Microsoft has yanked a controversial ad for its Internet Explorer 8 browser - which features a woman vomiting several times - after an outcry among users.

What on earth where they thinking?

[via stuff]

They face the threat of court action - or fines of up to £665 - for sharing copyrighted games.

Some 6,000 letters have been sent out by law firm ACS Law, on behalf of firms such as Reality Pump and Topware Interactive, who are the copyright owners of video games Two Worlds and Dream Pinball respectively.

Read full article.

Joost, the third major creation by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, the duo that also founded Kazaa and Skype, announced Tuesday that it will dump its consumer-video service and will now focus on building "white label" video platforms for "cable and satellite providers, broadcasters and video aggregators." The move marks the end of Joost as a YouTube and Hulu competitor.

[via News.com]

[via Torrent Freak]

[via Torrent Freak]

For years, the promise of online video advertising has been just that -- a promise. The reality has been a big disappointment: ads that look and feel like TV, and are repurposed from TV creative, only much more annoying.

But with the TV-upfront market frozen and advertisers looking for lower-cost means to reach consumers, a push is on to try formats that could finally realize some of the potential of online video with targeted ads that engage with real interactivity.

Read AdAge write-up of of some of the latest efforts to reinvent online video ads.

CBS, through its TV.com unit, is experimenting with a system that would allow users to earn credits by watching ads.

Tremor Media has rolled out a host of ad units called vChoice that bring interactivity into the player.

Hulu pioneered the choose-your-own pre-roll "ad selector" unit, which allows users to choose an ad, including a long-form movie trailer in exchange for an ad-free episode.

YouTube introduced its own variation on choose-your-own-ads just last week.

"Engagement" pricing models where the advertiser pays for a specific action, rather than an impression.

Now, any news organization that is included in Google News can get their videos included by way of YouTube’s Partner Program. Considering there are now more than 25,000 sources contributing to Google News, this opens the door for both Google News and YouTube to become massive sources for video news.

... Nexicon launched its Getamnesty program which offers copyright holders a chance to turn piracy into profit. They cleverly circumvent privacy protection laws by using ISPs to forward settlement requests for various copyright holders to alleged infringers.

Read full article.

YouTube Reporters' Center features some of the nation's top journalists sharing instructional videos with tips and advice for better reporting.

In their own words:

Learn how to prepare for an interview from CBS News' Katie Couric; how to be an investigative reporter from the legendary Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward, or why it's important for citizens to participate in the news-gathering process from Arianna Huffington.

And definitely don't miss out on New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof's video on how to report from a crisis area without getting shot.

In addition, you can also learn practical and ethical tips, like how to fact check your stories, avoid breaking the law while reporting, and adhere to journalistic principles.

[via YouTube Blog]

In Paris, London, Vienna and New York, hundreds gathered to pay homage to Michael Jackson. All theses videos on YouTube are titled Mass Moonwalk, but it's mostly music. In most videos the crowd is focusing their cameraphones on something we can't see, probably someone moonwalking.

The developers behind The Pirate Bay team have been developing a video streaming site called The Video Bay for the past two years, and an "extreme beta" version of the project is available.

Users can share video clips here without having to fear concerns they may be removed over copyright claims, as with the current dominant video-sharing service, YouTube.

[via boingboing]

That's the decision of the Swedish High Court of Justice, which investigated accusations made by the four defendants in the high-profile file-sharing case.

The accusations were based on Norström's membership in organizations such as the Swedish Copyright Association, which counts among its members lawyers who represented the plaintiffs during The Pirate Bay trial.

The court ascertained that such memberships do demonstrate a commitment to intellectual property issues, which could be considered by some to be in the interest of the plaintiffs. But it also pointed out that rights-holders' rights are protected by the Constitution, and so cannot be considered a conflict of interest if a judge endorses the principles behind copyright laws.

... On April 17, the four defendants were found guilty of having made 33 copyright-protected files accessible for illegal file-sharing via the Piratebay.org Web site and were sentenced to one year in jail.

They were also ordered to pay a total of 30 million Swedish kronor ($3.8 million) in damages to copyright holders, among them a number of American media giants.

That's one thing Comcast and Time Warner are hoping to change with their online venture TV Everywhere. The service, which will be tested next year with an eye toward a fourth quarter roll-out, wants to carry the same load of commercials shown on television.

... Once Comcast and Time Warner take the plunge, Hulu and other sites will likely feel they have a greenlight to jump on board as well. The reality is that the only way content online works economically for big media is either with a pay wall (good luck) or more ads. While it's true that some advertisers pay a premium to be a sole sponsor of a show online, that money alone is probably not significant enough to solve the problem of -- to overuse NBC Universal chief Jeff Zucker's quote -- trading analog dollars for digital dimes.

CNN says it has been using the site heavily to augment its Iran coverage. From a press release it sent out earlier this week: “Since last week, we’ve received 4555 iReport submissions related to Iran–including more than 1600 this past Saturday and Sunday alone, and an additional 689 just yesterday.

To date, 150 of the Iran-related iReports have been vetted and verified by CNN producers for use on CNN air or online–something the likes of YouTube or Flickr just aren’t equipped to do given their lack of newsgathering infrastructure.” (Yesterday CNN told me it added another 399 Iran-related iReports, and that seven had made it onto air. Presumably those numbers are still increasing.)

CNN producers have contacted the people who sent in all of the Iran-related iReports it has featured on the network and at least verified that they are who they say they are. That in itself seems worthwhile, and maybe even worth bragging about.

Related: - Unverifiable Citizens' Journalism in Iran