Los Angeles - Following four weeks of private talks between Screen Actors Guild (SAG) interim executive David White and several top studio executives, including Disney CEO Bob Iger and News Corp. president Peter Chernin, the two sides are "very close" to resolving most of the sticking points holding up a labor contract deal, the Los Angeles Times reported, citing "people familiar with the situation." [more..]

New York - In a sign that a spin-off of AOL could be near, parent Time Warner on Monday asked bondholders for permission to change covenants that would allow the company to transfer AOL's properties and assets. [more..]

Washington - Ticketmaster has been subpoenaed or received requests for information from the Justice Dept., Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and New Jersey's Attorney General over the resale of tickets on secondary ticketing websites, Reuters reported, citing TicketNews.com. [more..]

Santa Clara, Calif. - IBM's potential $7 billion acquisition of server maker Sun Microsystems may be on the verge of collapse, after Sun's board rejected the company's takeover offer over the weekend, The Wall Street Journal reported. [more..]

San Francisco - Google's YouTube is in talks to license full-length Sony Pictures films for streaming on the site, CNET News.com reported, citing sources familiar with the negotiations. [more..]

Tokyo - The Sony PlayStation 3 outsold the Nintendo Wii in Japan for the first time in 16 months in March, Reuters reported, citing sales data calculated by Japanese magazine Enterbrain. [more..]

Boston - Members of the band Radiohead may be among those testifying at the trial of an accused file-swapper being defended by a Harvard Law School professor and his students, TorrentFreak reported. [more..]

Tokyo - Glam Media, a network of women-focused websites that counts over 1,000 publishers, announced on Monday that it has raised $10 million in a fifth round of venture capital financing, led by Mizuho Venture Capital. [more..]

Los Angeles - Online video network Break.com has acquired HBOlab, a unit of Time Warner's HBO that produced original Internet shows, for an undisclosed sum, NewTeeVee reported. [more..]

Madrid - BuyVIP, a Spain-based private online buying club, has raised about $20 million in its third round of funding, led by Kennet Partners. [more..]

what you have is a relatively small minority of DVD buyers, with specific copying needs (backing up kidvids, transferring to iPods), who are likely to see greater value in the DVDs they buy if they could make those copies and would therefore be inclined to buy more of them, blogs paul Sweeting. [more..]

Washington - The Future of Music Coalition (FMC), a non-profit organization that works to educate and advocate for greater digital rights for musicians, has released a set of "Principles for Musician Compensation in New Business Models." [more..]

Los Angeles - Social news aggregation site Digg has launched a new feature, the DiggBar, which offers to shorten URLs for stories posted to Digg, while also keeping Web visitors planted on Digg.com while reading third-party site content. [more..]

Los Angeles - Online DVD rental service Netflix on Monday announced deals with Viacom, to offer the first nine seasons of Comedy Central's "South Park," in addition to Nickelodeon's "iCarly" and "SpongeBob SquarePants" for on-demand streaming through its website to subscribers. [more..]

Cupertino, Calif. - Apple is expected to include a chip supporting the low-power 802.11n wireless standard on the next version of its iPod touch and iPhone, which would increase network speed and reception range, Apple Insider reported. [more..]

London - Major record label EMI has launched a beta test of a new online community called Your SoundCheck, which will offer fans of the label's artists free access to pre-release content and encourage them to provide ratings, Hypebot reported. [more..]