Business Briefs

NEW YORK -- Barnes & Noble Inc. acknowledged Friday that it is holding talks with Gemstar-TV Guide International about different ways to cooperate in selling e-books, including a possible merger.

"We are now discussing a whole wide range of issues, and all options are open," spokeswoman Mary Ellen Keating said.

Gemstar, which publishes TV Guide magazine and operates on-screen programming guides, is one of the leading e-book publishers, having also purchased Softbook Press earlier this year.

HP first hit by new

German duping law

FRANKFURT, Germany -- Computer giant Hewlett-Packard Corp. has become the first company to be snagged by a German law requiring firms to pay fees for making CD burners that are being used to illegally lift the latest hits off the World Wide Web.

The case sets the stage for other European countries to possibly adopt similar rules to stem an epidemic that cost the music industry an estimated $5 billion last year. But analysts blasted the agreement reached Thursday as another example of Germany's notorious thatch of regulations.

"The manufacturers are scapegoats," said Robert Labatt, a new media analyst at research group Gartner. "It's the individual works of art, books, songs, videos, that need to be protected."

Japanese economic

numbers recalculated

TOKYO -- The Japanese economy grew nearly 1.4 percent last year, nearly three times the 0.5 percent announced previously, the government said Friday after recalculating the numbers using newer international standards.

The new method takes a broader look at the economy. For example, it classifies computer software-development outsourced by companies as business investment and adds the depreciation costs of infrastructure such as dams to government spending.

The changes are certain to boost growth statistics in Japan, which has gone on a decade-long public works spending binge to pull its troubled economy out of its worst slowdown since World War II.

Danone still seeking

inroads to U.S. market

PARIS -- The chief executive of French group Danone said although the company dropped plans to buy Quaker Oats Co., the food and drinks conglomerate still has ambitions to enter the U.S. market.

In an interview published Friday in Le Monde newspaper, Franck Riboud declined to rule out further U.S. acquisition moves.

Danone suddenly dropped its offer Thursday for the Chicago-based cereals maker and owner of the sought-after Gatorade sports drink brand.

In their first day of trading after the Danone announcement, shares of Quaker Oats were off $3.25, or nearly 4 percent, to close at $83.75 Friday on the New York <