Daily News Links

• BBC World has been dropped by Israel's satellite provider Yes TV in favour of al-Jazeera English.  Read more here (from Media Guardian).
• Former MySpace head Richard Rosenblatt is throwing his weight behind the ".tv" domain, betting that it will gain popularity as more users post videos online. Rosenblatt's Demand Media is teaming up with dot-com registry VeriSign to market .tv as a preferred Web site domain for online video.  Read more here (from Reuters).
• The Australian has several articles analysing the appointment of Maurice Newman as ABC Chairman.  Read them here.
• A new company is hoping to turn the tide on spammers and unwanted marketers by making any senders who don't appear on an approved list pay for your time. San Francisco-based Boxbe has its email users create their own approved senders list, allowing them to send email for free, but anyone else will have to pay a price you designate. It could be as low as 3 cents or as high as $99. Boxbe will give 75% of the funds collected from advertisers that actually pay to users.  Read more here (from Wired).
• The Nintendo Wii is the fastest-selling games console in Australian history, snatching the title from Microsoft's Xbox 360.   Read more here (from The Age).
• Cricket Australia has threatened to ban journalists working for Australia's two largest news organisations from covering the Ashes in a battle over the right to run online video news coverage of the series.  Read more here (from The Australian).
• ABC News ranks at the top the list of the Top News Sites of 2006, based on a study by Newsknife of more than 4,500 news sites at Google News. The runners up include the New York Times, Reuters, Washington Post, UK Times Online, and Forbes.  Read more here (from Newsknife).
• Packer's online betting agency joint venture Betfair has secured a revenue-sharing agreement with Cricket Australia, and is poised to complete similar deals with other major sporting codes.  Read more here (from Australian IT).
• Google wins patent for search results page design.  Read more here (from CNet News.com).
• Research firm Gartner has predicted that Windows Vista will be the last big release of Microsoft's Windows operating system.  Read more here (from Australian IT).
• Another fake blog scandal is roiling the blogosphere. This one - the latest in a string of stealth marketing efforts - involves a "flog," or fake blog, created by viral marketing firm Zipatoni to promote the Sony PSP. The company Wednesday admitted that the blog was phony. Read more here (from Media Post).
• Kim Weatherall looks at the Copyright (New Technologies and Performers' Rights) Amendment Bill 2006 (New Zealand).  Read it here.
• Catherine Lewan, a former Kazaa user who was sued by the RIAA during the organization's attempt to crack down on file sharing, has filed a class-action lawsuit against Sharman Networks, the company which created the Kazaa file sharing program. The suit claims that Sharman engaged in fraudulent misrepresentation and deceptive trade practices. Read more here (from Daily Tech).
• Digital music company Napster is partnering with a new online service, Nayio.com, that allows Web users to search for songs by humming a melody for 10-15 seconds into their computers' microphone. After users hum at least eight separate notes of the song, Nayio will match it to a track from Napster's library and offer users a free stream of the track. Users also will have the option of purchasing a digital download from Napster, which will share revenue with Nayio.  Read more here (from Media Post).
• The New York Times is allowing readers to send its stories direct to social networking sites.  Read more here (from Media Guardian).
• The Kyoto District Court on Wednesday convicted the creator of the Winny peer-to-peer file-sharing program of helping others violate copyrights. The court ordered Isamu Kaneko, a former teaching assistant at the University of Tokyo, to pay a 1.5-million-yen ($12,817) fine.  Read more here (from Asahi).