Los Angeles - TorrentSpy, the BitTorrent tracker that was ordered by a federal judge this week to pay the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) $111 million in copyright infringement damages, has filed for bankruptcy protection in England and will not pay up, the company's attorney, Ira Rothken, told Wired.com.

Philadelphia - Comcast (NASD: CMCSA), currently the subject of an FCC probe and target of a lawsuit related to its practice of throttling peer-to-peer traffic, announced on Thursday a collaboration with peer-to-peer software firm BitTorrent, to address issues with network traffic management. One result of the talks is that Comcast has agreed to migrate to a "protocol agnostic" network management system -- which would not single out BitTorrent, as its current system does -- by the end of 2008.

From Future of Television Forum West - What will be the evolutionary path of the digital living room? Will devices drive functionality, or will it happen the other way around, where functionality dictates the design of devices? Speakers at the Future of Television conference disagreed.

Brussels - The European Union has invested $20.5 million in a research project that is exploring the use of peer-to-peer technology for Internet television delivery across Europe. The P2P-Next project is using an open-source BitTorrent client called Tribler, which partners including the BBC and European Broadcasting Union plan to use to stream live TV.

Washington - The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced that it will hold a public hearing later this month on broadband network management practices, in the wake of an admission from Comcast (NASD: CMCSA) that it actively interferes with the peer-to-peer application usage of some of its customers. Responding to an FCC inquiry, which came after investigations by independent researchers and the Associated Press found that Comcast was throttling the BitTorrent uploads of some users, the company conceded in a filing with the FCC that it "manages the use of certain P2P protocols in a minimally intrusive way, and only when necessary, based on purely objective criteria."

Las Vegas - The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will investigate charges that broadband and cable TV provider Comcast (NASD: CMCSA) is actively interfering with the accounts of certain subscribers who engage in file-sharing, the Associated Press reports. FCC chairman Kevin J. Martin confirmed the investigation during a speaking appearance at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

Washington - Vuze, a distributor of professionally-produced, HD video content that uses BitTorrent peer-to-peer file-sharing technology, announced on Thursday that it has asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to adopt regulations preventing arbitrary interference by broadband network operators with peer-to-peer traffic on their networks.

Los Angeles - Comcast (NASD: CMCSA), the nation's largest cable TV company and second-largest broadband provider, has been sued by a California man who alleges the company's recently-discovered throttling of peer-to-peer traffic violates federal computer fraud laws, truth in advertising laws and its own contracts with users, Wired reported.

San Francisco - Demonoid, a popular site that offered links to media downloads on the BitTorrent peer-to-peer file-sharing network, has been taken offline, with its operators citing legal threats from the Canadian Record Industry Association (CRIA), Wired reported.

Arlington, Va. - PBS, the public broadcasting organization serving 355 noncommercial television stations, said on Wednesday that it has signed separate deals to make its programming downloadable for purchase on video sites BitTorrent and Vuze.

Boston - The Pirate Bay, a Sweden-based file-sharing hub that has been targeted by law enforcement for its trading in copyrighted media, is now developing its own file-sharing software as the creators of BitTorrent, the application used on The Pirate Bay, look to form partnerships with entertainment companies, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

New York - A group of consumer advocates and Internet law scholars this week asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to step in and prevent the nation's second-largest broadband provider, Comcast (NASD: CMCSA), from interfering with file-sharing activities by some of its subscribers, the Associated Press reported.

New York - Comcast, the nation's largest cable TV provider and operator of a broadband access service with 12.4 million subscribers, or 20% of the U.S. market, is blocking the file-sharing traffic of some of its subscribers in an effort to manage the large amounts of bandwidth they are using, the Associated Press reported.

New York - Despite the fact that Radiohead is letting fans pay whatever they choose -- including nothing -- to download its new album from its website, more than 500,000 have downloaded the album for free off of the BitTorrent file-sharing network since its release, Forbes.com reported, citing data from peer-to-peer monitoring firm Big Champagne.

San Francisco - BitTorrent, the company launched by the creators of the popular peer-to-peer file-sharing application, on Tuesday announced the launch of a service that will use its technology to speed the delivery of streaming video, downloadable software and video games. The company says its BitTorrent Delivery Network Accelerator  (DNA) service can shift as much as 80% of content delivery to a secure, managed peer network. San Francisco-based BitTorrent said the first customer of the new service is Brightcove, a distributor of Internet TV channels for partners including AOL Video, Yahoo, CBS and Warner Music.

San Francisco - BitTorrent, the San Francisco-based developer of a popular file sharing network for digital entertainment, said on Monday that it has launched a Japanese subsidiary, based in Tokyo. The company said that BitTorrent Japan will help address a growing demand for peer-assisted content delivery technology among Japanese content publishers and consumer electronics manufacturers. The unit is being led by general manager Hirotoshi Wakiyama, the former president of Netmanage Japan.

Austin - Online Game Services, a unit of GNi, announced on Thursday that it has partnered with peer-to-peer firm BitTorrent to develop a download service for online games. Under the deal, OGS will add BitTorrent peer-assisted content delivery to its game delivery service for developers.

San Francisco - TorrentSpy.com, the self-proclaimed "largest BitTorrent search engine," has shut off its site to U.S. users in the face of a copyright infringement lawsuit from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), CNET News.com reported.