Sunnyvale, Calif. - Yahoo said on Thursday that CFO Blake Jorgensen will be leaving the company, part of an organizational shakeup spearheaded by newly installed CEO Carol Bartz. [more..]

Washington - The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has filed an appeal of the Copyright Royalty Board's final determination of mechanical royalties for digital music with the U.S. Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia, Billboard reports. [more..]

Hamburg, Germany - Songbeat, a German music stream search engine and downloading application, has taken itself offline temporarily in the midst of a copyright lawsuit filed by Warner Music Group, TechCrunch reported. [more..]

Los Angeles - The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the major record label trade group, has laid off around 25 employees, or about 20% of its total staff, according to various published reports. [more..]

Dulles, Va. - Maneesh Dhir plans to step down as the head of AOL's international unit following 10 years with the company to return to his "entrepreneurial roots," according to an internal memo obtained by AllThingsD. [more..]

Washington - The U.S. could reap as much as $52 billion in revenue over the next ten years by lifting its ban on Internet gambling, according to a report conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers for online payment services firm UC Group. [more..]

Washington - The majority of companies already have completed the bulk of their sweeping cost-cutting measures in the face of the ongoing recession, though many are still planning further moves such as salary and hiring freezes, as well as reduced 401(k) matches, according to a new survey by consulting firm Watson Wyatt. [more..]

New York - As the nation's recession leaves more and more people looking for new jobs, web traffic to career development sites continues to grow in step, according to new figures from Nielsen Online.
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Los Angeles - Japanese mobile carrier Softbank Mobile plans to launch a promotion this week that will offer a free 8GB Apple iPhone 3G to customers who sign up for a two-year contract, TechCrunch reported. [more..]

Huntington Beach, Calif. - BridgeCo, a provider of networked entertainment technology, said on Thursday that it has raised $6 million in new financing. [more..]

"We’ve spent over a decade with the lawyers nitpicking over what we call the transfer of money for music and I’m tired of it," Jim Griffin said in a keynote at Digital Music Forum East. [more..]

Perez Hilton's #1 source of traffic is Facebook, not Google, as of last month, blogs Heather Hopkins. [more..]

Hollywood - The editorial team from Defamer, the Hollywood gossip blog recently folded into Gawker Media's flagship site, has been hired to re-launch an online version of Movieline, the arts and entertainment magazine. [more..]

Brooklyn, N.Y. - TuneCore, the provider of a service that distributes independent artists' tracks to digital retailers like iTunes and Amazon MP3, announced that it has established a new range of sales awards, giving Nine Inch Nails the first "Black" TuneCore award for selling 500,000 downloads of its "Ghosts I-IV" album. [more..]

London - Microsoft has struck a deal with NBC Universal that will make 30 new film titles available for purchase and download on the Xbox Live Marketplace across Europe, GamesIndustry.biz reported. [more..]

Cupertino, Calif. - Apple has added an "Indie Spotlight" section to its iTunes Store, which features new releases, samplers from independent record labels, indie music podcasts, and playlists curated by indie artists. [more..]

San Francisco - Casual games developer PlayFirst, creator of the "Diner Dash" franchise, on Thursday named Mari Baker as CEO and Jim Wandrey as chief financial officer. [more..]