launch of its EA-published "Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning!" game over 500,000 new players have registered for the fantasy game. [more..]