Google is trying to paint a new German law regulating news excerpts as a victory, just as it did with the deals it cut with France and Belgium . But it feels like Google is losing more than it is winning. Read more »
The controversial ancillary copyright law has now made its way through the Bundestag, although the opposition SPD party will try to defeat it in the country’s second legislative chamber. Read more »
While Google may see its payments to French publishers as a smart move for its own short-term purposes, the deal is still being seen by many as a payment for links, and that could set a dangerous precedent. Read more at GigaOM »
Germany’s music rights group GEMA asked YouTube to block videos containing some of its music – and is now upset about the way YouTube is handling those restrictions. Read more »
Google exists because, by and large, it is allowed to excerpt web pages without being held liable as a publisher. Now moves in Germany and Australia threaten both of those core facts. Read more »
Not even going online-only is enough. Reporting at the heart of Europe’s economic strife, FT Deutschland says its losses are now so big, it must shut down, leaving WSJ Deutschland to benefit. Read more »
German publisher Axel Springer is buying heavily in to European classified sites to court digital and international growth. Snapping up Belgian property service Immoweb, it says the move will make up for a weakening print ad sector. Read more »
What happens in Belgium doesn’t necessarily stay in Belgium. Now Google News is facing a Brazilian boycott and France is threatening to copy a German-style tax on excerpting its newspapers. What’s an aggregator to do? Read more »
Magazine publisher Burda wants to take complete ownership of LinkedIn rival Xing, while rival Axel Springer is selling a games site to focus on its growing online content and classifieds business. Read more »
In the online local listings and reviews segment, US big boy Yelp is giving a five-star review to Hamburg-based peer Qype – and buying it to expand the breadth of its business overseas. Read more »
One of the many digital content services going global is music video outfit Vevo. Certain new countries mean a mobile-first approach – but that puts services at the mercy of a mobile ad ecosystem they say is still playing catch-up to desktop. Read more »
It can finally be confirmed that Levin is in charge of Poolworks, formerly VZ Networks, the company behind German Facebook clone StudiVZ. But why was the new owner’s identity such a secret? Read more »
Looking to broaden itself from skateboarding dogs by increasing its volume of original professional video, YouTube is extending its original-channel deal with established producers, with 60 new channels in Europe and the States. Read more »
The industry is still figuring out how to exploit the fact that many TV viewers use mobile devices whilst watching. Even two pay-TV services part of the same mothership don’t fully agree on the opportunity. 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 »
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 »
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 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 »
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 »
Details are sketchy right now, but it appears that the director of Independence Day and Godzilla is one of the partners behind a new online film portal that promises to reward users for paying attention to the trailers they watch. Read more »
German startup PaperC adds a twist to the idea of academic textbooks by letting people purchase a single chapter — or even just a page. Now, in order to raise funding it’s not going a traditional route: it’s holding a public auction. Read more »
Papagei.tv wants to use movies and other video entertainment to help people learn new languages — and it’s doing well out of the gate, with at least €10m to extend its immersive language-training courses and a role as the official language trainer for Germany’s Olympic team. Read more »
In social TV’s second-screen dream, timing is everything. And German startup wywy has just burst out of stealth mode with an impressive set of tools for keeping broadcasters, advertisers and viewers in sync — as well as control of long-established media monitoring service Idioma. Read more »
Roku just started rolling out a firmware update to its media players that includes a translation of its user interface to Spanish and German. This comes just days after we broke the story that Roku is eyeing Germany and Span as its next foreign markets. Read more »
A newly-launched startup called Foundd is taking the algorithmic approach, while its Berlin neighbour Tweek.tv is going for the social angle. But why has no winner emerged in this space already? 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 »
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 »
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 »
Apple may not be buying a high-design German home entertainment device maker, but that doesn’t mean investors in the rumoured target company won’t make a killing – and it doesn’t mean it won’t still have a part to play in Apple’s iTV. Read more »
One of Google’s arch-nemeses, the rights-holder group GEMA, has won a court ruling that could see YouTube forced to apply word filters and digital fingerprints to all uploaded videos in Germany Read more »
Germany’s broadcasters ProSiebenSat.1 and RTL won’t be able to launch their own Hulu-like service for catch-up TV, if today’s day in court is any indication. A judge agreed with regulators that the platform would establish a duopoly. That’s good news for Hulu. Read more »
Russian web incubator Fast Lane Ventures is developing a reputation for building big businesses fast, with the sale TV channel Shopping Live — its second significant exit inside a couple of months. Read more at GigaOM »
Germany may be Europe’s biggest economy, but Twitter has relatively low take-up there. So why does the company appear to be preparing to set… Read more »
The new wave of global subscription music services going global has picked Germany, perhaps Europe’s most under-developed digital music mark… Read more »
Germany’s government wants search engines and news aggregators to pay news publishers for using pieces of their material. Read more »
Online advertising and new content fees have helped Europe’s largest news publisher become the latest to reach a print-to-digital tipping po… Read more »
The legal tennis match over smartphone patents is still dragging on, and it was Apple Read more »
One of the more popular instant messaging mobile apps is taking a $10 (£6.32) million investment from a Russian investor. Read more »
Kindle may launch in Japan and Brazil in 2012, according to reports published in the last week. Read more »
