Mediagazer: Belgian ISPs sued for providing Internet access without paying copyright levies (Loek Essers/PC World)

4:20 AM ET, May 2, 2013

Top News:

Catherine Saillant / Los Angeles Times:

L.A. councilmen want city to weigh in on possible Times sale — Three Los Angeles City Council members — including a candidate for mayor — asked their colleagues Tuesday to consider pulling city pension money from the investment firms that own the Los Angeles Times if they sell the publication …

Discussion: JIMROMENESKO.COM, Hit & Run and LA Observed

Jack Shafer / Reuters:
Who's afraid of the Koch brothers?

Discussion: New York Times and Free Press

Justin Ellis / Nieman Journalism Lab:

Every page is your homepage: Reuters, untied to print metaphor, builds a modern river of news — Reuters, as a wire service, has the concept of a minute-by-minute stream of news deep in its DNA. So it's natural that its digital presence would echo that — a flowing river of information …

Discussion: Talking Biz News

Anthony W. Marx / New York Times:

E-Books and Democracy — WRESTLING with my newspaper on the subway recently, I noticed the woman next to me reading a book on her smartphone. “That has to hurt your eyes,” I commented. Not missing a beat, she replied, in true New York style, “My font is bigger than yours.” She was right.

Discussion: Digital Book World, Associated Press, Digital Book World, paidContent, GalleyCat, Bookseller news and AppNewser

Joshua Benton / Nieman Journalism Lab:

The New York Times launched a revamped mobile site today — You can check it out at mobile.nytimes.com. A few quick thoughts: — In typography and story layout, it's much closer to the Times' iPhone app, edging closer toward cross-platform parity. (Headlines are still just Georgia …

Robinson Meyer / The Atlantic Online:

The Company That's Buying Up All the Key Pieces of the Online News Ecosystem — Betaworks has its tentacles in nearly every part of how stories are made, read, and measured. — In the past couple years, an ecology of sorts has come into being among online news sites.

Discussion: Adweek, Kirk LaPointe's …, @axb21, @stilgherrian, @richgor, @lexilewtan, @mededitor and @berkowitzrtrs

Michael Calderone / The Huffington Post:

Howard Kurtz's Daily Download Connection Raises Questions — NEW YORK — Howard Kurtz, the Washington bureau chief for The Daily Beast and Newsweek, has been regularly contributing to, and heavily promoting, a lesser-known media website with no financial ties to his full-time employer.

Discussion: Mediaite, The Atlantic Wire, Gawker, The Daily Beast and Daily Download

Todd Bishop / GeekWire:

Amazon adopts Apple ‘VoiceOver’ for Kindle on iPhone, iPad — Amazon this morning updated its Kindle iOS app with support for Apple's “VoiceOver” reading and navigation feature for blind and visually impaired users of the iPhone and iPad. Amazon says more than 1.8 million e-books will support …

Discussion: Amazon.com, LNR Journalism, TUAW, BetaNews, 9to5Mac, CNET and TechCrunch

The Wrap:

Peter Levinsohn Named President and Chief Distribution Officer of Universal — The Fox executive will report to studio chairman Adam Fogelson — Peter Levinsohn was named president and chief distribution officer of Universal Pictures on Wednesday, the studio announced.

Discussion: Los Angeles Times and Variety

Loek Essers / PC World:

Belgian ISPs sued for providing Internet access without paying copyright levies — Sabam, the Belgian association of authors, composers and publishers, has sued the country's three biggest ISPs, saying that they should be paying copyright levies for offering access to copyright protected materials online.

Discussion: Plagiarism Today

Glyn Moody / Techdirt:

No, The UK Did Not Just Abolish Copyright, Despite What Photographers Seem To Think — The photographers are freaking out again. After last year's excitement with Instagram's changes to its terms of service, now it's the UK's Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (ERR) Act that's getting people worked up.

Discussion: Journalism.co.uk, Digital Spy, Know Your Mobile, Social Barrel, Stop43.org.uk and The Register

Ben Adler / Columbia Journalism Review:

Streams of consciousness — Millennials expect a steady diet of quick-hit, social-media-mediated bits and bytes. What does that mean for journalism? — My first encounters with journalism were the same as most American males: through the sports pages. Sometime in middle school …

Committee to Protect Journalists:

Getting Away With Murder — CPJ's 2013 Impunity Index spotlights countries where journalists are slain and the killers go free — Rocked by militants in the north and politically inspired aggression nationwide, Nigeria has become one of the worst nations in the world for deadly …

Discussion: Guardian and Reuters

Roy Greenslade / Guardian:

Evgeny Lebedev gives a platform to journalists facing danger — Evgeny Lebedev, owner of the Independent titles, has launched a campaign aimed at providing a platform for journalists who are facing harassment and intimidation in their own countries. — In an article in today's Independent …

Discussion: Editors Weblog

Mathew Ingram / paidContent:

Newspapers need to stop lying to themselves — and to advertisers — about their circulation — A trade group says that newspapers like the New York Times have seen large increases in circulation, but that's partly because they are allowed to count their readers multiple times. The industry needs to do better.

Discussion: Daily Download, Crikey, @jackshafer, The Dish, @jackshafer, Guardian, @stevebuttry and Media Nation

Jim Romenesko:

Carolyn Ryan is named New York Times political editor — Carolyn Ryan has been named New York Times political editor and Wendell Jamieson replaces her as metro editor. The memo:

Discussion: Capital New York

Peter Lauria / BuzzFeed:

The Movie Business Is A Total Drag — On Earnings — CBS's first quarter earnings, released today, shined in part because it doesn't own a major movie studio. At least not yet. — Media magnate Sumner Redstone, actress Emily Blunt, CBS President and CEO Les Moonves and actor Ewan McGregor.

Steve Annear / Boston Magazine:

Former Phoenix Reporters Launch Online Alt-Weekly — “The Media” is an ad-free weekly publication trying to fill at least some of the void left by the defunct magazine. — With The Phoenix long gone, and the red boxes that once held it obsolete from city streets, three former staff members …