Top News:
Steven Johnson / New York Times:
How creative work in music, TV, movies, and books persists and often thrives in the post-Napster era, contrary to initial fears by some — The Creative Apocalypse That Wasn't — In the digital economy, it was supposed to be impossible to make money by making art.
Discussion:
@ahmed, @stevenbjohnson, Future of Music Coalition and Techdirt
Jennifer Pagliaro / Toronto Star:
Canada's National Post takes down, edits, then reposts Margaret Atwood column criticizing Prime Minister Stephen Harper — Margaret Atwood's column criticizing Stephen Harper vanishes, then returns to, National Post website — Senior National Post vice-president said the column had been taken …
Discussion:
BuzzFeed, Guardian, @margaretatwood, Mashable, @jayrosen_nyu, @jpags, @jpags, @margaretatwood, @goldsbie, @id4ro, @blm849, @gmbutts, @heerjeet, @margaretatwood and @nutgraf1
Daniel Ek / Spotify Blog:
Spotify apologizes for confusion over privacy policy, clarifies that no information will be collected without explicit permission — SORRY. — We are in the middle of rolling out new terms and conditions and privacy policy and they've caused a lot of confusion about what kind of information we access and what we do with it.
Discussion:
Digital Trends, TechHive, Rolling Stone, The Verge, Re/code, Mashable, Engadget, Wired, Daily Mail, Ubergizmo, Digiday, The Hill, Guardian, TorrentFreak, Washington Post, Techdirt, TechCrunch, 9to5Mac, Macworld, Billboard, SlashGear, TrustedReviews, Variety, Consumerist, Gizmodo, BetaNews, Gizmodo UK, The Drum, The Next Web, Business Insider and Forbes
Garett Sloane / Digiday:
Google, Yahoo, and Bing are testing video ads in search results — ‘A gusher of money’: Google testing video ads in search results, industry sources say — Google is testing promoted video ads in search results, a format that could bring more brand dollars to marketing there …
Henry Mance / Financial Times:
As budget cuts force BBC to cut some of its output, it risks losing appeal or eroding quality — What next for the BBC? — With its budget squeezed by the government, the world's most famous public broadcaster will have to slim down to survive — The proposal for Marvellous was not entirely promising.
Christophe Deloire / Washington Post:
Iran's imprisonment of Jason Rezaian is an affront to justice — The writer is secretary general of Reporters Without Borders. — Jason Rezaian must be acquitted and freed immediately. As the final hearing in the Iranian trial of The Post's Tehran correspondent was brought to a close Aug. 10 …
James Barron / New York Times:
Questions remain about long-term prospects for New York's Daily News after sale called off — Daily News Struggles to Find Its Identity After Sale Is Called Off — The news at The Daily News — that the owner, Mortimer B. Zuckerman, had done an about-face and decided not to sell …
Michael Blanding / Nieman Reports:
The Value of Slow Journalism in the Age of Instant Information — As news cycles speed up, ‘slow’ journalists take months—even years—to report and tell in-depth stories — Paleontologists in Ethiopia, where journalist Paul Salopek began a seven-year walk around the world …
Abraham Tesfalul Zere / Guardian:
Profiles of Eritrean journalists who have been incarcerated without trial and not heard from for 14 years — 'If we don't give them a voice, no one will': Eritrea's forgotten journalists, still jailed after 14 years — The country is ranked worst in the world for press freedom, its writers locked in secret jails.
Discussion:
@tymccormick and @icijorg
Susan Crawford / Backchannel:
Cable-only presidential debates block cord cutters from politics and public discourse — Cable-Only Presidential Debates are the New Poll Tax — If you cut the cord, you just may cut yourself off from vital political discourse. And that's wrong. — This month's theatrical GOP primary debate …
Discussion:
@stevenlevy and @jayrosen_nyu
Daniel E. Slotnik / New York Times:
Liz Perle, Writer and Former Publishing Executive, Dies at 59 — Liz Perle, a writer and former publishing executive who co-founded Common Sense Media, a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping families navigate the complex worlds of entertainment, media and technology, died on Thursday at her home in San Francisco.
Discussion:
Publishers Weekly, @marisacnaughton, @betsyboz, @greencomma and commonsensemedia.org
Natalia Drozdiak / Wall Street Journal:
European Commission asks companies for details about Google's ad contracts and scraping as it deepens its antitrust investigation — EU Deepens Antitrust Investigation Into Google's Practices — The bloc has requested information from companies on Google's advertising-contract practices