AOL has bought a controlling interest in Adtech AG, an international online ad-serving company based in Frankfurt, Germany. Financial terms were not disclosed, and Adtech will operate as an independent…

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Settling with rival labels over claims Napster infringed their copyright hurt Bertelsmann’s bottom line in the first quarter. After paying a total EUR 114 million ($154.5 million) in settlements to…

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Online expansion and better advertising performance helped Germany’s largest commercial TV producer, ProSiebenSat.1 Media, post a 32 percent Q1 profit boost. The company pulled in EUR 40.6 million ($55.05 million)…

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German Avatar site StageSpace has raised seed funding from a syndicate including Swiss-based Mountain Partners , Moritz Seidel, founder of Webfair AG, and Tiburon Unternehmensaufbau GmbH, an investment vehicle from…

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-- Tribeca downloads Jaman: Jaman, the recently launched U.S. movie download service specializing in world cinema, has struck two separate deals, with the Tribeca Film Festival and sales outfit Dreamachine,…

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Electronic Arts is expanding its casual gaming service Pogo in Europe, adding services in the UK and launching a German-language site. The company said a French-language site will be launched…

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Luxembourg-based European media group RTL is looking for acquisitions and aims to “fight” the threat posed by social networking and video sharing. Speaking at MipTV in Cannes, CEO Gerhard Zeiler…

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A fashion start-up has taken an approach to clothing design that can easily be described as if iTunes offered sewing patterns at no cost and without any DRM. Since that…

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A deal with NBCU’s Universal Pictures International Entertainment and NBCU International Television Distribution gives Deutsche Telekom’s T-com “first” status when it comes to digital download-to-own major films in Germany. As…

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German media/magazine group Burda Media, though its arm Burda Digital Ventures, has taken a stake in local video and photo portal Sevenload. Burda bought one fifth of Sevenload’s shares, though…

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German travel community site Cosmotourist has received backing from Dr. Christoph Roeck as an investor and business angel. Roeck left his post at product search site Pangora end of February.…

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OpenBC, which runs international business networking platform Xing, has purchased eConozco, which bills itself as the second largest Spanish professional contact network. The four-year-old eConozco network has about 150K members…

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Bertelsmann will have a $8 billion warchest with which to make digital (and other kinds of) media acquisitions through to 2010. Announcing annual figures, Europe’s largest media company said profit…

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In Germany, Axel Springer Finanzen Verlag, the financial media subsidiary of media giant Axel Springer, has acquired majority in two related finance/media businesses. It is taking over a 50.1 percent…

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In a controversial decision, Germany adopted a revised telecom law that prevents competitors from using Deutsche Telekom’s new VDSL Internet network. The law, passed by Germany’s upper house of parliament…

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German financial company Swiss Hawk has purchased an interest in European digital media specialist Horse Creek Entertainment, owner HomeTV, bringing its total participation up to 20 percent. HomeTV identifies itself…

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German broadcaster ProSiebenSat.1 has acquired a 75 percent stake in Solute GmbH, which operates the country’s number two price-comparison website www.billiger.de and is said to be expanding its internet businesses,…

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German media company Georg von Holtzbrinck has bought a stake in Helpster.de, a website focused on health, self-help and communication among the medical community, according to Alarm Clock Euro. Holtzbrinck…

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German media giant Bertelsmann appointed a new CEO last week, and Hartmut Ostrowski is keen to show he’s up to the task in the digital age. He will start in…

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Online and mobile micropayment provider FirstGate Internet, which operates Click&Buy content micropayments service in various countries in Europe (started in Germany) and U.S., has now received investment from Intel Capital.…

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In a bid to launch its game search engine in the US, German-Japanese vertical search engine Wazap has raised $7.9 million in a second round of funding led by Partech…

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Updated: FT Deutschland reports that the price is about 85 million Euros (about $112 million), with about 50 million Euros in cash and rest based on performance. The story says…

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Another funding from earlier this month: Cologne, Germany-based photo sharing and slideshow application company Imageloop has received $1.3 million in funding, from Dr. Andreas Weigend, former Chief Scientist with Amazon.com,…

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(via AC Euro) Burda Media, one of the more progressive German media/magazine companies, has been making some major investments in the digital media space: its VC arm Burda Digital Ventures…

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DJTunes.com, a Germany-based online music service for club and dance music, has raised about $0.66 million funding. The round was led by High Tech Grunderfonds. The site launched six months…

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