• Related Companies will purchase the 11 North American Virgin Megastores from Virgin Entertainment Group. Not familiar with Related? The company develops, finances and owns real estate properties around the country. It developed the Time Warner Center in Manhattan as well as numerous residential properties in California, Florida and the Midwest. Related owns the Equinox chain of fitness clubs, is part of the investor group that took resort & hotel chain Kerzner International Limited private, and manages the high rise residential building at Astor Place in Manhattan. (Press release)

• Eighties pop band Dodo and the Dodos won its distribution rights case against Sony BMG in a Danish court. The ruling stops Sony BMG from selling the band's music downloads without the band's consent. The ruling's greater impact is yet to be determined. (The Copenhagen Post)

• The Russel Simmons-backed GlobalGrind, a hip hop-oriented start page, has received about $4 million in funding. (paidContent)

• News.com's article on artists' lawsuits against online music stores, such as the copyright infringement lawsuits filed by Eminem's publishing units. "Don't expect these lawsuits to go very far. To start, Apple is likely indemnified against such lawsuits, according to copyright attorney Jay Rosenthal. But Rosenthal speculates that the real target of the lawsuits isn't Apple or iTunes. What the musicians and writers really want is to challenge the claim by record labels that they have the right to negotiate Internet sales on their behalf." (News.com)

• Here's an article on the greening of the music industry. Much of it has come on the touring end. Said Neal Turley of Sustainable Waves, which builds eco-friendly concert equipment, "It's really amazing in the last three years where this has come. When we were trying to make this happen 10 years ago, it was a pretty tough sell. Five years ago, it was starting to turn the corner, and now it's just amazing." (McClatchy Newspapers)

• In Tony Sach's post about Matador Records' "Buy Now, Get Early" early bird offering, this line really stands out and explains why such a program can work for an indie and might fail for a major: "The New Pornographers' fan base is a lot smaller than, say, Rihanna's or Daughtry's, but it's also a lot deeper. New Pornos fans want those B-sides and other ephemera that the 'Buy Early Get Now' program is offering, and they're happy to pay to get them. Most major label acts, however, live and die by their latest single; their fan base is wide but shallow." (The Huffington Post)

• An analyst believes a judged block of the FTC's attempted block of a merger of Whole Foods and Wild Oats is a good sign for Sirius and XM and beyond. "While mergers are very fact-specific and the judge's opinion has not yet been made public, we suspect the Whole Foods decision will give XM-Sirius and Google-DoubleClick some new legal ammo to argue for defining their relevant markets broadly, which could reduce antitrust concerns about potential anti-competitive effects. At a minimum, it gives the reviewing agencies some food for thought." (Radio Ink)

• Dove Award-winning band Switchfoot has left Columbia Records and plans to put out future releases independently. (Breathcast)