Demand Media (NYSE: DMD) appears to be weathering executive churn and a Google (NSDQ: GOOG) downgrade. On Thursday, it posted earnings that reflect growth in both its domain name business and its sprawling group of web properties.

DirecTV (NYSE: DTV) continues to provide a useful blueprint for other U.S. media companies looking to expand into Latin America. On Thursday, the satellite TV service provider announced that it had added 590,000 subscribers in the region in the fourth quarter, a performance that drove the company’s impressive earnings report during the period.

Open Road Media responded today to the lawsuit that HarperCollins filed against it in December over the digital rights to Jean Craighead George’s Julie of the Wolves, saying HarperCollins’ claim “is nothing but an attempt to seize rights that were never granted to it and to change the existing law with respect to e-book rights.”

George herself says she is “with Open Road all the way.”

Social TV startup Loyalize has been acquired by Function(x), the company behind recently launched mobile app Viggle. According to former Loyalize CEO Todd Greene, the Loyalize product will remain a white-label platform for networks and content providers to build their own apps to increase engagement with TV programming as it’s being watched.

Streaming March Madness tournament games next month won’t be as free and easy as it was last year, with broadcast partners CBS (NYSE: CBS) and Turner announcing a tiered plan featuring an authenticated pay wall for personal-computer viewing and a $3.99 premium charge for all mobile access.

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) thinks that mobile Web advertising has gotten to the point where it should be part of AdSense, the company’s lucrative engine for third-party Web sites to make some money from Google ads. Starting Thursday Web publishers will be able to choose mobile ad formats through their regular AdSense account.

Another version of Mac OS X? Yes, just seven months after Mac OS X Lion was introduced, Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) is releasing its first developer preview of what comes next for its big cat-themed desktop operating system, to be called “Mountain Lion.†And just like Lion before it, Apple’s desktop OS is starting to bear more than a passing resemblance to iOS, especially with the new incorporation of iOS features like iMessage, Game Center, Reminders and Notifications into the software.

A controversial investment fund run by a former Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) executive just added more fuel to the tech industry’s runaway patent wars by filing a new suit against AT&T (NYSE: T), Sprint (NYSE: S) and T-Mobile.

Social reading site Goodreads says the primary way its users discover new books to read is through search.

Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) is no stranger to legal disputes around the globe over its mobile products, but it’s running into a problem that has nothing to do with patents. Chinese retail stores are being told to take iPads off their shelves in response to a trademark dispute between Apple and Proview Technologies, potentially hurting sales in what Apple CEO Tim Cook considers one of Apple’s most important markets.

What price do online newspapers put on their head? The amounts publishers charge advertisers indicates their bullishness about their business worth. So I have compiled and compared the costs per thousand (CPM) impressions charged by UK national newspapers’ websites in their rate cards…

More than a year and a half after News Corp.‘s flagship UK “quality” papers introduced new paid digital outlets, their effect is becoming clear - they are softening ongoing print circulation declines, but not overturning them.