Washington - As it continues to await the approval of the Federal Communications Commission to complete its multi-billion-dollar merger with Sirius (NASD: SIRI), XM Satellite Radio (NASD: XMSR) on Monday reported a higher first-quarter loss, despite a healthy gain in subscribers.

Los Angeles - The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors this week expanded the ordinance that allows for the county to shutter a property that becomes a "public nuisance," such as in gang or drug-related instances, to include properties used to illegally manufacture and sell recordings and audiovisual works. "This ordinance is an important milestone in our efforts to curb piracy in Los Angeles," said Dan Glickman, chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). "In its approval of this ordinance, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors have officially recognized that piracy isn't just an industry problem, but one that has a significant impact on the local economy as well."

San Francisco - Project Playlist, a service that aggregates streaming music links into playlists, and has been sued for copyright infringement by three of the four major record labels, has hired former Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) CEO Jay Berman as a consultant, CNET News.com reports. Project Playlist CEO Jeremy Riney told News.com that he will shut his site down if he is not able to license music legally from the labels; the sole major not party to the lawsuit against the company, Sony BMG, is reportedly negotiating with Project Playlist.

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.

Washington - The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday approved the PRO-IP Act, a bill pushed for by Hollywood studios that would beef up law enforcement dedicated to protecting intellectual property, as well as increase penalties for piracy. "We applaud the members of the House of Representatives for passing the PRO-IP Act, H.R. 4279," said Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) president Dan Glickman. "It is a comprehensive, bipartisan measure that will strengthen our nation's economy and generate more jobs for American workers by bolstering protections for intellectual property."

New York - Digital music service eMusic has been forced to remove early Rolling Stones albums and other repertoire from ABKCO Records it has been offering since early April, due to legal issues, Hypebot reported. In a post on its forums, the company said it "triple and quadruple-checked" the licensing issues involved before going ahead and offering the ABKCO catalog. "But this was not enough. Due to events outside of our control, we are being forced to remove the entire ABKCO catalog from eMusic."

Los Angeles - TorrentSpy, a BitTorrent tracker site that lost a copyright infringement suit filed by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) last year, has been ordered by a federal judge to pay a massive $110 million in damages. "This substantial money judgment sends a strong message about the illegality of these sites," said Dan Glickman, chairman and CEO of the MPAA. "The demise of TorrentSpy is a clear victory for the studios and demonstrates that such pirate sites will not be allowed to continue to operate without facing relentless litigation by copyright holders."

New York - A federal judge in New York has created a formula for calculating the royalties that large webcasters AOL (NYSE: TWX), RealNetworks (NASD: RNWK) and Yahoo (NASD: YHOO) must pay songwriters and music publishers for streaming their songs between 2002 and 2009, which could provide just one performing rights organization, ASCAP, as much as $100 million in payments. U.S. District Judge William Conner's ruling stipulates that the webcasters must pay 2.5% of music-related revenue to ASCAP's 320,000 members; by that math, for 2006, AOL owes $5.95 million, and Yahoo owes $6.76 million.

Washington - The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday approved the PRO-IP Act, a bill that would provide more resources for the government to combat intellectual property crimes, increase penalties, and create a White House-level position to coordinate efforts. The bill, which was already amended to remove a portion that would have penalized each track on compilation CDs as a separate infringement, will now move to a vote in the full House; a Senate version of the bill was introduced last fall.

Los Angeles - A federal judge has rejected a pillar of the recording industry's argument in the copyright infringement lawsuits it has filed against file-swappers, ruling that simply "making available" songs in a shared folder on their computers does not equate to infringement. In Atlantic v. Howell, Judge Neil V. Wake has dismissed the label's motion for summary judgment against Pamela and Jeffrey Howell, saying in his ruling that "merely making an unauthorized copy of a copyrighted work available to the public does not violate a copyright holder's exclusive right of distribution."

New York - Divisions of three of the four major record labels on Monday filed copyright infringement lawsuits against Project Playlist, a site that lets users create playlists from streaming songs served from all over the Internet, Reuters reported. For its part, Project Playlist maintains that it does not host any music files, but instead merely links to files on many third-party sites, including many on record label websites.

Washington - A bipartisan group of powerful lawmakers this week introduced legislation that would mitigate the legal risk and potential damages associated with the use of "orphan works," or songs, books or other copyrighted media where the creator or owner cannot be identified. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) are sponsoring the Shawn Bentley Orphan Works Act of 2008 in the Senate, while House Judiciary IP Subcommittee Chairman Howard Berman (D-Calif.) and House Judiciary Committee ranking member Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) introduced The Orphan Works Act of 2008 in the House.

New York - A federal judge has dismissed former Ramones drummer Richard "Richie Ramone" Reinhardt's lawsuit that sought nearly $1 million in what he claimed were unpaid digital royalties, the Associated Press reports. Reinhardt wrote six songs while in the band between 1983 and 1987, and had sought new remuneration for the songs in light of Internet distribution.

Washington - The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) spent nearly $2.1 million in 2007 lobbying Congress for favorable copyright-related legislation, Ars Technica reported, citing the group's disclosure via the Lobbying Disclosure Act.

San Francisco - Sonific, a provider of licensed music widgets and free music applications for social media, said on Tuesday that it will take its service offline "as a consequence of the unworkable music licensing situation and the resulting lack of solid revenue modeling," co-founder and CEO Gerd Leonhard wrote in a note on Sonific.com. The company had attracted 80,000 users to its service and amassed a library of over 200,000 licensed songs.

Los Angeles - The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) yesterday filed a federal copyright infringement suit against Pullmylink.com, saying the site "contributes to and profits from massive copyright infringement by identifying, posting, organizing and indexing links to infringing content found on the Internet." The site does not host content, but provides links in pop-up windows to third-party video sites where users have posted movies and TV shows.

Berkeley, Calif. - MAPLight.org, a California-based nonprofit that maintains a database of campaign contributions and legislative outcomes to determine links between money and politics, has named Stanford law professor and Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig to its board of directors. Lessig, known for his groundbreaking work in the fields of intellectual property and the law of cyberspace, recently launched a grassroots organization called "Change Congress," which aims to "end corruption" on Capitol Hill.

Brussels - Members of the European Parliament voted 314 to 297 this week to approve a measure that asks member nations not to enact laws whose penalties would interrupt users' Internet access, such as France's recent policy that compels ISPs to disconnect the accounts of repeat file-swappers. The wording calls for the European Commission and member states to "avoid adopting measures conflicting with civil liberties and human rights and with the principles of proportionality, effectiveness and dissuasiveness, such as the interruption of Internet access."

Los Angeles - Digital civil liberties group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) earlier this week filed a brief on behalf of an eBay seller who was sued by Universal Music Group for reselling promotional CDs, arguing that the record label is violating copyright law's "first sale" doctrine.