In one of five copyright rulings handed down Thursday, the Court confirmed that users shouldn't have to pay to hear 30- to 90-second song samples on Apple's iTunes. In a separate ruling, the Court overturned the Copyright Board's decision that the act of downloading a video game is not a public performance that deserves a separate payment to copyright owners. The iTunes decision was not a surprise and is consistent with a common sense outlook held by many copyright scholars. The court's related decision concerning copyright and downloads was more controversial.

Business-to-business publisher Centaur Media has reported a "notable increase" in digital revenues and an improvement in profit margins in the full year to the end of June. In a trading update on Thursday, the group also announced that it had completed its acquisition of digital marketing group Econsultancy.com for an initial GBP12 million. Digital revenues continued to show strong growth and now account for 30% of total group turnover, up from 26% in the previous year, Centaur said. Events revenue also continues to grow.

Today's social community isn't what it was during the Beijing Olympics. This year's summer Olympics will be what some are calling the first "Socialympics." The International Olympic Committee has revamped its social media policies. And those strict rules also apply to Facebook and Twitter. If you're a marketer or social media manager, here's what you need to know before sharing.

When ousted Barclays CEO Bob Diamond says he felt "physically ill" reading e-mails of his traders crowing over interest rate manipulation, he is almost certainly telling the truth. The veteran banker says it was the first he knew that employees had worked to artificially inflate the London interbank rate LIBOR. Whatever the reality, he must have realized that the saved messages -- with employees glorying in their activities and promising each other champagne -- could only add to the damage.

The magazine's owner, Centaur Media, is proposing the last fortnightly print edition will be published next Monday, 16 July. Two out of six editorial jobs have been placed at risk of redundancy and further jobs are at risk in the commercial team A new page-turning monthly e-edition optimised for a variety of mobile devices is being launched this month and the editorial team will have a renewed focus on the website, which currently attracts some 140,000 unique users a month.

Try reading a small local newspaper such as Hallingdlen , or a regional such as Faedrelandsvennen, online and you will hit the paywall for most articles, save those on major news events, the traffic or those originating from newswires. At Norwegian local Mre-Nytt you have to pay if you want to read more than five articles. Other local newspapers, such as several of those owned by Edda Media, a group in the process of being acquired by A-pressen from Mecom, are introducing so-called "plus models", where readers have to pay to access the "plus" area, which typically offers more features …

The latest data from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech shows that for the first time Google Android has taken at least half of smartphone sales across Great Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, US and Australia. Its share is based on new smartphone users increasingly opting for Android, whose range extends to top models such as the Samsung Galaxy S3, which rivals the iPhone, to inexpensive models that are now cheaper than some feature phones. New Apple iPhone sales on the Sprint network, however, meant Android fell 6.8% in America. In Europe, the share now ranges from 49.6% in Italy to 84.1% in …

The Only Way Is Essex star Gemma Collins has been criticised by the UK's advertising watchdog today for posting two promotional tweets that were not marked as advertising. The Advertising Standards Authority found that Collins had tweeted on behalf of hair salon chain Toni & Guy in April, but not flagged up to her 560,000 followers that they were marketing communications. The ruling comes as brands are increasingly coming under the attention of regulators over their efforts to get high-profile people to post promotional messages on their popular social media profiles.

One of Canada's leading, but ailing, newspaper publishing groups, Postmedia Network, has announced a new round of cutbacks. But the company has not revealed what those cuts will entail. However, during a conference call with journalists, Postmedia executives did refer to a range of initiatives, such as format changes, property sales, outsourcing and redundancies. In a three-year programme, the company is seeking to reduce its reliance on print advertising in preparation for a digital future.

A study by Anxiety UK reveals that the use of technology and social media increases anxiety amongst consumers. The study found that more than half of respondents surveyed saw their behaviour change negatively when using social networking sites on a regular basis. Spending too much time in front of a computer, comparing themselves to others, online confrontation and have trouble disconnecting were reasons found to cause anxiety. Forty-five percent of respondents who were not able to access their email or social networking accounts became worried or uncomfortable as a result.