Mark HefflingerGoogle Book Settlement Gets Preliminary Approval; Hearing in 2010Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 20, 2009 - 11:02am.
New York
- The judge overseeing the settlement agreement between Google (NASD: GOOG) and authors and
publishers over the direction of its massive book-scanning project has pushed a
hearing on a revised settlement back to Feb. 18, while at the same time granted
preliminary approval to the new deal. "The preliminary approval order
sends a positive initial message; this agreement promises to benefit readers
and researchers, and enhance the ability of authors and publishers to
distribute their content in digital form," Google said in a statement.
tags: Law | Lawsuits | Google | Copyright | E-Books | Publishing | Books | Authors Guild | Google Book Search |
eBay Completes Sale of Skype Unit to Investor GroupAuthored by Mark Hefflinger on November 20, 2009 - 9:34am.
San Jose,
Calif. - Nearly three months
after first announcing the deal, online auction giant eBay (NASD: EBAY) said that it has
completed the sale of a majority stake in its Skype Internet telephone business
to an investment group headed by Silver Lake Partners. Under the deal, the
investor group -- which also included Joltid Limited, the Canada Pension Plan
Investment Board and Andreessen Horowitz -- paid $1.9 billion and a $125
million note in exchange for a 70% stake in the unit.
tags: Deals | eBay | Acquisitions | Skype | Silver Lake Partners | Andreessen Horowitz | Canada Pension Plan Investment Board | Joltid | Janus Friis | Niklas Zennstrom |
MySpace to Acquire imeem Music Streaming ServiceAuthored by Mark Hefflinger on November 19, 2009 - 9:29am.
AOL to Cut One-Third of Staff; Voluntary Layoffs to Begin Dec. 4Authored by Mark Hefflinger on November 19, 2009 - 8:51am.
Studios Sue Swedish ISP, Demand Closure of OpenBitTorrentAuthored by Mark Hefflinger on November 18, 2009 - 11:54am.
Los Angeles - Several Hollywood movie studios have filed suit against a Swedish
ISP that is hosting OpenBitTorrent, an independent BitTorrent file-sharing
tracker site that was launched in the wake of the The Pirate Bay's announced
sale to Global Gaming Factory, TorrentFreak reported. The studios sued hosting
provider Portlane, demanding that it shutter the OpenBitTorrent website.
tags: Video | Law | Lawsuits | P2P | Music | Copyright | The Pirate Bay | OpenBitTorrent | Portlane |
"Call of Duty" Generates Record $550 Million in First 5 DaysAuthored by Mark Hefflinger on November 18, 2009 - 11:26am.
Time Warner to Spin Off AOL Dec. 9 With $3.5 B ValuationAuthored by Mark Hefflinger on November 17, 2009 - 11:39am.
The Pirate Bay Permanently Shutters File-Sharing TrackerAuthored by Mark Hefflinger on November 17, 2009 - 8:41am.
Stockholm, Sweden - Marking "the end of an era,"
the operators of file-sharing hub The Pirate Bay on Tuesday shut down their
BitTorrent tracker, which grew over six years to become the largest hub for
finding copyrighted materials for download in the world, TorrentFreak reported. "Now that the
decentralized system for finding peers is so well developed, TPB has decided
that there is no need to run a tracker anymore, so it will remain down! It's
the end of an era, but the era is no longer up2date," the Pirate Bay
wrote on its blog. "We have put a server in a museum already, and now the
tracking can be put there as well."
Report: MySpace in Talks to Acquire Music Streamer imeemAuthored by Mark Hefflinger on November 17, 2009 - 8:23am.
Nokia Lays Off 330 Research and Development StaffAuthored by Mark Hefflinger on November 20, 2009 - 10:23am.
Espoo, Finland - Cell phone maker Nokia (NYSE: NOK)
announced on Friday that it will lay off up to 330 employees from its research
and development operations, representing about 2% of its global research and
development staff of 17,000.
Report: Video Viewing on Social Media Sites Doubles in YearAuthored by Mark Hefflinger on November 20, 2009 - 9:56am.
New York - Internet users now spend nearly double the amount
of time watching videos on social networking sites than they did just one year
ago, according to newly released figures from Nielsen.
Details Emerge About AOL's Massive Workforce ReductionsAuthored by Mark Hefflinger on November 20, 2009 - 9:50am.
New York
- A day after AOL announced plans to cut one-third of its workforce -- up to
2,500 employees -- details are beginning to emerge about specifics of the plan.
Online Marketer QuinStreet Files for $250 Million IPOAuthored by Mark Hefflinger on November 20, 2009 - 9:40am.
Foster City,
Calif. - QuinStreet, a provider
of online marketing services, has filed with the Securities and Exchange
Commission (SEC) to raise up to $250 million in its initial public offering
(IPO).
Mobile Broadcast Firm IPWireless Lands $15.5 MillionAuthored by Mark Hefflinger on November 20, 2009 - 8:08am.
San Francisco
- IPWireless, a San Francisco-based developer of mobile broadband and broadcast
technology, said on Wednesday that it has raised $15.5 million in its first
round of funding, led by Spark Capital.
Chegg.com Gets $57 Million for Online Textbook RentalsAuthored by Mark Hefflinger on November 20, 2009 - 8:06am.
Santa Clara, Calif. - Chegg.com, an online textbook rental company,
said on Thursday that it has raised one of the largest funding rounds for a Silicon Valley tech company this year, landing $57
million in its fourth round.
Digital Media Association Head Jon Potter ResignsAuthored by Mark Hefflinger on November 19, 2009 - 12:09pm.
Washington
- Jonathan Potter has resigned as executive director of the Digital Media
Association (DiMA), a trade group representing the interests of larger
webcasters and technology firms that he founded in 1998. "I am grateful to
DiMA's member companies for allowing me to serve them -- and their innovative
technologies and services and their passionate people -- for so long and in so
many exciting ways. I hope that my next adventure is as challenging and
rewarding," said Potter. DiMA general counsel Lee Knife will serve as
interim executive director while the organization searches for a replacement.
Report: U.S. Labels Concerned on Spotify Premium ConversionsAuthored by Mark Hefflinger on November 19, 2009 - 12:02pm.
London - The major record
labels are reportedly concerned about the percentage of U.S. users
likely to pay for ad-supported streaming music service Spotify's for-pay
premium version, the Financial Times reported. Spotify, which is available in
several European countries, had planned to launch in the U.S. in the
fall, but recently said it would delay the launch to 2010. "We think
Spotify is a great service but they're going to have to convince us they can
convert enough people from free to paid subscriptions to make it worth our
while," one label executive told FT.
YouTube Debuts Automated Closed CaptioningAuthored by Mark Hefflinger on November 19, 2009 - 12:01pm.
Mountain View,
Calif. - Google (NASD: GOOG) announced on
Thursday that it has combined its automatic speech recognition technology with
the YouTube close captioning system, to offer automatic captioning of YouTube
videos. The company acknowledged that the automatic captions "will not
always be perfect," but can improve accessibility and help translate
videos into other languages. YouTube also added automatic caption timing, so
that users captioning videos by hand can simply create a text file, and let
Google's automatic speech recognition sync their captions to the video.
Wall Street Journal Counts 30,000 Kindle SubscribersAuthored by Mark Hefflinger on November 19, 2009 - 12:00pm.
New York
- News Corp.'s (NYSE: NWS) The Wall Street Journal currently counts around 30,000
subscribers via Amazon's (NASD: AMZN) Kindle e-book reader, PaidContent reported, citing
comments made by Down Jones head Les Hinton on Thursday. With a subscription
fee of $15 per month, that translates to about $5.4 million in annual revenues
-- although PaidContent notes that Dow Jones's cut would be less than half that
figure.
tags: Newspapers | E-Books | News Corp. | Publishing | Amazon.com | Kindle | The Wall Street Journal |
Susan Boyle CD Breaks Amazon.com Pre-Order RecordAuthored by Mark Hefflinger on November 19, 2009 - 11:58am.
Seattle
- Amazon.com (NASD: AMZN) said on Thursday that reality TV singing star Susan Boyle's
forthcoming album, "I Dreamed a Dream," has become the largest global
pre-order CD in the company's history. Boyle racked up millions of views on
YouTube for her performances on "Britain's Got Talent."
|
Upcoming DMW Events
December 8, 2009 | Santa Monica, CA www.lafilmconference.com
January 8, 2010 | Las Vegas, NV www.digitalmediainsider.com
Feb. 24-25, 2010 | New York, NY www.digitalmusicforum.com Events Calendar Submit a Speaker To receive event updates & announcements:
NavigationUser loginAds |
Daily Newsletter and NetworkingLatest Top Stories
DMW Widget - Grab it and embed!Latest Briefly Noted
PollOther Ads |
Recent comments
1 day 9 hours ago
1 day 10 hours ago
1 day 11 hours ago
1 day 19 hours ago
1 day 20 hours ago
2 days 18 hours ago
3 days 1 hour ago
3 days 9 hours ago
3 days 9 hours ago
6 days 15 hours ago