Andy Sternberg

We liveblogged the Grammys from backstage in the media room at Staples Center. It was an eventful day: Lady Gaga showed up in a giant egg, Eminem won just two awards despite having the most nominations. Lady Antebellum took five awards. Esperanza Spalding became the first jazz musician to win Best New Artist, hopefully wiping Bieber Fever from the planet for good. Arcade Fire took down Lady A, Lady Gaga, Eminem and Katy Perry to win album of the year. Mavis Staples, Buddy Guy, Herbie Hancock, Neil Young, Paul McCartney and Pinetop Perkins were among the senior nominees to win.

The two-day seminar takes place February 15-16 at the Sheraton Universal City and includes workshops, panels (example: "The Music Business Isn't Over; It's Just Beginning) and mentoring / breakout sessions.

The Grammys has worked things out so we can watch the awards live -- yes, even the pre-awards awards show -- online. The programming starts today with a livestream of the Social Media Rock Stars event at Conga Room and continues through Sunday night at youtube.com/thegrammys. Shira Lazar is co-hosting The Grammys on YouTube along with former MTV News cat John Norris. We caught up with Shira earlier this week to find out what we can look forward to.

The 53rd Annual Grammy Awards take place Sunday but before you start placing bets on whether Britney Spears will show up or who Kanye might diss, the Recording Academy has a week full of affiliated red carpet events, many open to the public, and some that may turn out to be too good for network TV.

The MPAA filed a suit on behalf of five major Hollywood studios against Hotfile, a subscription-based online streaming media service. The suit alleges that the Panama-based company engages in "unabashed theft" of copyrighted material and of further fostering it by incentivizing and rewarding its users to upload and link to the most popular files. "Everyday Hotfile is responsible for the theft of thousands of MPAA member companies' movies and TV shows - including movies...

L.A.'s homegrown conference, expo, and party for web startups, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists takes tonight and Thursday at the Skirball Cultural Center. Twiistup 8 will feature demos from ten hot startups on the verge of breaking out, panels and sessions geared toward L.A.'s unique media & technology landscape and the Twiistup afterparty.

Four gunmen stormed into the a WeHo Radio Shack last night, clearing out the register and robbing four employees. The suspects forced the employees into a restroom in the back of the store on La Brea near Santa Monica, taking their wallets and cellphones, according to police. The suspects remain at large.

The plan calls for $53 billion in funding for new and existing rail projects over the next six years with $8 billion marked specifically for high-speed rail. But don't go selling your car just yet, 2012 is the earliest that work would begin in California... on a line connecting Fresno and Merced.

Huffington, once a vocal Republican and ex-wife of former GOP Congressman Michael Huffington is now well-established as a beacon of the progressive left. Apparently too much to handle for Politics Daily columnist Matt Lewis became the first AOL employee to quit publicly in protest of the deal.

Stepping up its ongoing efforts to regain relevance in a post-dialup world, AOL will acquire Huffington Post for $315 million. As part of the deal, Arianna Huffington will become Editor-in-Chief for all properties of AOL's rapidly expanding content empire, including the increasingly ubiquitous Patch.com hyperlocal news network. Top sites that will be added to Huffington's editorial domain include TechCrunch, Mapquest, Moviefone and the surviving blogs of the Weblogs, Inc. network (including Endgadget, TV Squad, PopEater and Joystiq), acquired by AOL/Time Warner in 2005. Will the internet never be the same again?