*A clarification has been added to this story.

New York - Sony (NYSE: SNE) announced on Tuesday that it has agreed to buy Bertelsmann's 50% stake in their four-year-old major record label joint venture Sony BMG, in a deal valued at $1.2 billion. "After a careful and thorough review, we made the strategic decision to sell our investment in this joint venture to Sony, a step that we believe will benefit the stakeholders of both our companies," said Bertelsmann chairman and CEO Hartmut Ostrowski.

Gutersloh, Germany - German media conglomerate Bertelsmann announced on Friday that it has agreed to sell its direct-to-consumer business, Direct Group North America, to Phoenix, Ariz.-based Najafi Companies for an undisclosed sum.

Los Angeles - German media conglomerate Bertelsmann is looking to sell its 50% stake in major record label joint venture Sony BMG back to Sony (NYSE: SNE) for $1.5 billion, an unnamed source told Financial Times Deutschland. Bertelsmann is looking to complete the sale within four to six weeks, and the talks are "well advanced," the source told FTD, according to a posting on the FTD article at PaidContent.

Gutersloh, Germany - German media conglomerate Bertelsmann has reported its annual earnings for 2007, and said that revenues from its share of joint venture record label Sony BMG fell 27.8%, to $2.3 billion, as physical revenues fell 17% and digital revenues increased by 40%. Digital now accounts for 17% of total revenue at Sony BMG, up from 12% in 2006.

New York - Publisher Random House, a unit of Germany's Bertelsmann, has decided to forego digital rights management on its audiobooks and will begin selling them in the unprotected MP3 format, The Wall Street Journal reported. Authors who do not wish to participate may still have their audiobooks sold wrapped in DRM. Random House recently partnered with digital music store eMusic to test sales of DRM-free audiobooks, and found that none of its titles were pirated on file-sharing networks.

San Diego - RoyaltyShare, a provider of digital royalty and content management services to the entertainment industry, announced on Monday that it has added $4 million to its second round of venture capital financing, from Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments and Trident Capital.

Washington - The National Music Publishers' Association (NMPA), a trade association that represents over 700 U.S. music publishers, announced on Friday that it has settled its lawsuit against German media conglomerate Bertelsmann, over the company's investment in the Napster file-sharing service in 2000.

Hamburg, Germany - Arvato Mobile, a unit of Germany's Bertelsmann that distributes mobile entertainment content, said on Wednesday it has extended its agreement with major label EMI Music, and will now make full-track music video downloads available to European mobile customers. The deal will bring full-track music videos, videotones, wallpapers, ringtones and full-track downloads to Arvato-powered services in more than 75 countries.

Cologne, Germany - Blue Lion, a German mobile social networking start-up, announced that it has closed a "multi-million euro" first round of financing from Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments (BDMI), the venture arm of the German media conglomerate.

New York - Major record label Warner Music Group and German media conglomerate Bertelsmann jointly announced on Tuesday that they have settled litigation filed by Warner over Bertelsmann's 2001 investment in the original Napster file-sharing service.

Los Angeles - Major record label EMI Group and German media conglomerate Bertelsmann announced on Monday that they have settled a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by EMI over Bertelsmann's investment in the original Napster free file-sharing service.

San Francisco - A federal appeals court has ruled that German media conglomerate and one-time Napster investor Bertelsmann does not have to disclose its lawyers' communications regarding a $50 million loan it provided Napster in 2001, the Associated Press reported.