Sun Valley, Idaho - News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch is not interested in buying the popular Twitter microblogging service, nor is he looking to sell the MySpace social network, which has seen a drop-off in visitors and recently went through a management shake-up and round of layoffs, Reuters reported. [more..]

Paris - After France's highest legal authority stripped the teeth out of a law that would have severed the Internet connections of repeat file-swappers, the French Senate has passed a new, modified "three-strikes" bill, TorrentFreak reports. [more..]

Los Angeles - Universal Music Group's sales and marketing division on Thursday announced that it has partnered with independent digital music distributor TuneCore, which will now provide and host distribution portals for Universal labels and artists [more..]

Foster City, Calif. - Live365, a provider of "microwebcasting" services that power Web radio stations from over 5,000 users, said on Thursday that the royalty rate deal announced this week by SoundExchange will have detrimental effects to its business, and submitted its own rate proposal to the agency. [more..]

New York - Performing rights organization ASCAP, which represents 350,000 U.S. songwriter and music publishers, has begun to seek royalty payments from websites that embed YouTube videos containing its members' music, Valleywag reported. [more..]

Alviso, Calif. - Digital video recorder firm TiVo on Thursday announced a cross-promotional partnership with media and electronics retail store chain Best Buy. [more..]

Rockville, Md. - ZeniMax Media, the parent company of game developer Bethesda Softworks, said that it raised $105 million through a debt offering to pay for last month's acquisition of id Software, the Texas-based developer of game franchises such as "Doom," "Quake" and "Wolfenstein." [more..]

London - NetPlay TV, a provider of interactive TV gambling technology, announced on Thursday that it has raised $21 million through a private placement of its shares. [more..]

Redwood City, Calif. - Qik, the provider of a mobile video streaming service, announced on Thursday that it has raised $5.5 million in new venture capital, from Quest Venture Partners, CampVentures and individual investors. [more..]

San Francisco - CoTweet, a firm that helps companies maintain their Twitter accounts, announced on Thursday that it has raised $1.1 million in venture funding. [more..]

Rohit Bhargava blogs about a report by a social media analytics provider named Sysomos on Twitter usage. [more..]

New York - T-Mobile USA on Thursday began taking pre-orders from existing customers for the myTouch 3G, the second handset from HTC to run Google's Android mobile operating system. [more..]

Amsterdam - Digital security services firm Gemalto on Thursday announced a partnership with Universal Music Group, to jointly promote the Smart Video Card as a new music distribution channel. [more..]

Palo Alto, Calif. - Facebook has introduced a new feature, the "fan box," that lets organizations and celebrities embed widgets on their websites, which in turn enable website visitors to "become a fan" of that person's or organization's page on Facebook. [more..]

Los Angeles - Live video streaming service Justin.tv has created a Facebook application that lets users watch and broadcast live video streams on the social network. [more..]

Antigua - Zookz has launched a beta test of an unlimited download service that costs $9.95 per month for MP3 or MP4 video files, or $17.95 per month for the pair, CNET reported. [more..]