The battle between Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) and Verizon (NYSE: VZ) FiOS is going to the Federal Communications Commission, as the telco says that the MSO is wrongfully blocking it from programming the HD version of Madison Square Garden network, Multichannel News reports. Apart from the intense competition, the suit is…

European media commissioner Viviane Reding has set out her vision for a “Digital Europe”, with four key points including a plea to resolve the legislative impasse caused by opposition to “three strikes” plans… —Digital dividend must be quicker: “The United States as a whole switched to digital TV last month.…

RealNetworks (NSDQ: RNWK) has lost an arbitration hearing against VeriSign (NSDQ: VRSN) related to a mobile partnership that the companies were involved with, according to an SEC filing that just came out from Real. The judgment came down in May and there was a further ruling on it under which…

Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) CEO Steve Jobs is back at work, but the company still can’t shake questions about whether it may have misled investors about the status of his health. Seven months after the SEC began an investigation into Apple Inc.‘s public comments on Jobs’s medical condition, the inquiry continues,…

The latest ruling in a copyright case brought against Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and its YouTube subsidiary doesn’t move the needle much on the core issue but it means the bill should be lower if—and that’s still a big if—the company loses in court. The English Premier League started a class-action…

After years of uncertainty, so-called “pureplay” internet broadcasters finally have a copyright deal that should give them enough breathing room to stay in business. The agreement announced today between the record labels and the online radio stations offers an alternative to the higher royalty payments imposed in 2007 by the…

Despite the rhetoric, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) and the European Commission may actually be on speaking terms. The two parties are in early talks to settle both the Commission’s investigation into whether the company has stifled competition by bundling Internet Explorer and Windows together, as well as a second investigation looking…

*Yahoo* withdrew its lawsuit against the NFL Players Association, which had promised to reignite a battle over the rights to data used in fantasy sports leagues. In a one-page filing, attorneys for Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) said that they had dismissed their claims “voluntarily and without prejudice.” The document did not…

The Department of Justice has started reviewing the practices of mobile carriers in the U.S., including AT&T (NYSE: T) and Verizon Wireless (NYSE: VZ), to determine if they have abused their power in recent years, reports the WSJ, which quotes unnamed people familiar with the situation. At this point, it’s…

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After a few months of informal moves on it, the U.S. Justice Dept is now investigating an anti-trust inquiry into Google’s book settlement with the authors and publishers over its online book scanning and repository project. The agreement, which was reached last year, has been criticized by some authors and…

Already ringtones are more expensive than a full-length song—and pay a higher royalty to the artist than a normal track—but the music industry is trying to make them even more profitable by arguing that someone should pay even more when the 30-second snippet plays in public.

The Interactive Advertising Bureau is gearing up with another campaign designed to keep the online ad industry’s “self-policing” regime in place as Congressional scrutiny intensifies, USA Today reports. The proposed guidelines say that IAB members should give users the choice of “opting-out” of ad targeting programs that use cookies to…

The RIAA has won a nearly two-year-old copyright infringement suit against news-sharing and communication network Usenet.com; the verdict comes on the heels of a similar win against file-sharer Jammie Thomas (to the tune of $1.92 million). In 2007, the RIAA accused Usenet (a precursor to social networks like Facebook and…

If the stories of other file-sharing firms that sold out are any indication, Pirate Bay’s move to sell itself and go legit might not play out so well. Here’s what happened to some of its peer-to-peer predecessors that were put up for sale: Company: Scour Buyer: CenterSpan Sale Price: $9…

Not your typical targets for a music copyright infringement lawsuit: The big companies that run paid online music subscription services. But MCS Music America, which says it administers almost 45,000 tracks, is suing Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT), and RealNetworks (NSDQ: RNWK), basically saying that they left some seemingly…

Julius Genachowski started work as the head of the Federal Communications Commission this week and quickly named his key staff. Appointments include litigator and former prosecutor Ed Lazarus as chief of staff, and, from the digital side, Sherrese Smith, most recently VP and general counsel of Washington Post (NYSE: WPO)…

Swedish publicly listed software company Global Gaming Factory X says it wants to buy The Pirate Bay SEK60 million ($7.8 million) and will begin compensating copyright ownersfor material its users find and download. GGF announced today said it will also buy P2P technology company Peerialism and plans “to launch new…

Some more reaction and analysis of Cablevision’s remote DVR win, which we wrote about earlier today: —a statement from Cablevision (NYSE: CVC) COO Tom Rutledge: “We are mindful of the potential implications for ad skipping and the concerns this has raised in the programming community. We believe there are ways…