Mediagazer: Anonymous claims DOJ and record label site takedowns in response to MegaUpload suit (Chris Ziegler/The Verge)

5:50 PM ET, January 19, 2012

Top News:

Darrell Etherington / GigaOM:

Apple unveils iBooks Author, a Mac app for easy interactive e-book authoring — Apple's Roger Rosner, VP of productivity software, showed off Apple's new iBooks Author on Thursday at Apple's special media event in NYC. iBooks Author is a Mac app that provides tools to help anyone publish …

Discussion: PandoDaily, 9to5Mac, Forbes, Epicenter, TeleRead, paidContent, AllThingsD, TechCrunch, Pocket-lint, CNET, Softpedia News, The FJP and L.A. Times Tech Blog, more at Techmeme »

Bits:

Apple Unveils App and Tools for Digital Textbooks — Updated Adding more details as the press conference progresses. — NEW YORK — Apple wants students to bid farewell to the days of lugging around backpacks of heavy textbooks, and to welcome the iPad tablet as their new all-in-one reading device.

Discussion: The Awl, TechCrunch, CNET, Global News, The Huffington Post, Forbes, Future of Journalism, ZDNet, GigaOM, Pocket-lint and Softpedia News, more at Techmeme »

Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:
Houghton Mifflin, McGraw Hill, Pearson First Textbook Publishing Partners For Apple's iBooks 2

Discussion: The Huffington Post and CNET, more at Techmeme »

Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:
The day the bookshelf shook: Four lessons for news orgs from today's Apple iBooks announcements

Discussion: Business Insider, VentureBeat and ReadWriteWeb

Reuters:

News Corp pays out over hacking claims, said to admit coverup — (Reuters) - The British newspaper arm of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp has acknowledged to victims that executives covered up the scale of illegal activity by destroying evidence and lying to investigators, victims' lawyers said on Thursday.

Discussion: Guardian, Future of Journalism, ThinkProgress and Deadline.com

Press Gazette:

37 phone-hacking settlements confirmed at High Court — Nineteen more civil damages claims brought over the News of the World phone-hacking scandal have been settled, the High Court heard today. — Actor Jude Law, former deputy prime minister Lord Prescott and Labour MP Chris Bryant …

Discussion: Guardian, Broadcasting & Cable, Media & Entertainment, Guardian, Multichannel, Poynter, rbr.com, @dansabbagh, NetNewsCheck Latest and The Wire

Ben Fenton / @benfenton:

Hacking settlement judge Vos:"a carefully conceived plan to delete emails was put into effect at the behest of senior management [of NGN]."

@tomsymonds:

Jude Law statement read out: phone hacked repeatedly - including on US soil at JFK airport #phonehacking

Discussion: @tomsymonds

Andrew Pugh / Press Gazette:
NoW illegally intercepted emails of Harold Shipman's son

Discussion: Guardian

Erik Larson / Bloomberg: News Corp. ‘Startling’ E-Mails Trigger New U.K. Computer Search

Neville Thurlbeck:
News International's Crisis of Trust - The Staff

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk

Dan Sabbagh / Guardian:
Phone hacking settlements: full list of who got what

Discussion: paidContent:UK, @michaelwolffnyc and Editors Weblog

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

How Media Shaped Romney's ‘Inevitable’ Narrative — CHARLESTON, S.C. — Mitt Romney won the Iowa Caucus by eight votes over Rick Santorum, according to reports by every news organization on Jan. 4. Now two weeks later, there's a different story: Santorum is ahead of Romney by 34 votes …

Associated Press:

Indictment Charges Megaupload Site With Piracy — McLEAN, Va. — Federal prosecutors in Virginia say they have shut down one of the world's largest Internet file-sharing sites, Megaupload.com, and charged its founder and others with violating piracy laws. — An indictment accuses the company …

Janko Roettgers / GigaOM:

The Mega empire: details of the MegaUpload indictment — The FBI moved Thursday to shut down MegUpload.com and arrest four of its executives including its founder Kim Schmitz. The feds are alleging criminal copyright infringement and racketeering, and the full indictment has already been posted online.

Discussion: Federal Bureau … and @hanezawakirika, more at Techmeme »

Chris Ziegler / The Verge:
Anonymous claims DOJ and record label site takedowns in response to MegaUpload suit

Discussion: rt.com, more at Techmeme »

Nikki Finke / Deadline.com:

EXCLUSIVE: Hollywood Moguls Stopping Obama Donations Because Of President's Piracy Stand: “Not Give A Dime Anymore” — EXCLUSIVE: Internet sites on their SOPA-Strike may be conducting a blackout but Hollywood studios are conducting a boycott. I've learned that Hollywood studio chiefs individually …

Discussion: paidContent, rbr.com, Hollywood Reporter, CNN, CNET, White House.gov Blog, The Huffington Post, ReadWriteWeb, John Battelle's Search Blog, Techdirt, The Informer, LA Observed and Free Press

Jim Romenesko:

Dealing with the Fox News PR machine — “Much as I like Gabe Sherman's work, I disagree with him in this instance,” Times media editor Bruce Headlam told me Tuesday night. “Covering a person or organization doesn't mean you are carrying water for them. If it did, our homepage right …

Discussion: TVNewser and Gawker

Eric Savitz / Forbes:

Amazon Kindle Fire: More Profitable Than Expected? — The Amazon Kindle Fire might be a more profitable product than you think. — RBC Capital analyst Ross Sandler reached that conclusion in a research note this morning, after he assessed the results of a proprietary survey of 216 Kindle Fire owners.

Discussion: Fast Company, eBookNewser, WebProNews, PC Magazine and TeleRead, more at Techmeme »

paidContent:
Why Amazon's Plagiarism Problem Is More Than A Public Relations Issue

Discussion: Erik Wemple and Crikey

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

HuffPo Partners With L'Espresso For 'L'Huffington Post Italy' — The Huffington Post Media Group (NYSE: AOL) is partnering with Gruppo Editoriale L'Espresso for the launch this year of an Italian edition, paidContent has learned. The partnership, to be announced today …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest, Editors Weblog, MediaPost and Wall Street Journal

Emma Bazilian / Adweek:

Hearst Names First-Ever CTO — Publisher and broadcaster Hearst Corp. has hired its first-ever chief technology officer as it tries to expand its digital footprint. Former Sony executive Philip R. Wiser will start in the new position Feb. 1. — Wiser was CTO of Sony Corp. of Americas from 2004 to 2006 …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest

Staci D. Kramer / paidContent:

Atlantic Tries A Business Site Again; WSJ's Delaney Will Lead Editorial — Nearly two years after Atlantic Media Company suspended plans for a business site, the company is back at it with nothing less that what Justin Smith calls “our most important new launch since The Atlantic Monthly in 1857.”

Discussion: Forbes, NetNewsCheck Latest, Folio, FishbowlNY and Talking Biz News

Al Tompkins / Poynter:

ABC to air interview tonight with Gingrich's ex-wife, but why? — There comes a time when withholding information is more damaging than releasing it. ABC News faced such a time Wednesday when word leaked out that Brian Ross had what the Drudge Report hinted was an explosive interview …

Discussion: Erik Wemple, Media Decoder, The Politico, The Huffington Post, Associated Press and Future of Journalism

Frances Martel / Mediaite:
Drudge Gets Exclusive, But When Will ABC Air Interview With Marianne Gingrich?

Haaretz:

Netanyahu denies calling Haaretz and New York Times Israel's ‘main enemies’ — According to statement released by PMO, Jerusalem Post editor Steve Linde's remarks to a conference in Tel Aviv were a misrepresentation of the meeting with Netanyahu. — Get Haaretz on iPhone — Get Haaretz on Android