GigaOm
Berlin's Moviepilot.com, which is making its big push into the U.S., hopes to kill both birds with one stone. And, judging from the $7 million Series B round it revealed on late last week, it's armed with a boulder. The IMDB rival is a Google-driven rumor and recommendation site that in turn powers Telekom's T-Entertain IPTV package, and it's very successful, with two million monthly uniques and 1.4 million Facebook fans. In fact, that makes it Germany's most popular Facebook page, bar that for soccer team Bayern Munich.
BBC
The Netherlands' Pirate Party has been ordered by a court in the Hague to stop publicising ways to circumvent blocks to The Pirate Bay. Anti-piracy group Brein had said that the political party was helping users overcome a previous ruling that had ordered two of the country's biggest internet service providers to prohibit access to TPB. A subsequent order instructed a further five ISPs to block access to the site.
BBC
Games will now be rated by the Video Standards Council (VSC) in line with Europe-wide guidelines. Previously, additional ratings were decided upon by the British Board of Film Classification. The new system means for the first time that anybody selling a 12-rated game to a child under that age could face jail.The Pan European Game Information system (Pegi) gives games an age rating as well as additional information such as violent content and bad language. The VSC will now rate games to Pegi's specifications while enforcing compliance among retailers.
The Telegraph
The company plans to make superfast broadband available to two-thirds of premises in Britain by the end of 2014. From 2013, BT will begin to make fibre-to-the-premises available, offering speeds of up to 300-mbps initially, with scope to increase speeds to as much as 1-gigabit per second. The wholesale fibre broadband service has reached the 10 million landmark "several months ahead of schedule," BT said.
The Guardian
Police chiefs are calling on users of online social networking sites to be the "eyes and ears" of officers to help combat the menace of 'trolls' who bully or abuse via the web. Police forces across the UK are investing more funds into making sure they are plugged into sites like Twitter and Facebook but their nature means they are having to rely on users to self-regulate or to alert the authorities to criminal behaviour. The lead for the Association of Chief Police Officers on e-crime prevention, Chief Constable Stuart Hyde, said the police did not have the resources to …
Evening Standard
Martin Clarke, publisher of Mail Online, which is second only to the New York Times in terms of its global audience, said it abided by a British media code restricting the use of pictures of the Duchess of Cambridge's sister going to work or shopping. This was contrary to Mail Online's rivals in America who freely published "hundreds" of pictures of Middleton taken each day by paparazzi photographers, he said. "That is a commercial disadvantage I just have to live with," he said.
The Guardian
Sales revenue at its national titles starting the year brightly up 10%, but slumping to a decline of 3% in March and April as total ad revenue fell 11% in the first four months. The trading update paints a mixed picture ahead of a tough annual meeting for departing chief executive Sly Bailey, where a significant number of investors are expected to vote against her remuneration, with tough ad revenue and circulation figures in part balanced by reductions in Trinity Mirror's net debt and pension deficit.
The Guardian
The Official Streaming Chart will launch next Monday, billed as the first chart to rank audio streams from both ad-funded and subscription services in the UK. The Official Streaming Chart is compiled with information from services including Spotify, We7, Napster, Deezer, Zune and ChartsNow. It will be published every week in music industry trade title, Music Week, and online at www.officialcharts.com. The Official Single Chart will mark its 60th anniversary in November.
BBC
Next week some of the biggest names in publishing will gather at the Hilton in London's Park Lane for The Bookseller Industry Awards. This year sees the introduction of a new category -- the Digital Strategy Award -- which recognises how the introduction of new technology is opening up the market. It comes at a time when UK sales of consumer ebooks leapt by 366% in 2011 helping to offset a decline in the demand for printed books.
Fierce Wireless
Following Hutchison's announcement that it has submitted the takeover plan to the European Union regulatory authorities in Brussels, T-Mobile Austria said in a statement that it did not oppose market consolidation in principle, but said the deal cannot be approved without restrictions. T-Mobile Austria said it believes that the proposed deal would have a significant negative impact on competition to the benefit of 3 Austria and market leader A1 Telekom Austria. T-Mobile Austria CEO Robert Chvatal called on Austrian and European regulators to closely examine the proposed sale of Orange Austria frequencies.