Top News:
Bloomberg:
Filings: three companies owned by Alex Jones, including Infowars, filed for bankruptcy protection in Texas, after Jones lost several Sandy Hook lawsuits — Companies owned by far-right radio host Alex Jones filed for bankruptcy after being hit by a flurry of lawsuits.
Discussion:
Reuters, New York Times, CBS News, @cwarzel, New York Magazine, @gideonrachman, @cfarivar, @kylegriffin1, Vanity Fair, Protocol, Financial Times, Gizmodo, @fred_guttenberg, @naveedajamali, @harrylitman, @michaelcohen212, @piersmorgan, @jeffjarvis, @anthony, @jeremynewberger, @brianstelter, @emptywheel, @jamesrbuk, Fortune, @neontaster, @owillis, @katiephang, @newtownaction, New York Post, Rolling Stone, @briannawu, @paulbernaluk and Insider
Emma Roth / The Verge:
Report: Microsoft is working on a program to let select brands advertise within free-to-play Xbox games, such as on a billboard, and won't take a revenue cut — The ads supposedly wouldn't disrupt gameplay — Microsoft is reportedly working on a program that will let brands showcase …
Discussion:
Insider, TechCrunch, @swodinsky, @patrickcoffee, @seyitaylor, ScreenRant, I have some questions and CNET, more at Techmeme »
Zack Whittaker / TechCrunch:
Scraping content that is publicly accessible on the internet is legal, a US appeals court reaffirms, ending a landmark case LinkedIn brought against a rival — Good news for archivists, academics, researchers and journalists: Scraping publicly accessible data is legal, according to a U.S. appeals court ruling.
Discussion:
MediaPost, @alexmleo and @zackwhittaker, more at Techmeme »
Alistair Gray / Financial Times:
Kantar: UK users canceled ~1.5M subscriptions to Disney+, Apple TV+, Now, and others in Q1, due to inflation; 58% of households have at least one subscription — About 1.5mn accounts terminated within three months as inflation squeezes finances — British households have cancelled video subscriptions …
Discussion:
@avasantina, @unloveablesteve, @simonjharris, @john_stepek and @carlquintanilla
Richard J. Tofel / Second Rough Draft:
Legacy local newspapers should eliminate national news and use the freed-up money and space to produce more local content, making themselves more distinctive — Thinking about the problem of local news from the supply side — Welcome to Second Rough Draft, a newsletter about journalism in our time …
Discussion:
@mike_canan, @jamcnn, @jere_hester and Nieman Lab
Elizabeth A. Harris / New York Times:
How Barnes & Noble, with book sales up 14% from pre-pandemic, went from a threat to industry anchor by letting store managers choose books to promote and more — To independent booksellers, the enormous chain was once a threat. Now it's vital to their survival. And it's doing well.
Daniel Wiessner / Reuters:
CBS shareholders settle for $14.75M in a lawsuit that claimed the company misled investors by failing to disclose sexual harassment allegations against Moonves — Paramount Global (PARA.O) has agreed to pay $14.75 million to shareholders of the former CBS Corp in a proposed class action claiming …
Discussion:
Variety, New York Post and The Hollywood Reporter
Nick Kostov / Wall Street Journal:
French music streaming service Deezer will go public through a SPAC merger at a €1.05B valuation and says it had 9.6M subscribers and €400M in revenue in 2021 — French music streaming service is merging with a special-purpose acquisition company, aiming to go public
Discussion:
Variety and Music Business Worldwide, more at Techmeme »
David Hume Kennerly / New York Times:
Photojournalist David Hume Kennerly on the power of graphic war images in Ukraine and other conflicts: “the best photographs might make us want to look away” — The following images depict graphic violence. — A couple of weeks ago I came across the graphic images of bodies littering …
Discussion:
@cliffordlevy, @peterbakernyt, @dabeard, @natashakhanhk, @kennerly and @nickkristof
Michael Grothaus / Fast Company:
Netflix debuts a series with a corresponding game for the first time, with the Exploding Kittens animated comedy series and associated games for iOS and Android — The streaming industry has grown exponentially in the past several years. Where there was once only Netflix, now there's Disney Plus …
Discussion:
SlashFilm, TechCrunch, The Wrap, Next TV, The Streamable, Variety, The Verge and 9to5Mac
Lucas Shaw / Bloomberg:
Stem, which offers music rights management software for independent artists, raises $20M from QED Investors and Block, bringing its total funding to nearly $40M — Jordan Higa was waiting for her flight when she stopped to ask her travel companion how much they would spend on tickets to see BTS perform live.
Discussion:
@lucas_shaw
Ian Johnston / Financial Times:
Ukrainian independent media is finding success on Patreon; The Kyiv Independent, which has raised $1.5M on GoFundMe, has ~7,000 patrons, making $73K+/month — Use of funding platform by smaller publications is emblematic of wider trend in media sector — Olga Rudenko, editor of The Kyiv Independent, has had a punishing six weeks.
Discussion:
@w_kononczuk and @shashj
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