Mediagazer: NoW's Ian Edmondson asked Glenn Mulcaire to hack phones, court is told (Josh Halliday/Guardian)

11:55 AM ET, December 13, 2011

Top News:

Wikipedia Mulls Total Blackout to Oppose SOPA — Later this week, the Senate's House Judiciary Committee will vote on the “Stop Online Piracy Act” (SOPA). — Supporters of the bill say it's needed to safeguard the interests of rightsholders who claim their businesses are threatened by online piracy.

Discussion: CNET News, Free Press, Techdirt, Fast Company, Softpedia News, TechCrunch, Gawker, VentureBeat, The Huffington Post, The Register and Future of Journalism, more at Techmeme »

TorrentFreak:

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Mike Masnick / Techdirt:

Lamar Smith Proposes New Version Of SOPA, With Just A Few Changes — In preparation for his attempt to rush SOPA through Congress, Rep. Lamar Smith has put forth an updated version of the bill (pdf link and embedded below) as a “manager's amendment,” which will be used for the markup, to be held on Thursday.

more at Techmeme »

Brian Stelter / New York Times:

BBC World News to Be Available Through Comcast — The BBC will announce on Tuesday a first-of-its-kind deal for Comcast to carry the BBC World News channel, opening the door to wider distribution for the channel within the United States. — The carriage agreements come nearly a year …

Discussion: Multichannel, Inside Cable News and TVNewser

Adam Clark Estes / The Atlantic Wire:

Don't Bother Emailing James Murdoch on the Weekend — Murdoch sent a letter to Parliament on Monday that he just discovered an email from News of the World editor Colin Myler and News International lawyer Tom Crone sounding pretty concerned about a phone hacking case well before he had previously said he was aware of the allegations.

James Robinson / Guardian:

Phone hacking: lawyer knew ‘rogue reporter’ defence was untrue in 2008 — Farrer & Co partner Julian Pike tells Leveson inquiry he knew the ‘rogue reporter’ defence was wrong three years ago — A lawyer who advised former News of the World owner News International until two months ago …

The Huffington Post:
Dowler Family Insist Police Told Them NotW Journalists Deleted Milly's Voicemails

Discussion: Guardian

Josh Halliday / Guardian:

NoW's Ian Edmondson asked Glenn Mulcaire to hack phones, court is told — Mulcaire's lawyer says private detective was instructed by News of the World's news editor to intercept voicemail messages — Glenn Mulcaire told the chief lawyer at the News of the World in 2007 that he was instructed …

The Daily Record: Glenn Mulcaire's breach of contract case against News International begins

Janko Roettgers / GigaOM:

Universal: Artists didn't consent to Megaupload video — The brouhaha around Megaupload's viral music video continues this week, with Universal Music (UMG) now claiming that several of its artists didn't consent to being used in the video. Megaupload is disputing these claims in a lawsuit it filed in federal court today.

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, Boing Boing, Rolling Stone and Plagiarism Today

Jolie O'Dell / VentureBeat:
Megaupload is suing Universal for unjustly yanking its commercial off YouTube

Discussion: Techdirt, Guardian, TorrentFreak and ReadWriteWeb

Dennis Romero / LA Weekly:

Occupy LA: LAPD Investigates Caught-on-Video Arrest of Journalist Calvin Milam — Updated at the bottom: The LAPD has opened an investigation into this case, but a commander disputes Mark Geragos' take on what happened to his client that night. — The arrest of a journalist …

Discussion: The City Maven and LA Observed

Joe Pompeo / Capital New York:
In video, confrontation between a ‘Times’ photographer and the NYPD at Occupy Wall Street protest downtown

Discussion: Poynter, Runnin' Scared, The Huffington Post, The New York Observer and City Room

Adam Klasfeld / Courthouse News Service:

Gawker Brought Into New Yorker Fracas — MANHATTAN (CN) - A Canadian art authenticator has cast a wider net in his defamation lawsuit against The New Yorker, hoping to ream Gawker and about a half-dozen other media outlets and websites that publicized the magazine's original coverage.

Discussion: paidContent and Gallerist NY

Steve Myers / Poynter:

Judge allows journalists to tweet, live-blog from Sandusky preliminary hearing — Senior Judge John M. Cleland has loosened his rules for Tuesday's preliminary hearing for Jerry Sandusky. The amendment states that portions of the order “are amended to permit reporters credentialed under …

Discussion: PennLive.com and The Penn Stater Magazine

Daniel Miller / Hollywood Reporter:

L.A. Shooting: Hollywood Reporter Editor Shot, Recalls Incident … THR.com photo editor Chris Godley was shot by a gunman in Hollywood on Friday morning, but was only grazed by a bullet and not seriously injured in an incident that was captured on video by witnesses and widely circulated on the Internet.

Discussion: LAist, L.A. NOW and LA Observed

Gabriel Sherman / New York Magazine:

Ailes on Ailes: Fox News Chief Is Writing an Autobiography — Roger Ailes. — Several GOP candidates have treated this primary season as a book tour, just as much as a presidential campaign. Newt Gingrich, Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, and Sarah Palin have all hustled around the country selling books …

Discussion: The Wrap, The New York Observer, The Huffington Post and Deadline.com

Alex Weprin / TVNewser:
Is Roger Ailes Penning an Autobiography? Fox News Responds

Discussion: GalleyCat, FishbowlDC, TVSpy, Inside Cable News and Gawker

Mark Harden / Denver Business Journal:

MediaNews Group manager to invest in tech startups … Digital First Media — the company that manages Denver-based MediaNews Group Inc. — , publisher of The Denver Post and Boulder Camera — has formed a unit to invest in tech startups. — The new company, Digital First Ventures …

Douglas Martin / New York Times:

Oscar Griffin Jr., 78, Pulitzer Prize Winner Who Brought Down Scheming Texas Tycoon, Dies — Judge Roy Bean, the 19th-century Texas justice of the peace and saloonkeeper, called himself “the law west of the Pecos.” Not until the 1960s was Judge Bean's legend challenged — by Billy Sol Estes.

John Bingham / Telegraph:

Phone hacking: Guardian's Nick Davies accuses bosses of ‘pecking’ at climb-down story — Nick Davies, the Guardian journalist who exposed the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World, has blamed his own bosses for the vagueness of the paper's climb-down over Milly Dowler. — The Guardian's Nick Davies

Discussion: Guardian, New York Times, msnbc.com, Crikey and Editor's Blog