Moves to allow the digitization of ‘orphan works’ and free up the metadata around 20 million cultural objects will benefit the public and could inspire a new wave of apps and web services. But the underlying motivation is fundamentally political. Read more »
Publishers increasingly want to know exactly what readers are looking for. Now investment is being given to a start-up that purports not just to tell them – but also to write the content for them. Read more »
About to split itself in two whilst still pursuing digital product development, News Corp is adding News International CIO Paul Cheesbrough as its chief technology officer, replacing John McKinley. Read more »
Russian video aggregator ivi.ru is raising $40 million more. The money will be used to license TV and movie content, as investors hope decreasing piracy and willingness to pay for content can make for success. Read more »
Russia’s lacklustre music market desperately needs strong legal digital services. Now Apple may be about to play that role, finally launching in the country, according to reports. Read more »
A new survey points to falling levels of reading every medium bar SMS in the last seven years. Campaigners are worried, but schoolchildren say they enjoy reading as much as ever. Read more »
Hadopi, the French body created by former President Nicolas Sarkozy to enforce copyright laws online, has rarely been popular for its three strikes disconnection policy. Now, after hints that the new government may cut its funding, the group’s leader has told politicians to stop meddling. Read more »
Bosses of fast-growing online sports broadcaster Perform Group earned millions last week when they cashed out some shares. But their company remains focused on building up by bolting on global sports sites. Read more »
Should websites charge users or advertisers? Russia’s number-two operator does both, but has this year seen payments from its user base quickly become its top revenue line, in a positive sign for Russian content payments. Read more »
Real-time bidding is gaining traction with publishers keen to wring more out of their online inventory. Now rival French publishers are joining forces for a united pitch to advertisers. Read more »
Facing off against Sainsbury’s with a string of digital content vendor acquisitions, Tesco is now buying e-book store maker Mobcast for £4.5 million to translate its success in the aisles to the net. Read more »
Simon Fox may be exiting a traditional company plagued by declining analogue content, but that will remain his top challenge, after news publisher Trinity Mirror named him its new CEO. Read more »
Carrier bundling will help grow music subscription income by 46 percent a year, one analyst forecasts. Spotify continues on that road by allying with Deutsche Telekom in Germany. Read more »
The trailblazing firm may need more VC cash to cover its losses as it builds a global streaming behemoth, a disclosure reveals. So who gets what value from Spotify, and how could that change after another investment? Read more »
France-based unlimited-music service Deezer is fast expanding in to new global markets. But the expansion doesn’t yet appear to have upgraded its subscriber count. Read more »
Supermarkets already dominate much of physical entertainment retail – now they are arming themselves to compete on internet screens. In the latest chapter, Sainsbury’s is tapping Rovi to fight Tesco’s Blinkbox, while Tesco cans music downloads for We7′s streams. Read more »
Online advertising is now a multi-billion dollar industry. But it still languishes far behind ye olde television commercials for effectiveness, consumers say in a new survey. Read more »
The company doesn’t think it’s a great idea for search engines to have to pay to reproduce headlines and story summaries in their results. But that’s nothing on the crazy earlier draft of this proposed law. Read more »
Local is hot, at least for Axel Springer. The German publisher is buying a local portal, meinestadt.de, as a vehicle to gain exposure for local online classified advertising. Read more »
The UK publisher of 230 local newspapers has set ambitious digital growth targets for its new CEO’s turnaround. So far, Johnston’s online gains are going slow from a low base. But the most interesting part of its strategy may lay ahead. Read more »
The newspaper is an ardent advocate of free and open online journalism. But that doesn’t mean it won’t charge on devices where and when it can. Read more »
Buoyed by better results than expected from its first European foray, Netflix will head north this winter – a move which means it now competes with Lovefilm in a majority of the Amazon brand’s markets. Read more »
Distributors are passing the buck and regulators are openly contradicting each other. UK VOD services may take heart as another regulator decision is overturned. But the rulings and counter-rulings leave liability for internet video in flux. Read more »
Nine months after aiming to triple its business base, the FilmFlex UK online movie service is preparing to supply another service with PPV films from this autumn. But can its clients compete with Netflix and Lovefilm? Read more »
More data suggests these were the “mobile games”. London 2012′s organising committee says most digital engagement was via mobile devices, as it closes the lid on the Olympics with an end-of-games stats dump. Read more »
The BBC’s celebrated ‘four-screen’ London 2012 output has revealed a late-night iPad fetish and new high water marks for live video and mobile content consumption. ‘This has really been the multi-platform Games,’ the corporation says. Read more »
Tech start-up buzz is bringing Berlin to the attention of suits who broker company investments and sales. That means many more German outfits are likely to see money sloshing around, just like SoundCloud did. Read more »
As Facebook Payments revenue through Zynga games slows up, the social network is turning to gambling for more direct user money. How will the social network balance responsible behaviour with the need to impress investors? Read more »
Half of searches and video streams are coming from mobiles and tablets during the Olympic games. Has the mobile internet reached a tipping point? New Google data would seem to suggest as much. Read more »
In the video game industry, power and money is moving away from high street retailers. But how will development studios adapt to an ecosystem of new platform power brokers? Read more »
UK TV viewers are gobbling up 24 simultaneous live Olympics streams the BBC is taking from web to TV. First-week data shows a big appetite for viewing of all kinds. Read more »
New technology can insert realistic branded 3D objects in to TV shows and movies. Channel 4 is getting the ball rolling with the first of several planned 2012 roll-outs. Read more »
Wahwah.fm was trying to bring personal radio into the social age, while doing it all legally. It failed – at least for now – and CEO Philipp Eibach has a very cautionary tale for startups planning to take on the music business. Read more »
France’s Hadopi piracy agency has warned hundreds of thousands accused of piracy. But it’s become frowned upon by the country’s new government. First step in reform is to cut the agency’s budget. Read more »
As it takes a hammering at home, Netflix is pinning its hopes on getting traction in Europe. But Adam Valkin, the founding CEO of rival video service Lovefilm, says that the US company could have owned the market if it hadn’t pulled out of a European launch in 2004. Read more »
Almost half of the internet video NBC is serving this Olympics is going to mobiles and tablets. That’s a watershed for portable TV. But what happens when at-home internet TV becomes commonplace? Read more »
Stung by online criticism of its “#NBCFail” Olympics, the broadcaster comes out fighting with a range of record cross-platform viewing stats it says show critics are just a ‘vocal minority’. But can it make the most of digital when the laser focus is on prime time TV? Read more »
The Berlin startup, which has been quietly developing its technology duirng a bootstrapped first couple of years, has gone into closed beta while revealing funding from VCs and SoundCloud and GameForge co-founders Read more »
Somewhere over the rainbow for Phorm is a land where it gets to target brands’ ads to users based on their every web browsing habit. After UK controversy, the latest emerging market in its sights is Turkey. Read more »
Many publishers are introducing digital fees but, in print, shrinking economics are moving others to abandon cover prices. Their hope is to drive up free circulation and advertiser interest. Read more »
