Mediagazer: Ex-MP3tunes chief hit with $41 million copyright verdict (Nate Raymond/Reuters)

7:50 PM ET, March 27, 2014

Top News:

Amazon planning free ad-supported TV and music streaming service, no Prime subscription required — Amazon Plans Free Streaming Media Service — Website Said to Drop Strategy of Only Offering Video to Users of Its Prime Shipping Service — Amazon.com Inc. plans a free …

Discussion: USA Today, The Huffington Post, Radio & Television …, TechCrunch, Globe and Mail, Variety, SlashGear, Gigaom, Pocket-lint, Business Insider, App Advice, Engadget, The Verge, BGR and Business Insider Australia

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Amazon Launching Video Box Next Week — Amazon's entry into the set-top box world, which has been delayed for months, is coming next week, according to people familiar with the company's plans. — The e-commerce giant has invited reporters to gather for an “update on our video business” in New York next Wednesday, April 2.

Discussion: AdAge, Forbes, Business Insider, The Verge, AppleInsider, BuzzFeed, Engadget, Reuters, 9to5Mac, Daily Mail, Electronista, Los Angeles Times, @seanbesser, TechCrunch, Mashable, WebProNews, Pocket-lint, BGR, Gigaom, @zseward and App Advice

Kara Swisher / Re/code:

NBCUniversal-Owned DailyCandy and Television Without Pity Will Be Shut Down — DailyCandy and Television Without Pity, two high-profile Internet content properties owned by NBCUniversal, are being shuttered, a move that management told staff this morning would be occurring next week.

Discussion: TVNewser, Variety, The New York Observer, Mediaite, @atotalmonet, @saramorrison, AdPulp, @taraariano, @shani_o, @doreeshafrir, @hblodget, @pamelaribon, @poniewozik, @felixsalmon, FishbowlNY and Mashable

Thornton McEnery / Crain's New York: NBC mismanaged DailyCandy to death, former adviser says

Committee to Protect Journalists:

Turkish courts release eight journalists in two days — The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the release this week of at least eight imprisoned journalists in Turkey, but calls on Turkish authorities to scrap the charges against them and release all of the journalists jailed in the country.

Hurriyet Daily News:

Turkey blocks access to YouTube after leaked recordings of key security meeting … Less than a week after a notorious ban on Twitter went into effect, the Turkish government blocked access to YouTube on March 27. The ban was ordered hours after leaked recordings of a key security meeting were published on the video sharing website.

Discussion: New York Times, @zeynep, @robertmackey, Variety, PandoDaily, BBC, Electronista, @buzzfeednews, @hasavrat, @hdner, GlobalPost, @arikan, Los Angeles Times and Newsy

Fercan Yalinkilic / Wall Street Journal:
After Twitter Ban, Turkey's Netizens Find YouTube Blockage a Breeze

Discussion: @alistairmbarr, @policy, Los Angeles Times, Motherboard, Re/code and ReadWrite

Hurriyet Daily News:
Turkish court rejects Twitter's petition

Discussion: Hurriyet Daily News, New York Times, The Switch and Guardian

Wall Street Journal:

Twitter rolling out new music strategy centered on music conversations and content this week — Twitter to Relaunch Music Strategy — Move Comes Shortly After It Pulled #Music App from iTunes — Twitter Inc. is trying out a new tune. The short-messaging service is preparing to roll …

Discussion: The Twitter Blog, Digital Trends, NBC News, @neilshahwsj, @wsjd, Associated Press, VentureBreak, TechCrunch, @ryanchittum, hypebot, Complete Music Update, @brokencool, @maura, VatorNews, The Next Web and 9to5Mac

Ben Sisario / New York Times:

Tweets About Music to Get a Billboard Chart — Chatter about music is everywhere on Twitter. Soon there will be a Billboard chart to rank all of it. — On Thursday, the two companies will announce a deal to create the Billboard Twitter Real-Time Charts: continuously updated lists …

Discussion: Billboard, The Next Web, TechCrunch, VentureBeat, TIME, @liahaberman, The Verge, Hollywood Reporter and ReadWrite

Felix Salmon:

Grand, immersive designs, increasingly common in journalism, vastly oversell smaller stories — Against beautiful journalism — Have you seen that site's gorgeous new redesign? Every article has a nice big headline, huge photos, loads of white space, intuitive and immersive scrolling …

Discussion: @yurivictor, @langealexandra, The New York Observer, @bendwalsh, @jayrosen_nyu, @zimbalist, @dylanlathrop, @feliciasonmez, @nycsouthpaw, @kgittleson, @benjrooney, @wblau, @matthewteller, @martinstabe and @johngasaway

Nate Raymond / Reuters:

Ex-MP3tunes chief hit with $41 million copyright verdict — (Reuters) - The former chief executive of defunct online music storage firm MP3tunes was ordered to pay an estimated $41 million on Wednesday after being found liable for infringing copyrights owned by record companies and music publishers once part of EMI Group Ltd.

Discussion: Hollywood Reporter, Digital Media Wire, Gigaom, Billboard, hypebot, Complete Music Update, Music Week, TorrentFreak, AllAccess.com and Techdirt

Peter Kafka / Re/code:

Twitter pressuring companies highlighting tweets for TV not to work with Facebook — Twitter Plays Hardball With Facebook Over TV — And TV Networks Gripe — TV networks love to work posts from Twitter, Facebook and other social networks into their programming.

Discussion: @caseynewton

Lucia Moses / Digiday:

Entertainment Weekly goes the platform route — Some of the hottest new publishers often paint themselves as platforms, open to contributions from the “people formerly known as the audience,” as journalism professor Jay Rosen has put it. Old media wants in.

Discussion: Mediaite, The Week, The Wrap, FishbowlNY, @guylodge, @loganhill33, @scott_tobias, @andygreenwald, @nprmonkeysee, @erik_hayden and Re/code, Thanks:@lmoses

Steve O'Hear / TechCrunch:

Sources: Dropbox Acqui-Hiring Social Reading App Readmill For $8 Million — With fresh capital in its coffers, Dropbox appears to be on somewhat of an acquisition spree, albeit a quiet one. Following the cloud storage company's recent purchase of workplace chat solution Zulip …

Discussion: @laurahazardowen, @hermancarlsson, @mikebutcher, @mhauer, @ehn, @henrikt, @jorilallo, @maxfenton and App Advice

Michelle Castillo / Adweek:

HitFix Launches Multiplatform Video — After dabbling in video pieces over the last few years, entertainment news site HitFix announced today the full launch of HitFix Video. — “Basically, for us, video is the way, the hook, the content and the opportunity to get in front of consumers …

Mark DeCambre / Quartz:

Spotify is planning an IPO for this fall — Spotify could take itself public some time in the fall of 2014. — The popular music-streaming company has participated in informal chats with some of the investment banks likely to fight for a role in a potential IPO, sources familiar with the process said.

Discussion: Digital Trends, Business Insider, Guardian, MarketWatch, PandoDaily, CNET, VentureBeat, NewStuffHere.com, TechCrunch and @matthewphillips

Joe Flint / Los Angeles Times:

Viacom in fight with small distributors over fees for networks — Small cable operators may lose access to Viacom channels including Comedy Central, home to “South Park.” (Comedy Central / March 26, 2014) — Small cable operators think Viacom, parent of MTV, Comedy Central …

Discussion: Anniston Star, CBS News, Island Packet, Bolivar Commercial, Arizona Range News, Multichannel.com and Bloomberg

Edirin Oputu / Columbia Journalism Review:

The Online News Association is working on a crowdsourced ethics code project — The Online News Association is working on a crowdsourced ethics code project — The Online News Association is working on “Build Your Own Ethics Code,” a toolkit to help news outlets, bloggers …

Lisa O'Carroll / Guardian:

Rebekah Brooks's PA denies lying about knowledge of police inquiry — Cheryl Carter tells phone-hacking trial she would have been aware of matters related to investigation in the spring of 2011 — Rebekah Brooks' former secretary has denied telling “a lie” in previous evidence …

Discussion: mUmBRELLA

Ronan McGreevy / The Irish Times:

‘Guardian’ threatened with closure over Snowden leaks, conference told — Deputy editor details extent to which intelligence agencies tried to stop newspaper's disclosures — The Guardian newspaper was threatened with closure by the British government over the Edward Snowden spying affair …

Discussion: The Huffington Post, @free_snowden, @malarkey, The Voice of Russia, News, @aral, RT, @jayrosen_nyu, Kirk LaPointe's …, @dobroyeutro, @clarecurranmp, @jilliancyork, @msentropy and The Newspaper Guild

Washington Times:

Washington Times launches CurrentSee, a digital magazine aimed at conservative black Americans — The Times launches new digital magazine: American CurrentSee — Publication aims to serve conservative blacks — The Washington Times on Thursday launches American CurrentSee …

Discussion: @jessewashington, @pareene and The Daily Caller

Mary Clare Fischer / AJR.org:

The Pay-Per-Visit Debate: Is Chasing Traffic Hurting Journalism? — Editor's Note: This is the fourth post in a series examining the influence of analytics on how news is produced. — Trying to break into the news business? — Perhaps you should master writing a viral story first.