Can SnagFilms become the Netflix (NSDQ: NFLX) of the independent film sector?

Washington, DC-based SnagFilms, which offers access to a library of about 3,000 indie movie titles for viewing on over 100 types of digital devices, took another step in that direction Monday when it announced an additional funding and financing to the tune of $7 million.

Demand Media is known for churning lots of content through its sites, but today it’s notable for another churn, of the executive kind: three of the people who helped found and build up the company are leaving.

It’s an election year, which means politicians are frantically trying to raise money for their campaigns. President Obama’s re-election campaign has decided to add Square’s mobile payments technology to its arsenal and is deploying the company’s credit-card readers to its staff.

What do The Great Gatsby, To Kill A Mockingbird, A Wrinkle in Time and Little House on the Prairie series have in common, besides being beloved? None of them are available legally as e-books. A new site aims to make these and other e-books available to the public (and in libraries), as DRM-free Creative Commons works, via crowdfunding.

Given Amazon’s reluctance to disclose hard numbers regarding the number of Kindles it has sold and the interest in the Kindle Fire as a tablet competitor, we’re left with estimates that hopefully used some sort of scientific method. One Wall Street analyst thinks he has a number.

In a case that shines light on the world of professional cybersquatters, Verizon is suing a website and a domain name registrar that placed ads on hundreds of sites with Verizon-like names.

US agents have finished copying data from servers that contain information on Megaupload, the controversial file-sharing site shut down earlier this month. While a number of documents in the case are still under seal, a newly-public letter suggests the fate of the data is now in the hands of the private companies that are hosting it.

Google (NSDQ: GOOG) executives got a rough ride from a House Of Commons committee on Monday, when they declined to systemically filter law-breaking web pages from search results.

T-Mobile in the UK today announced “The Full Monty,” a group of mobile plans offering unlimited voice, texts and data, without any fair-use restrictions. While other carriers are looking to restrict data use they claim costs too much to carry, T-Mobile’s groundbreaking offer appears like a sacrifice on margin to gain market share. But is it?

Gannett (NYSE: GCI) Co. posted lower than expected earnings for the fourth quarter of 2011 after incurring special charges related to workforce restructuring and asset write-downs. A report also showed that its newspaper empire continues to struggle but that its digital business is up 11 percent for the year.

Digital publisher and multimedia company Open Road is partnering with investigative journalism nonprofit ProPublica on multiple e-books.

Everyone wants to chime in on Google’s privacy polices including, it seems, graffiti artists. In recent weeks, an unflattering version of the company logo has appeared in New York, depicting the double vowel in the company’s name as a pair of surveillance cameras.

Two separate reports published this weekend suggest that Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) is close to a partnership with UK bookstore chain Waterstones and, perhaps separately, will release a new Nook this spring.

Some of the stories people are talking about this morning:

»  Your iPhone Has To Be Made In China, And Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) Can’t Absolve Your Guilt (paidContent)

»  Study: Only 1% of Facebook ‘Fans’ Engage With Brands (AdAge)

»  The Bookstore’s Last Stand (New York Times)

»  Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) Lights the Android World on Fire (Flurry Blog)

»  News Corp. (NSDQ: NWS) in Talks to Hire Bloomberg Executive (Wall Street Journal)