Mediagazer: ZDNet cuts U.S. bloggers as it refocuses on global coverage (Sean Ludwig/VentureBeat)

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: Columbia Journalism Review, paidContent, Financial Times, @anked, Kirk LaPointe's … and German Pulse

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

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

Associated Press:
German Parliament OKs Watered-Down Copyright Law

Discussion: ZDNet and ITworld.com

Wall Street Journal:

Imagining Cable 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

Discussion: Bloomberg

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

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

Sean Ludwig / VentureBeat:

ZDNet cuts U.S. bloggers as it refocuses on global coverage — Business technology news site ZDNet has cut five bloggers from its staff in the past few weeks as it continues to realign its organization into a global one. — ZDNet has a long history of writing about the technology industry …

Discussion: ZDNet

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, Fast Company, TechCrunch 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

Variety:

Variety.com Redesign Launches … The evolution of Variety continues with today's live launch of the redesigned Variety.com. And, to the relief of readers and staffers, the paywall has come down. — The new website addresses years of requests from readers, with a site that's easy to navigate …

Discussion: FishbowlLA

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: Telecompaper, GigaOM and Good E-Reader