Mediagazer: German book retailers team up against Amazon with new eReader (Victoria Bryan/Reuters)

Lex Google: Germany Waters Down Search Engine Legislation — A new law regulating the indexing of media articles by search engines like Google and Bing is likely to pass on Friday. The watered-down legislation won't force the kind of payments to publishers the Internet giant had feared.

Discussion: Kirk LaPointe's …, Financial Times, German Pulse and @anked

Mathias Schindler / Search Engine Land:
New German Law Will Allow Free “Snippets” By Search Engines, But Uncertainty Remains

Discussion: Bloomberg, Fast Company, VentureBeat, paidContent, VentureVillage and eMedia Vitals

Associated Press:
German Parliament OKs Watered-Down Copyright Law

Discussion: ZDNet and ITworld.com

Ryan Chittum / Columbia Journalism Review:

The battle of New Orleans — In May, as the New Orleans Times-Picayune put to bed an epic, eight-part investigation into Louisiana's prison system, its editors began to disappear. First, Mark Lorando, the features editor, was nowhere to be found. Then the chairs of the online editor …

Discussion: Poynter

Sue Zeidler / Reuters:

Hollywood targets “rogue” mobile apps in war on pirated content — (Reuters) - Hollywood studios, which for years have waged a war against online piracy, are now going after so-called “rogue” mobile apps that use images from movies and television shows without their permission.

Discussion: VentureBeat, Fast Company and CNET

Wall Street Journal:

Imagining Pay-TV if Bundles Unravel — What happens when the “bundle” begins to unravel? — The question is taking on intense importance for the cable-TV business, which for decades has forced customers to subscribe to groups, or bundles, of channels—whether they wanted them or not.

Discussion: Corporate Intelligence

Chris Roush / Talking Biz News:

WSJ names social media editor — Liz Heron, the director of social media and engagement at The Wall Street Journal, sent out the following email announcement on Thursday afternoon:

Discussion: FishbowlNY

Charles Arthur / Guardian:

The Kernel faces high court order over unpaid wages — Tech blog's Milo Yiannopoulos also being investigated by watchdog for failing to register under Data Protection Act — London startup blog The Kernel could face closure from enforcement of a high court order for £16,853 …

Tim Carmody / The Verge:

With HitBliss, viewers earn credit for ‘free’ movies and TV by watching personalized ads — Startup pairs content from Warner Brothers, Paramount, Universal, Starz, and TV production houses with a ‘Pandora for ads’ — Two weeks ago, Hulu made its entire run of historic films …

Discussion: paidContent, TechCrunch, Fast Company and Hollywood Reporter

Dylan Byers / Politico:

ABC News to hire CBS's Byron Pitts — ABC News is finalizing a deal to hire Byron Pitts, a contributor to “60 Minutes” and chief national correspondent for the CBS Evening News, POLITICO has learned. — Pitts will serve as both chief national correspondent and anchor at ABC News, and will appear across the network's programming.

Charlotte Higgins / Guardian:

BBC's new director general warns against reckless risk-taking — Tony Hall, who takes over in April, also emphasises need to ‘give people confidence to be bold and run with what they want to do’ — • Read the full interview in Saturday's Guardian — A reckless approach …

Discussion: NetNewsCheck Latest

Victoria Bryan / Reuters:

German book retailers team up against Amazon with new eReader — (Reuters) - German book retailers have teamed up with Deutsche Telekom (DTEGn.DE) to produce their own eReader to challenge the dominance of Amazon.com (AMZN.O) in the growing market for digital books.

Discussion: GigaOM, Telecompaper and Good E-Reader

Nieman Journalism Lab:

Clay Christensen and David Skok: A not-quite-live blog of a conversation about disruption — Editor's note: Last night, the Nieman Foundation held an event with Harvard Business School professor Clay Christensen and former Nieman Fellow David Skok to talk about disruptive innovation in journalism.

Discussion: paidContent

Rosie Gray / BuzzFeed:

Covert Malaysian Campaign Touched A Wide Range Of American Media — Outlets from Huffington Post to National Review carried pieces financed by the Malaysian government. An international campaign against Anwar Ibrahim. — Malaysia's Prime Minister Najib Razak (R) talks …

Discussion: @jstrevino