Cupertino, Calif. - Apple's (NASD: AAPL) Canadian unit has settled a class action lawsuit with Canadian iPod owners over claims to the device's battery life, and will pay consumers there who purchased an iPod before June 24, 2005 a $45 credit, Canada's Gazette reported. The settlement is similar to one Apple made with U.S. iPod owners in 2005. Some 80,000 Canadian should be eligible for the $45 credit, which is redeemable through Apple's online store.

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.

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 - Video game publisher Take-Two Interactive (NASD: TTWO) has sued the Chicago Transit Authority and sales agent Titan Outdoor for pulling ads for its "Grand Theft Auto IV" game without any explanation, Reuters reports.

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.

London - Apple (NASD: AAPL) has threatened legal action against nearly a dozen U.K.-based online retailers who are buying Apple iPods in the U.S., where they cost about $30 less, and then reselling them in the U.K. at a discount on Apple's pricing, The Register reported.

Dublin - Ireland's largest Internet service provider, Eircom, has been sued by the major record labels under the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) on charges of aiding copyright infringement, RTE Business reported.

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.

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.

Stanford, Calif. - A federal court in New York on Monday heard arguments from Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, who along with Warner Bros. (NYSE: TWX) has filed suit to prevent the publication of a reference guide to the series, claiming its creator has stolen her work. The defendant, RDR Books, argued that its print version of "The Harry Potter Lexicon," based on school librarian and Harry Potter fan Steven Vander Ark's Web resource of the same name, is a legal "fair use" or Rowling's works.

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.

New York - Online social network Facebook is finalizing the settlement of several lawsuits with ConnectU, whose founders claim that Facebook head Mark Zuckerberg stole their idea for a company when they were all Harvard undergraduates, The New York Times reported. Citing a person briefed on the status of the lawsuits, The Times reports that all motions in Facebook's countersuit against ConnectU, which claim unfair business practices, have been terminated, while motions to dismiss all of the pending litigation between the companies are expected to be filed "within weeks."

Beijing - A Chinese court has agreed to hear two multi-million dollar copyright infringement claims brought by major record labels against Chinese search engine Baidu, and Web portal Sohu and its Sogou media search engine, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). The Beijing Intermediate People's Court will hear a $9 million claim against Baidu brought by Universal Music Group, Sony (NYSE: SNE) BMG and Warner Music (NYSE: WMG), who will argue that the search engine aids copyright infringement by providing "deep links" to unauthorized downloads on third-party sites.

Los Angeles - News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) MySpace online social network on Thursday announced details of an anticipated new music service, a spin-off that will be a joint venture with major labels Universal Music, Sony (NYSE: SNE) BMG and Warner Music (NYSE: WMG) owning minority stakes. The fourth major, EMI, is not party to the deal initially, but people involved in the negotiations told The New York Times it would probably join soon.

Los Angeles - Gossip blogger Perez Hilton, who recently made a deal to help run a record label imprint with Warner Music, has announced a boycott of Sony BMG, in light of that label's pending copyright infringement lawsuit against him, Wired.com reports. Hilton posted unauthorized Britney Spears tracks on his website, prompting a lawsuit from Sony BMG label Zomba. Hilton says he will now no longer write about Sony BMG artists that he has covered in the past, which include Christina Aguilera, The Gossip, Justin Timberlake and Tori Amos. "Why should we help the company suing us make money???? Especially when their lawsuit is personal!" reads a note on PerezHilton.com. "We KNOW that our support can help their artists, some of our favorites, immensely. We hope alienating us was worth it for Sony BMG!"

New York - A federal judge in New York has ruled that a user's "making available" of songs or other copyrighted files using file-sharing software does not in and of itself construe infringement, in what could prove to be a setback in the record industry's legal campaign against such activities, CNET News.com reported.

Stockholm, Sweden - The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) yesterday filed a $2.5 million copyright infringement lawsuit in Sweden against The Pirate Bay, the notorious file-sharing tracker site. Pirate Bay co-founder Gorrfrid Warg responded to the lawsuit in Sweden's The Local thusly: "the record companies can go screw themselves."

Los Angeles - TorrentSpy, a site that indexed files available for download from the BitTorrent file-sharing network, and was the target of a lawsuit from the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), has permanently closed down the site for all visitors worldwide, TorrentFreak reported.