A group of disgruntled investors has filed a class-action suit against Netflix, on the grounds that the company withheld information from them prior to its dramatic stock-price plunge, last year. “The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Northern California, by the City of Royal Oak Retirement System, on behalf of ‘all plaintiffs similarly situated,’” paidContent reports. “Expedited by law firm Robbins, Geller, Rudman & Dowd LLP, a practice that specializes in class-action complaints, the suit alleges that Netflix senior management didn’t reveal to investors that many of its contracts to stream content would soon need to be renegotiated …

Scheduled for Thursday, more than a few Web watchers are losing their composure over Apple’s so-called education event. But, not Fortune. Plain and simple, “The goal is to sell more iPads to schools, not to destroy the textbook industry,” it reasons. No big whoop. Regarding the media drum roll, a former Apple executive tells Fortune: "This whole event is being blown out of proportion." Not helping matters was Chris Foresman's article in Monday's Ars Technica with the headline: “Apple to announce tools, platform to ‘digitally destroy’ textbook publishing.” According to Foresman, Apple is set to unveil "a GarageBand for e-books," …

Wikipedia isn’t the only Web company opposed to the antipiracy legislation being debated in Congress. Come Wednesday, however, it will be the only one voluntarily shutting down for 24 hours in protest. “The general sentiment seemed to be that US law, as it impacts the Internet, can affect everyone,” Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia, tells The Telegraph. “As for me, what I am hoping is that people outside the US who have friends or family who are voters in the US, will ask them to make a call to their senator or representative, and I hope we send a …

On the heels of Netflix making its UK debut, Amazon's LoveFilm has secured the rights to a number of top U.S. TV shows. The UK-based subscription video-on-demand service has partnered with Disney UK to stream shows like "Lost" and "Castle" initially, while other hits like "Desperate Housewives," "Happy Endings" and "Grey's Anatomy" will be launched "later in the year," according to Amazon. “Shows will be made available as full seasons after their first run on UK television, while previous seasons of some series will be streamable before the next season airs on TV, The Verge reports. Lovefilm recently signed streaming …

Rupert Murdoch’s new twitter account is clearly God’s gift to the media. After bashing his decision to buy MySpace in ‘05, the News Corp. chairman fired a barrage of accusations Saturday night against President Obama and Google. Regarding the White House’s concerns over the antipiracy legislation being debated in Congress, Murdoch accuses Obama of being “in the employ of "Silicon Valley paymasters," reports CNet. Meanwhile, “Murdoch claimed Google was profiting from advertisements sold against pirated materials.” Murdoch also called the search giant a "piracy leader." In an e-mail sent to CNET on Sunday afternoon, a Google spokeswoman responded: "This is …

Facebook’s long-anticipated IPO will likely come in the third week of May, AllThingsD reports, citing multiple sources. “That means that the company must file its IPO documents within the next month, given the review by the Securities and Exchange Commission usually takes about three to four months,” AllThingsD’s Kara Swisher writes. Covering her bases, Swisher cautions that the date of the IPO could easily be moved. “In any case,” she adds, “the Facebook IPO is expected to be one of the largest Web offerings ever -- with some reports saying the company will be raising $10 billion on a $100 …

It’s not the first time, but Rupert Murdoch is fessing up to screwing up with MySpace. "Many questions and jokes about My Space.simple answer -- we screwed up in every way possible, learned lots of valuable expensive lessons," the News Corp. CEO tweeted, this week. (Yes, tweeted -- the media mogul recently joined the twitterati.) As PCMag.com reminds us, News Corp. bought MySpace in 2005 for $580 million, then eventually sold the social network for just $35 million. “The company's August earnings report showed that News Corp. lost about $254 million on MySpace and losses from the once-top …

Meanwhile, in the still evolving world of daily deals, design-focused Fab.com has acquired FashionStake for an undisclosed sum. Backed by Battery Ventures, FashionStake has spent two years mastering what investors call the “pivot,” or a change in business strategy. Initially, the site served as a platform for users to support emerging designers by buying “stakes” in yet-to-be-produced collections in exchange for discounts and other privileges when said collections were manufactured. As Mashable reports, however, the founders soon realized that “customers were more excited about pre-ordering items at a discount, and so they quickly adapted the site to that model.” More …

Amid intense criticism from Google and Facebook, Reuters talks with the lawmaker behind a far-reaching online piracy bill. "It is amazing to me that the opponents apparently don't want to protect American consumers and businesses," Republican Representative Lamar Smith tells Reuters. Before the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee -- which Smith chairs -- the Stop Online Piracy Act aims to fight online piracy of pharmaceuticals, music and other consumer products by allowing the Department of Justice to seek federal court injunctions against foreign-based Web sites. Under the bill, if a judge agrees that Web sites offer material that violates U.S. …

Worldwide, Facebook is on pace to surpass 1 billion users by August, according to new calculations from digital marketing firm iCrossing, And no thanks to Western markets, notes The Next Web. “It’s been well documented that Facebook has seen a slow down in new sign-ups in Western markets, like the US, where it is coming close to saturation point amongst Internet users, but developing markets are picking up the slack and pushing it towards its the landmark,” it writes. According to iCrossing: “Developing countries such as India and Brazil have shown strong growth with India growing from 22 million users to …