Washington - The Obama administration's Justice Department has weighed in on the side of the major record labels in a federal lawsuit where an accused music file-swapper has argued that current law providing for $150,000 in damages per copyright violation is "punitive," CNET News.com reported. [more..]

San Francisco - Google may be gearing up to officially launch a rumored new venture capital arm, as someone was spotted at a conference last week with "Google Ventures" printed on his name tag, Reuters reported. [more..]

Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. - CBSSports.com reports that viewers of its March Madness on Demand live video streams of the NCAA Div. I Men's basketball tournament numbered 4.8 million through Saturday -- the third day of the tourney -- up 65% from the same point last year. [more..]

Wellington, New Zealand - Following public outcry and the staunch refusal of at least one ISP to participate, the government of New Zealand has abandoned plans to enact a "three-strikes" policy that would have seen the Internet accounts of repeat music file-swappers disconnected. [more..]

Los Angeles - Time Warner's Warner Bros. movie studio on Monday announced plans to begin selling digitized copies of 150 older titles on DVD and as digital downloads. [more..]

New York - Sony has begun charging game developers and publishers for the bandwidth used to deliver their game demos and downloads via its PlayStation Network for the PS3, according to MTV's Multiplayer blog. [more..]

Silver Spring, Md. - Five months after initially filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, satellite radio provider Worldspace said that a bankruptcy court has approved the sale of all of its assets to CEO Noah Samara. [more..]

San Francisco - Ngmoco, a developer and publisher of games for Apple's iPhone and iPod touch, announced on Monday that it has closed a $10 million second round of funding, led by Norwest Venture Partners. [more..]

Burlington, Mass. - Mzinga, a provider of business social media software, has cut about 18% of its staff, leaving a total of 170 employees remaining with the company. [more..]

Irvine, Calif. - SmartReply, a provider of mobile marketing services, announced on Monday that it has acquired mSnap, an SMS mobile advertising network. [more..]

Seattle - Online retailer Amazon.com plans to begin selling HD TV episode downloads for $2.99 per title, NewTeeVee reports. [more..]

New York - Hulu, the online video joint venture between News Corp. and NBC Universal, was the fourth largest video site in the U.S. in February, serving a total of 332.5 million streams, TechCrunch reported, citing comScore data. [more..]

San Francisco - In the wake of the company's decision to shut down, users who downloaded ad-supported tracks from SpiralFrog will soon no longer be able to access the songs, CNET News.com reported. [more..]

Paris - Media industry equipment maker Thomson, co-developer of the MP3 format, on Monday introduced mp3HD, a new audio file format the company says allows for "mathematically lossless compression of audio material while preserving backward compatibility to the mp3 standard." [more..]

New York - CBS-owned premium cable TV channel Showtime Networks said on Monday that it has developed a new interactive TV application that will allow non-subscribers to sample Showtime content, and even order the premium channel directly from their TV remotes. [more..]

Santa Monica, Calif. - Video game publisher Activision announced on Monday that it has named Dan Rosensweig as president and CEO of RedOctane, its unit that develops the popular "Guitar Hero" franchise. [more..]