SUN VALLEY, Idaho (Reuters) – Google Inc Chief Executive Eric Schmidt rejected any notion that Apple Inc or Facebook presented a threat to the web search leader’s business.

Most people “assume that these are zero-sum games, which are battles to the death,” said Schmidt, who spoke with reporters in a one-hour briefing on Thursday at Sun Valley alongside Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

“The indications that we have show that when Internet users become Facebook users they actually do significantly more searches on Google,” Brin noted.

The executives declined to confirm media reports that Google is developing a new service called Google Me to compete with Facebook, which has grown to nearly 500 million users in its six-year history.

The trio addressed a variety of issues that have weighed on Google during a tumultuous year in which the company has emerged from the recession to face a shifting competitive landscape, increasing regulatory scrutiny, and major changes to its strategy in China.

Schmidt and Google’s two co-founders spoke to the reporters on the third day of the Allen & Co conference, the annual confab of media and technology executives at the scenic Sun Valley resort. Apple chief executive Steve Jobs was also invited, although he did not attend the event.

The relationship between Apple and Google, two one-time allies, has become increasingly tense as the companies face-off in markets such as smartphones and mobile advertising. Last year, Schmidt stepped down from Apple’s board of directors because of the overlap between the two companies businesses.

SUN VALLEY, Idaho (Reuters) – Google Inc(GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research) Chief Executive Eric Schmidt expressed confidence the company will secure a license to operate a website in China, confounding speculation Beijing may shut down its flagship site there.

Schmidt, addressing executives and financiers at an annual gathering of the industry’s movers and shakers in the Idaho mountain resort of Sun Valley, said he expected Beijing to renew its license to operate a website in the world’s largest Internet market, but offered no timeframe.

“We would expect we would get the necessary license,” Schmidt said. “We now expect to get a renewal.”

Google stunned markets and consumers in January when it warned it might quit the country, saying it would not provide the censored search results that China requires. In March, it began to redirect visitors on its local website to a site in Hong Kong that provided uncensored results.

China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said on Wednesday that it was reviewing Google’s license renewal application but gave no deadline for completion.

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Analysts and investors have discounted a severe curtailment of Google’s business in the world’s No.3 economy.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – As Rupert Murdoch, Bob Iger and other media honchos assemble in Sun Valley this week for some fly-fishing or white water rafting, spirits should be brighter than a year ago: stock prices are up by about a third, after all.

That alone provides the currency and freedom to get down to the real business of the media summit, one that boutique investment bank Allen & Co annually hosts in the shadow of the Pioneer Mountains in Idaho. For the past 27 years, the Sun Valley Lodge has been the spot where blockbuster media deals have been hatched.

Even in 2009, when advertising revenues nosedived, Comcast Corp’s co-founder Ralph Roberts had the moxie to talk to General Electric Co Chief Executive Jeff Immelt about a deal for NBC Universal.

This year, it could be Walt Disney Co CEO Iger who finds himself center stage amid speculation he may shop ABC — something Disney has denied. Or veteran dealer Barry Diller from IAC/InterActiveCorp, who has said he would look at a deal involving his Ask.com search engine.

New media hotshots like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Zynga — on nearly everyone’s wish list — are also expected to attend. As are Google Inc, Time Warner Inc, News Corp, all flush with cash.

“You would think this is going to be a pretty exciting Allen event,” said Mike Vorhaus, managing director of consulting firm Frank N. Magid Associates. “Fundamentally, the people at that place, every single one of them, is worth 30 percent or 40 percent more than they were a year ago.”

Still, once they step off their private jets and settle in fireside, media chiefs may not be much in the mood for dealmaking, given jittery financial markets and fears the U.S. is heading into a double-dip recession.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Google Inc won a landmark victory over media companies as a Manhattan federal judge threw out Viacom Inc’s $1 billion lawsuit accusing the Internet company of allowing copyrighted videos on its YouTube service without permission.

Viacom claimed “tens of thousands of videos on YouTube, resulting in hundreds of millions of views,” had been posted based on its copyrighted works, and that the defendants knew about it but did nothing to stop illegal uploads.

But in a 30-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton said it would be improper to hold Google and YouTube liable under federal copyright law merely for having a “general awareness” that videos might be posted illegally.

“Mere knowledge of prevalence of such activity in general is not enough,” he wrote. “The provider need not monitor or seek out facts indicating such activity.”

Viacom said it plans to appeal to the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

It called Stanton’s ruling “fundamentally flawed,” saying it reflects neither Congress’ intent behind copyright laws nor recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

The lawsuit went to the heart of perhaps the biggest issue facing media companies in the last decade: how to win Internet viewers without ceding control of TV shows, movies and music.

SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Apple Inc has sold 3 million iPads in less than three months, a faster-than-expected pace that boosted its stock days before the company’s newest iPhone hits store shelves.

Several brokerages, including Kaufman Bros and UBS, raised their estimates on Apple’s earnings or revenue on Tuesday. Shares in the company, which starts selling the iPhone 4 in the five of the world’s six largest economies on Thursday, shot up as much as 2.1 percent before ending the day up 1.4 percent.

Investors will now turn their attention to Thursday’s iPhone launch. Apple moved 600,000 of the slimmer and better-equipped, $199 iPhone 4 in its first day of pre-sales, in a deluge of interest that jammed up ordering systems and squeezed carrier partner AT&T’s inventory.

Analysts expect the usual lines of people at stores come Thursday, hoping to snag one of the “limited” quantity slated for retail sale only. AT&T will begin selling the iPhone 4 at retail on June 29, on a first-come first-served basis.

Barclays Capital estimated on Tuesday that Apple will move 8.1 million iPhones in the fiscal third quarter ending June 26, surging to 12.1 million in the fiscal fourth quarter as the iPhone 4 production chain accelerates to meet demand.

JP Morgan estimated that 10 million iPhones will ship every quarter as the iPhone 4 takes hold, from around 8 million in the current quarter.

“Some in the investment community may not grasp the magnitude of these initial iPhone 4 shortages,” said Barclays analyst Ben Reitzes in a research note. “Supply is likely to be the limiting issue for Q3. However, we believe Apple’s production ramp for the September and December quarters is very significant.”

SAN FRANCISCO/NEW YORK (Reuters) – Apple Inc said on Tuesday it sold 3 million iPads since the touch-screen tablet computer hit the market less than three months ago, boosting its stock two days before the company’s iPhone arrives on store shelves.

Shares in the consumer electronics company, which has overtaken Microsoft Corp to become the world’s most valuable technology company, closed up 1.36 percent.

Although the iPhone is Apple’s main growth driver at the moment, the early strength of iPad sales has surprised some on Wall Street, leading analysts to rejigger their financial models for Apple.

“We as well as the Street continue to underestimate demand for iPad. Part of the reason is that the iPad, as a tablet, is a relatively new product category where it fits in between a smart phone and a notebook PC,” Kaufman Bros analyst Shaw Wu wrote in a research note.

Before the launch in early April many on Wall Street had expected the company to sell roughly one million iPads in Apple’s current quarter.

Wu raised his fiscal 2010 earnings and revenue estimates for Apple and hiked his price target by $2 to $342.

He now expects Apple to sell 9.7 million iPads for calendar 2010.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – ABC has joined Fox and CBS in wrapping up sales of its advertising for the upcoming TV season, it said on Wednesday, in what is becoming one of the swiftest “upfront” selling periods in recent memory.

Walt Disney Co’s ABC declined to discuss specifics of its deals, but sources with knowledge of the negotiations said the broadcast network won price increases of 8-9 percent from advertisers.

ABC sold about 75-80 percent of all its commercial time available for the 2010-11 season, one of the sources said. Rivals CBS, owned by CBS Corp, and Fox, owned by News Corp., sold similar amounts of their inventory.

NBC is still in the process of negotiating its upfront sales, so-called because they take place each year after the broadcast networks unveil their prime-time schedules in May but ahead of the actual fall TV season [ID:nnN0898142]. But a source said it, too, is likely to finish very soon. NBC is a division of General Electric Co.

With three of the big four broadcast networks now done with negotiations, and the fourth one close, this upfront season is moving even more quickly than many had expected.

A year ago, with advertising budgets under enormous pressure, negotiations turned contentious and stretched out into August. The broadcast networks eventually agreed to price cuts, but also held back volume. Overall sales were down about 20 percent.

This time around, sources say that total advertising sales will likely rise by 16-19 percent to as much as $8.2 billion.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. broadcast networks have made significant headway in clinching billions of dollars worth of advertising deals for the upcoming TV season, with Fox said to be leading the charge by nearly completing its dealmaking.

According to advertising executives, the News Corp unit has locked up contracts with advertisers at prices running 8 percent to 9 percent above those from a year ago, and could complete its negotiations by Friday or early next week. A Fox spokesman declined to comment.

The three other major U.S. broadcast networks — ABC, CBS and NBC — have made less progress, but all are involved in negotiations over prime-time commercial spots for the 2010-11 season, said the advertising and TV executives who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Fox runs an hour less of prime-time shows each night of the week, meaning it has fewer commercial deals to seal than its three rivals.

This year’s so-called upfront should wrap up far sooner than it did a year ago, when the recession crushed advertising spending, and the process stretched into August. Based on Fox’s deals and the sentiment among advertisers, prices also appear to be heading up.

CBS Corp Chief Executive Les Moonves, whose network pulled in the most overall viewers in the just completed TV season, said the CBS network expected to get a number of deals wrapped up within days.

“Without getting too specific we are very pleased. The reception has been terrific, the numbers are where we would like them to be. It’s a very strong market place,” he said, speaking at a Sanford Bernstein Conference on Wednesday.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – U.S. broadcast networks have made significant headway in clinching billions of dollars worth of advertising deals for the upcoming TV season, with Fox said to be leading the charge by nearly completing its dealmaking.

According to advertising executives, the News Corp unit has locked up contracts with advertisers at prices running 8 percent to 9 percent above those from a year ago, and could complete its negotiations by Friday or early next week. A Fox spokesman declined to comment.

The three other major U.S. broadcast networks — ABC, CBS and NBC — have made less progress, but all are involved in negotiations over prime-time commercial spots for the 2010-11 season, said the advertising and TV executives who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Fox runs an hour less of prime-time shows each night of the week, meaning it has fewer commercial deals to seal than its three rivals.

This year’s so-called upfront should wrap up far sooner than it did a year ago, when the recession crushed advertising spending, and the process stretched into August. Based on Fox’s deals and the sentiment among advertisers, prices also appear to be heading up.

CBS Corp Chief Executive Les Moonves, whose network pulled in the most overall viewers in the just completed TV season, said the CBS network expected to get a number of deals wrapped up within days.

“Without getting too specific we are very pleased. The reception has been terrific, the numbers are where we would like them to be. It’s a very strong market place,” he said, speaking at a Sanford Bernstein Conference on Wednesday.