Mediagazer: Warner Bros. Defends Allegations It Abused Anti-Piracy Tool (Eriq Gardner/Hollywood Reporter)

7:05 PM ET, February 8, 2013

Top News:

Kara Swisher / AllThingsD:

Tim Marches On: AOL Turns in Solid Q4 Earnings, With First Year-Over-Year Growth in Eight Years — AOL said it earned 41 cents a share, or $35.7 million in net income, in the fourth quarter, which was right on target with what Wall Street analysts had expected.

Discussion: Business Insider, Reuters, CNET, AdAge, VentureBeat, Forbes, 24/7 Wall St., San Francisco Chronicle, Wall Street Journal, TechCrunch, Street Fight, @jeffjohnroberts and FishbowlNY

Jeff Bercovici / Forbes:

AOL Earnings: Revenue Turns Positive, But Patch Disappoints. Bad Omen For Hyperlocal? — Here's the good news: AOL managed to boost its total revenues on a year-over-year basis in the fourth quarter of 2012, the first time in eight years that's happened. And it wasn't a close-run thing, either.

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest and AdExchanger

Bernard Lunn / Emergent Business Networks:
Hyperlocal Slough of Despond. After EveryBlock, Hipster & Patch Will Authentically Local Create The Sustainable Model?

Discussion: Street Fight and Nieman Journalism Lab

Ingrid Lunden / TechCrunch: AOL's Hyperlocal Effort Patch Misses $40M-50M Sales Target, Partly Because Of Sandy …

Jeff John Roberts / paidContent:
LOL no more: it's time to take AOL seriously as shares soar again

Discussion: The Atlantic Online and Marketing Land

Brian Stelter / Media Decoder:

A Fish, Er, Storm Named Nemo — “We're ready for Nemo,” the Twitter account for the New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg wrote on Thursday before listing all the tools at the city's disposal for the blizzard that is expected to form on Friday. — Wait — Nemo?

Caity Weaver / Gawker:

Snow Panic Has Driven Weather.com Completely Insane — You know how sometimes the best way to deal with a ranting, screaming maniac is just to leave him alone until he exhausts himself? It's time for us to do that with Weather.com. — Yesterday afternoon, The Weather Channel whipped itself …

Discussion: AccuWeather.com, Quartz, @mathewi, TVNewser, www.wnyc.org, New York Magazine and Gothamist

Nick Collins / Telegraph:

BBC to launch programmes online first — BBC television programmes are to be broadcast online before reaching TV screens under a new trial as the corporation attempts to rival web services like Netflix. — BBC iPlayer is growing in popularity and last month announced its highest ever number …

Discussion: BBC, The Verge, The Next Web, Electronista and Engadget

Laura Hazard Owen / paidContent:

Macmillan settles with DOJ, leaving Apple last defendant standing in ebook pricing case — Macmillan, the last remaining publisher holdout in the Department of Justice's ebook pricing antitrust lawsuit against five publishers and Apple, has decided to settle about ten months after the lawsuit was originally filed.

Discussion: Tor.com Frontpage Partial, Media Decoder, The United States Department …, Media & Entertainment, Publishers Lunch, CNET, The Week, GalleyCat, Reuters, AllThingsD, PublishersWeekly.com, Hillicon Valley, Digital Book World and Electronista

Amir Efrati / Wall Street Journal:

Pirated Movies Crop Up Again on YouTube — Google Inc.'s YouTube is facing the return of a pirated-content problem. — Hundreds of full-length feature films including blockbusters from Walt Disney Co. and Sony Corp.'s Columbia and Tristar studios have been illegally uploaded to the world's …

Discussion: SocialTimes, Daily Dot, NetNewsCheck Latest and Gizmodo

Jordan Crook / TechCrunch:

Aereo Amps Up Marketing Efforts Before Expanding To New Cities, Hires Former Apple Exec As CCO — Aereo has been making headlines lately, not only for expanding its streaming cloud DVR service to 22 new markets in the coming months, but for being in active litigation with some of the nation's biggest …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest and Broadcasting & Cable

Filipe Alves / Reuters:

Google must extend payments across Europe for use of content — (Reuters) - Google Inc must extend its offer made last week to pay French publishers for use of their content to all media companies across Europe, the head of the European Publishers Council said on Thursday.

Discussion: TechCrunch, Plagiarism Today, Forbes, Engadget, NetNewsCheck Latest and bizjournals

Eriq Gardner / Hollywood Reporter:

Warner Bros. Defends Allegations It Abused Anti-Piracy Tool — In court papers filed this week, the studio reveals its views on whether fair use needs to be considered when causing files to be removed from the Internet. — Very few actions cause more controversy online than when a copyright holder causes …

Discussion: Techdirt

Mike Isaac / AllThingsD:

Former Hulu CTO and Kleiner Perkins Partner Eric Feng Heads to Flipboard — Eric Feng, a mainstay in digital media properties such as Hulu, Airtime and Erly, announced on Friday he will join the executive team of Flipboard, the social magazine app made popular on smartphones and tablets.

Discussion: paidContent and TechCrunch

Ronald Grover / Reuters:

Fox to unveil sports channels for ad buyers in challenge to ESPN — * Fox to use channels to raise cable fees, advertising rates — * Regis Philbin in discussions on afternoon talk show — News Corp will unveil its long-rumored national sports channel to advertisers in early March …

Discussion: Broadcasting & Cable