A court ruling says consumers are free re-sell downloaded software just like boxed software. What will it mean for video games, mobile apps and the future of cloud storage? Read more »
New mobile data service Samba has launched in the U.K. with a novel idea — agree to watch a few ads, and it will give you free data. But while the company hopes it’s on track for glory, the path it’s taking is littered with bodies. Read more »
It’s easy to embed a wide variety of music players on your website, but hard to get them singing from the same hymnsheet. Musicplayr’s trying to fix that with a newly-revamped player it calls ‘eye-candy for the ears’ Read more »
When is a book not a book? When it comes to European tax law. The continent is acting against two countries that reduced e-book tax to physical rates, in a sorry and technocratic action. Read more »
The industry-wide internet TV venture led by broadcasters and ISPs promises boxes in stores before August. But, four years on, can even YouView make in-roads to the burgeoning connected TV space? Read more »
The European Parliament has delivered a stunning defeat to the controversial anti-piracy treaty ACTA, voting it down by 478 votes to 39. But although campaigners are claiming victory and the proposals are on the canvas, they’re not quite knocked out yet. Read more »
At our recent paidContent 2012 conference FT’s Rob Grimshaw and Piano Media’s Tomas Bella discuss not just the future of online content payments, but also how to most effectively price your content when there are free alternatives elsewhere. Read more »
A new study from Google and the UK copyright collection society PRS for Music finds that live TV is the fastest-growing segment of copyright infringement — and a large presence on social networking sites. Read more »
Reports that Eric Schmidt has offered to settle an antitrust investigation by the European Commission are everywhere. But the reality is that the details of Google’s proposals — and the regulator’s response — remain shrouded in mystery. Read more »
British Facebook users will be able to watch the Olympics without ever leaving the social network, after the BBC launched an app that streams up to 24 live video streams straight to viewers. It’s already running a trial with Wimbledon. Read more »
Three days after its talks about splitting the company went public, News Corp. makes it official. Rupert Murdoch has agreed to partially dismantle the conglomerate, spinning off its publishing and education assets into a new company — with him as chairman of both. Read more »
Under new proposals from the British media regulator Ofcom, internet providers will start sending warning letters to those accused of illegal filesharing in 18 months — and will be forced to handed people’s data over to copyright holders after three successive hits. Read more »
The BBC is about to reconfigure its commercial ambitions amid growing internal friction over the nature of online commercial activities. Read more »
It’s been suggested before inside and out that News Corp. sell or spin off its publishing operations. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch has resisted before but his own paper, the Wall Street Journal, says that may have changed. Read more »
Bad news for Netflix’s international aspirations, as Amazon-owned rival Lovefilm announced a U.K. rights deal to show 20th Century Fox movies on its streaming service. But with antitrust authorities hovering over the movies-on-demand market, things are still up for grabs. Read more »
Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales is spearheading a fresh attempt to block the extradition of British student Richard O’Dwyer to the United States over copyright infringement charges brought against him for running the video search site TVShack. Read more »
The BBC and its commercial department may each sell different kinds of digital TV show downloads to UK viewers, following news of the radical plan codenamed “Project Barcelona”. Read more »
Polish news and magazine publishers are the latest to begin charging for online content, picking between different models and different facilitators. Read more »
Digital marketing professionals’ site Econsultancy is selling to B2B publisher Centaur, in the latest of several planned acquisitions and in a deal that puts a price on specialist digital publishers. Read more »
The New York Times has been looking for a new CEO since Janet Robinson was forced out seven months ago, and BBC director-general Mark Thompson is said to be in the running for the job. But is he the solution to the newspaper’s problems? Read more »
A global trade agreement on anti-piracy measures may need a re-think after the European Parliament was advised to vote against it. Read more »
Nike falls foul of UK advertising regulators because sponsored tweets for which it paid two top footballers were not obviously marked out as marketing. Read more »
If it can’t beat Sky Movies for UK movie subscription rights within a year, Netflix says it may have to consider ‘other routes’, including calling for a new competition case. Read more »
Hollywood likes to sell its TV programming in big bundles, leaving foreign broadcasters with lots of shows too edgy for prime time audiences. So why not just take them online? That’s what Germany’s ProSiebenSat.1 has been trying this year, and the results have been promising. Read more »
Spotify prepares a free mobile “radio” service that will take on Pandora, sell advertising and aim to drive more users to pay a subscription. Read more »
Russian entrepreneur Oleg Tinkoff has started businesses in everything from online banking to beer. Now he’s turning his attention to the digital advertising market, with a new company backed by Goldman Sachs that hopes to cash in on the country’s rapid online growth. Read more »
French magazine and book publisher and broadcaster Lagardère, which underperforms in digital media, has succeeded in acquiring a majority of shopping site LeGuide.com to bolster its efforts. Read more »
The idea of third-party services that allow online TV recording may have proved controversial in some quarters, but now a Finnish telco is acquiring just such a thing. Read more »
New data released by Google shows that US government requests to remove search results, YouTube videos and other content has increased by 103 percent. Information from around the world show countries targeting everything from social network profiles to a citizen peeing on a passport. Read more at GigaOM »
For what its worth at this point, the much delayed big UK IPTV joint venture YouView may finally be ready to meet a version of its revised and somewhat arbitrary target of launching in time for the London 2012 Olympics. Read more »
In this summer Olympic host country, online ad sellers have mounting concerns that the Games would suck away ad spending, rather than boost it. Read more »
Turns out, supermarkets want to rule the UK’s digital media roost.
Tesco is buying up plucky online music service We7 as the latest plank of its digital ambitions. Read more »
Twitter’s deal with SoundCloud to embed audio in tweets isn’t just a deal that gives the Berlin music startup a ton of exposure: it’s a signal that while Twitter may carry a threat for media companies, it could be a serious alternative to Facebook. Read more »
English soccer viewers will get to watch live games in new ways from next summer, as winners emerge from the Premier League’s first ever “technology-neutral” rights auction. Read more »
It seems the world has a new digital media M&A power player. Fresh from buying Play.com, Kobo and a piece of Pinterest, Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten is acquiring Spanish TV and movie streaming service Wuaki.tv. Read more »
Google announced a major deal in France that clears the way for the sale of millions of e-books that have been caught in legal limbo until now. The deal could spur digital publishing in Europe and shape control of the continent’s fledgling e-book market. Read more »
Berlin startup Readmill’s iPad-based social reading app has got plenty of attention. Now it’s getting a significant update that will make it simpler and easier to use for everyone — including making it more useful for independent publishers to hook themselves in to. Read more »
Forget Quora: Swedish startup Mancx is trying to put a twist on question and answer sites by getting people to pay real money for the information they receive — and it’s just raised another $1.65m to expand. Read more »
Social book discovery startup was left divorced from its intended book retail partner after HMV jettisoned Waterstones. Now its future lays with a supermarket, not a traditional book store. Read more »
Soundrop became the first app on Spotify’s app platform to secure major funding this week, and its investor is none other than Northzone – a company that also led the music service’s early funding round. But Soundrop has big ambitions that reach well beyond Spotify. Read more at GigaOM »
