Mediagazer: US District Judge Reed O'Connor recuses himself from X's advertiser lawsuit over an alleged ad boycott; O'Connor held stock in Tesla and Unilever (Bobby Allyn/NPR)

Sara Fischer / Axios:

Harris campaign is running Google search ads with news headlines and descriptions that have been edited to make articles from major publishers appear pro-Harris — - According to Google's ad transparency center, the Trump campaign isn't running these types of ads, but this technique has been used by campaigns before.

Discussion: Fox News, @edzitron, @eriqgardner, @mikenellis, @noahcrothman, @greg_price11, @sarafischer, @sophiacai99, @bariweiss, @mrarenge and @sarafischer

Blake Brittain / Reuters:

A US judge rules that a group of artists can pursue some copyright infringement claims in their lawsuit against Stability AI, Midjourney, and other companies — A group of visual artists can continue to pursue some claims that Stability AI, Midjourney, DeviantArt and Runway AI's artificial …

Discussion: US District Court NorCal, @sarahcandersen, The Verge, @kelly_mckernan and The Hollywood Reporter, more at Techmeme »

Bobby Allyn / NPR:

US District Judge Reed O'Connor recuses himself from X's advertiser lawsuit over an alleged ad boycott; O'Connor held stock in Tesla and Unilever — A U.S. District Judge in Texas has recused himself from a lawsuit filed by Elon Musk's X days after NPR drew scrutiny to the judge's investment …

Discussion: Reuters, Quartz, CNBC, Ars Technica, The Verge, Los Angeles Times and Ars OpenForum

Rick Porter / The Hollywood Reporter:

Memos: Paramount shuts down Paramount TV Studios and begins layoffs of 15% of its US staff, which will happen in three phases, as it seeks to save $500M — Projects at the Nicole Clemens-led unit will move under the CBS Studios umbrella. — Paramount Global is shutting down its namesake TV studio …

Discussion: Variety, The Desk, Reuters, Josh Frieder on LinkedIn, AV Club, IGN, Adweek, Deadline, @sherman4949, The Wrap, Variety, Wall Street Journal, The Verge and New York Daily News

Bloomberg:

Sources: after Google's monopoly ruling, the DOJ considers forcing an AdWords sale or asking for requirements to make it work seamlessly on other search engines — - Antitrust enforcers soliciting input from outside companies — Judge ruled Alphabet unit monopolized online search, ads

Discussion: New York Times, The Register, New York Post, Search Engine Land, @ryanbarwick, @mikeisaac and @ivanthek, more at Techmeme »

Reuters:

Tencent Music reports Q2 revenue down 1.7% YoY to ~$999M vs. ~$996M est., paying users up 17.7% to 117M, social entertainment revenue down 42.8%; TME drops 15%+ — Tencent Music Entertainment (1698.HK) reported a smaller than expected fall in quarterly revenue on Tuesday …

Discussion: Digital Music News, Tencent Music, MarketWatch and Billboard

David Bauder / Associated Press:

Politico, the NYT, the WaPo, and others refusing to give details about leaked Trump campaign materials stands in marked contrast to Clinton's emails in 2016 — At least three news outlets were leaked confidential material from inside the Donald Trump campaign, including its report vetting JD Vance as a vice presidential candidate.

Washington Post:
WaPo's Matt Murray says leaked Trump campaign documents “didn't seem fresh or new enough” to publish; Politico says the origins of the docs were more newsworthy

Discussion: CNN, The Hill, @washpostpr, @willsommer, Mediaite and The Register

Ivan Mehta / TechCrunch:

SoundCloud launches SoundCloud Store, which helps artists sell merch by creating mockups, producing goods, and listing them, in the US, Canada, and Europe — Music streaming service SoundCloud has launched a merch marketplace called SoundCloud Store. The store will sell SoundCloud-themed items …

Jennifer Maas / Variety:

DoorDash partners with WBD to offer a free Max With Ads subscription to subscribers of the DashPass plan, which costs $96 per year, in the US — Food and grocery delivery platform DoorDash has launched a partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery to offer a free Max subscription to all of its DashPass customers.

Discussion: The Desk, Reuters, ComingSoon.net, The Streamable, The Information, Streaming Better, DoorDash, Advanced Television and Media Play News

Rick Porter / The Hollywood Reporter:

NBCUniversal says the 2024 Paris Olympics averaged 30.6M viewers across all platforms for its US daytime and nightly prime telecasts combined, up 82% from Tokyo — The company says 30.6 million people watched its daily coverage from Paris. — NBCUniversal will always have Paris …

Discussion: Sportico, NBCSports.com, Awful Announcing, Media Play News, The Media Leader, The Streamable, Barrett Media, Next TV, Adweek, Front Office Sports, The Wrap, Poynter, UPI and Deadline

Sara Fischer / Axios:

The Democratic National Convention will be streamed in TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube in a bid to attract young viewers, and on Twitch, X, and Prime Video — - Roughly one-third of Americans ages 18 to 29 say they get news regularly on TikTok, which only streams vertical video, per Pew Research Center.

Discussion: The Information, Cord Cutters News, The Hill and Deadline

Sara Fischer / Axios:

Substack says news and politics journalists making $1M+ hit “double digits”; the success of The Ankler and others also shows Substack is a newsroom incubator — - News industry cuts totaled 2,569 between January and July, up 10% from the same time last year, per Challenger, Gray & Christmas.

Discussion: @lainnafader

Minyvonne Burke / NBC News:

Gideon Cody, the former Marion police chief linked to the 2023 Marion County Record raid, is charged with one count of interfering with the judicial process — Gideon Cody, who resigned from the Marion Police Department, is charged with one count of interference with the judicial process.

Discussion: Associated Press, The Hill, Voice of America, CBS News, KCTV, @marisakabas2, Newser and @tlambert895