1. Moviefone’s Drew Taylor highlights ten good films you likely didn’t see in 2012, while Indiewire critics pick the ten best films you definitely didn’t see, because they went undistributed. Indiewire also warns you about the films you shouldn’t see, plus the site offers an A-Z summary of women in film in 2012 and an assessment of LGBT representation in American films of the year.

2. 2012 is looking like a best-ever year for Hollywood box office grosses, both domestically and internationally. Among the studios, Universal did have its best year ever. And among individual films, The Avengers easily takes the 2012 box office crown, while Zero Dark Thirty is heading toward the critics’ poll crown, followed by The Master.

3. The Economist Group has a slew of revealing digital publishing charts that look back on 2012, and while 2012 was a tough year for newspapers, some, like The New York Times and Wall Street Journal, are at least still profitable, while the Washington Post’s multiplatform model may be one to keep an eye on in 2013. Newsweek’s shift to online-only status (ending not with a whimper but a hashtag) marked 2012 as a digital year for magazines, and most recently, Spin and the 126-year-old Sporting News announced they’ll only be available online in 2013.

4. Fifty Shades of Grey cleaned up in 2012 print book sales, and Amazon’s rankings show that Gone Girl put up a good fight too. The e-reader market shrunk noticeably this year, with tablet sales rising correspondingly. Apparently indie bookstores are still doing ok through all of this.

5. Billboard looks back on the year in music, one it calls tumultuous. According to iTunes downloads, it was a good year for Adele and Carly Rae Jepsen, while Britney Spears out-earned all other women in music.

6. VentureBeat has a series of bleak charts detailing 2012 video game sales. In brighter news, Mass Effect 3 and Call of Duty: Black Ops II sold well, while the game that people spent the most individual time playing was Borderlands 2. Back to bad news, Call of Duty is under scrutiny for the amount of time Newtown shooter Adam Lanza spent playing it.

7. YouTube had a big year, from news to ads to lip-sync vids to Gangnam Style. Looking ahead, we should keep an eye on Maker Studios, channel renewals, and Iran’s YouTube. Plus, as always in internet video, porn.

8. Google’s annual report on searching reveals the trends borne across 1.2 trillion searches in 2012. We also visited Google a lot in 2012 simply for the awesome doodles. Using all search engines, we apparently sought out Facebook the most (haven’t most of us found it already?). We also sought out a lot of GIFs.

9. Once we figured out where Facebook was, we talked about the presidential election and Duck Dynasty a lot there. Even dead people found things to like on Facebook. Over at Twitter, its year in review offers a personal perspective, and over 200 million users are now laying the groundwork for 2013’s results.

10. News for TV Majors has its own Best of 2012 critics’ lists post, and here are some other informative posts from the past two weeks: Value of Older Demos, Mazzara Leaving Walking Dead, Hulu’s Direction, Nielsen Twitter TV Rating, ABC Making C7 Deals, TWC Dropping Ovation, Nielsen Buys Arbitron,  Newtown Impact, Media Violence, Newtown Analysis, Amazon Gets TNT Shows, Golden Globe Noms, Top Rated & Buzzed Shows, Regional Sports Surcharge, Ownership Vote Delayed.

1. The MPAA is touting findings that the shutdown of Megaupload was a huge blow to piracy while battling against research claims that box office revenues have been negatively impacted by Megaupload’s disappearance. Such anti-piracy rhetoric will step up a notch in January, thanks to a new initiative with internet service providers, and MPAA head Chris Dodd is turning to Silicon Valley for more help along those lines.

2. While plenty of Oscar bait is still coming down the pike, we now have the shortlists for live-action shorts and documentary nominations. Of the shortlisted docs, Searching for Sugar Man is gaining some early awards momentum. Among scripted films, Beasts of the Southern Wild impressed in Indie Spirit Award noms, Zero Dark Thirty turned on the National Board of Review, and the Gotham Awards rewarded Moonrise Kingdom.

3. Tax credits are again in the news, with New York job numbers showing a boost from production tax breaks and one small Georgia town experiencing revitalization thanks to production credits. However, one Michigan city is now on the ropes due to banking on tax incentives that the state subsequently eliminated. Back in Hollywood, LA production might be slowly on the rise.

4. Disney preceded its big Netflix deal with the announcement that it is shuttering its online movie service, offering a blow to transactional VOD prospects. It does seem like subscription streaming is coming to dominate, and along those lines, details are emerging about Verizon and Redbox’s upcoming Instant service, though we won’t see it until next year. Meanwhile, good old Blockbuster will now start selling mobile phones, because it has just about nothing else going on.

5. Internet ad spending will soon surpass ad spending in all newspapers and magazines, and a striking chart shows that the decline of newspaper ad revenue has outpaced the growth of Google’s ad revenues. That would be why the New York Times is trimming staff, as not even a paywall is making up the difference. A UK study says journalists are keeping their chins up, though.

6. With the death of The Daily, it’s clear that magazine apps are struggling. Will Richmond sees video as key for the future of magazines, while Jeff John Roberts thinks BuzzFeed might point the way toward a viable business model, with BuzzFeed’s CEO touting the value of social advertising over banner ads and hoping that branded content experiments will work.

7. YouTube is aiming for professional standards in everything from its new production facilities to its interface redesign, which enhances the focus on channels, along with funding channel marketing efforts and expanding onto airplanes and into Japan. This is working well enough that big media companies are seeking ways to get on board. (And pardon the plug, but some of us wrote here on Antenna recently about the new YouTube production facility.)

8. MySpace is planning to relaunch (again) and take on Spotify; well, it has to do something, right? iTunes just continues to expand, now reaching into 56 new countries (a Coalition of the Willing?). And Google just bought access to a mother lode of European music to boost its international Google Play and better compete with Apple and Amazon.

9. Nielsen has released a big state of social media report, which offers more data showing that people love to hang out on Facebook, while Pinterest has quickly become one to keep an eye on. And while it’s fashionable to make fun of Google+, it’s actually growing just fine. What’s sad is how Google derailed Reader while building Google+.

10. Some of the finer News for TV Majors posts from the past few weeks: Funding Gender Analysis, Freaks & Geeks Oral History, Netflix-Disney Deal, DVR That Watches You, Ownership Vote Delayed, TV is Exhausting, Twitter & TV Growth, TWC Threat, Walking Dead Ratings, CBS Research View, Spanish-Language Rebranding, Plot & Character in Homeland, Sports Costs,  Zucker Reaction, NBC Signs Fellowes, Local Time Shifting Soaring.

1. YouTube is ramping up its investment in branded channels to make itself more like TV. There’s a danger, though, in alienating the amateurs that YouTube initially capitalized on to distinguish it from TV. More favorably, YouTube is trying to help out nonprofit campaigns, and it has tweaked its search algorithm to better favor videos that viewers truly engage with.

2. Some big numbers in the news this past fortnight: There are now six billion cell phones worldwide (though that still leaves one billion without one), and there are one billion smartphones out there. Internet advertising reached $17 billion for the first half of 2012. American mobile devices ate up 1.1 trillion megabytes of data across 12 months, and US high speed broadband connections are up 76% over last year. The biggest number in the news? A French woman received a mobile phone bill for $15 quadrillion.

3. Amazon is going to take advantage of all the consumer data it gathers by working more closely with advertisers and ad agencies to place ads on Amazon sites. The Do Not Track movement is trying to limit what consumer data advertisers can obtain from our web browsers, much to advertisers’ chagrin. Adding more chagrin is a study highlighting how frequently mobile ad clicks are merely accidental.

4. The newspaper audience is shrinking — or maybe it’s not — but either way, Britain’s Guardian is the latest to look at ending its print edition. In the US, the Chicago Tribune is shifting to a paywall strategy online, which sounds like a bad move if you buy the idea that print outlets should be following what The Atlantic is doing. Newspapers in Brazil don’t like what Google is doing, and they’re now going to have to deal with the New York Times encroaching on their turf in an effort to expand its global audience.

5. A new study finds that young people commonly copy and share music among family and friends, but it was also determined that file-sharers buy more music than non-file-sharers, lending some food for thought to the music industry, which will see peer-to-peer users warned about illegal sharing activities soon. Unfortunately, the musicians’ cut of digital music income remains paltry, but Pandora insists the money is there.

6. As the compact disc turns 30, Neil Young is pushing for a new digital format, one superior in sound quality to mp3s. Meanwhile, music streaming marches onward, with Xbox now joining the fray and the BBC starting its own service, while Spotify looks to expand in new areas, such as in Japan and on smart TVs.

7. 20^th Century Fox professes to be very excited about new technologies, while one of the most pervasive of Hollywood’s recent technological efforts, 3D, is supposedly on the decline (again). Given recent studio turmoil, it’s unclear who exactly will lead Hollywood through this next stage of technological production, but it’s seeming likely there won’t be as many unpaid interns working for them as before.

8. The new documentary nomination rules that Michael Moore helped the Academy usher in for this year’s Oscars have apparently only caused new problems, so now Moore is proposing new solutions, including getting rid of the old solutions. Much of this revolves around issues of distribution, and the story behind Detropia illustrates how challenging distribution of docs has gotten today.

9. The gaming company Zynga is experiencing all sorts of turmoil, from declining stock to rumors of employee revolts to lawsuits against an ex-employee being portrayed as a threat to current employees. But at least there’s FarmVille 2, now with 50 million players. Of course, it’s no Angry Birds, now with 200 million players.

10. Some of the finer News for TV Majors posts from the past few weeks: Community Art, Ratings Takes, Scrambling Ban Eliminated, Cord Cutting Boxes, Connie Britton’s Hair, New Moonves Contract, New Local Ratings System, Real PBS Issues, DVR Boosts, Variety Sold, House of Cards Scheduled.

1. Twitter has Facebook beat on mobile ad dollars, but Mark Zuckerberg plans to change that. Facebook is also developing new strategies for web ads, including sponsored search results. And in an effort to maintain the integrity of perceived value, Facebook is cracking down on fake “likes.”

2. USA Today has completed a web-inspired redesign, but newspapers are still mired in a world where they’re getting only $1 in digital ad revenue for every $25 they lose in print ad revenue. The Village Voice seems in dire shape, and entertainment industry trades are fighting to stay relevant. Maybe they all need to look at Reddit.

3. The most interesting conversations in the wake of Amazon unveiling its new Kindles involve debates about Amazon’s stated strategy to go for slim profit margins on hardware and reap bigger rewards on the digital goods people purchase to use on that hardware, which is counter to the Apple model. Though early reviews of the new Kindles don’t indicate that it’s an iPad killer, some think Google should at least be worried.

4. The new Wii U console will be available in the US on November 18 (though don’t bother checking Amazon for a pre-order), in Europe a few weeks later, and in Japan in early December. Its price has proved to be controversial, though a price cut will likely come later, and we may even be treated to a console price war over the holidays.

5. Even with the profitability of music streaming still in question, Nokia has launched a free streaming music service for smartphones, and Apple has a streaming radio service in the works that would use your iTunes history to select songs. This would pose a challenge Pandora, which saw its stock plunge on the news. Meanwhile, Spotify is making some changes, with a browser-based version coming soon.

6. After 20 months of investigating and over a million warning letters sent, a French anti-piracy agency now has a conviction to point to under its “three strikes and you’re fined” law: $200 is the price to be paid for two pirated Rihanna songs. In the US, a music-sharer has seen her fine reimposed: $220,000 for 24 songs. And Pirate Bay’s co-founder has been arrested; the penalty he faces is a little bigger.

7. Film (as a format) is dying, with Fuji as the latest abandoner, and studios are trying to adapt, with Warner Bros. especially devoting considerable attention to developing digital media options. Warners hopes that its Flixster and UltraViolet combo will encourage people to buy movies rather than rent, and Fox has similar motivation behind its plans to release digital versions of films before disc versions. A new digital storefront could help UltraViolet, while Amazon Prime Instant Video has gotten a boost from a film deal with Epix.

8. The Telluride Film Festival  marked the start of Oscar bait season, and Ben Affleck’s Argo and the documentary The Gatekeepers left with the most buzz. Meanwhile, the frenzied Toronto International Film Festival saw very active sales, with Lionsgate being an especially aggressive buyer, while Sony Pictures Classics, The Gatekeepers’ distributor, was busy showing off its wares, and documentaries grabbed a lot of attention.

9. The acquisition of AMC theaters by Chinese mogul Dalian Wanda is officially complete, and Wanda is now eyeing other US entertainment purchases. Back in China, the film industry is booming, but tensions with Hollywood are increasing due to import restrictions. China at least wants some Hollywood imports, though, especially those films they’ve got product placements in.

10. Some of the finer News for TV Majors posts from the past few weeks: CBS Threatens Dish, Hurry-Up Problems, NBC is NBCU’s Priority, CBS Adjusts Schedule, Over-the-Top Increases, Netflix Good & Bad, Breaking Bad Story Sync, Colbert & Religion, No New Apple TV Products, Gilligan Interviews, Fall Schedule.

1. As mobile devices spread ever more widely across the globe, the White House wants federal agencies to make information more readily accessible online and especially through mobile apps. (Anyone up for a game of Angry Senators?) Right now, President Obama dominates challenger Mitt Romney on Twitter, though Romney does well in swing state followers.

2. Bad news continues to emerge about Google+, but Google seems to be ignoring all that, or missing the point, and perhaps missed the boat in not buying Twitter. Google did buy Motorola, which puts it in the hardware business, and the company is experimenting with everything from mobile photography glasses to cars that drive themselves.

3. It was also a challenging fortnight for Facebook, what with the worst IPO of the decade, a $15 billion class action lawsuit over user tracking, and GM blowing off its advertising value. Facebook is now stuck in a tough place between users and revenue needs, and its whole base could be built on a fallacy.

4. The Cannes Palme d’Or is awarded tonight. Such accolades don’t necessarily translate into box office success, but based on buzz, you can at least expect to hear more in the coming months about The Paperboy, Killing Them Softly, Cosmopolis, Amour, and The Hunt. There’s also buzz for films that premiered promos at Cannes, including PT Anderson’s The Master and Tarantino’s Django Unchained. Overall, though, word is that the festival was a subdued affair in the end.

5. It’s yet to be seen what Chinese ownership of the AMC theater chain might bring, but the man leading the purchase is making a big bet that there’s still value in American theaters, even as he really has the global market in mind. And this could be a sign of more buyouts to come.

6. The latest symbols of the newspaper business in crisis are the vulnerability of the New York Times, the New Orleans Times-Picayune making major cutbacks in print and talking vaguely about the digital future, three Alabama papers from the same owner cutting back to only three days a week, and the Denver Post showing that maybe copy-editors really are needed. Rich folks are still investing in papers, though, and some think fundamental ideological change is needed to save the form.

7. Not all magazine publishers are excited about the web, and one wonders where the concept of the controversial magazine cover goes after the death of print. Erotic books are enjoying a renaissance due to the privacy afforded by e-readers, which also have some DRM issues to work out.

8. A long-running illegal music downloading case will carry on for a bit longer after the Supreme Court declined to hear the defendant’s case. Meanwhile, in California, two men were sentenced to a year in jail for selling counterfeit CDs, while a case about pirated adult movies was dismissed due to uncertainty over IP address accuracy. And right-minded folk everywhere breathed a sigh of relief after Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” was restored to its proper place after a brief copyright takedown.

9. Spotify has added Aussies and New Zealanders to its roster of 20 million active users, and estimates of its value have reached $4 billion. Some think it’s Pandora that will truly change the music industry, though, and the increase in youth turning to internet radio bodes well for that.

10. Some of the finer News for TV Majors posts from the past few weeks: 10pm Drama Problem, Eurovision Host Issues, Girls Without TV, Auto Hop Lawsuits, Complete Season Ratings, Idol’s Drop, Simon’s Commencement Address, Season Winners, Women Writers & Pilots, Milch-Weiner-Gilligan Interview, Aereo Wins One, Dan Harmon Out, Upfronts Catchup.

1. EA was voted the worst company in America — even worse than Bank of America! — as gamers perceive it to be greedy — even greedier than Bank of America! This could be Mass Effect ending fallout, or much more than that, and EA is also on the defensive regarding its inclusion of LGBT content in games. The dreaded Family Research Council is partly behind this (actual quote from the group’s leader: “In a new Star Wars game, the biggest threat to the empire may be homosexual activists!”) But some are accusing EA of exploiting this as a smokescreen to distract from its genuine worst company tactics. I bet Bank of America is happy it merely deals in our money and not our games.

2. Peter Knegt catches us up on how the specialty film box office has done so far this year — in short: not bad, not great — and there’s good news in a new indie film distributor joining the ranks called Adopt Films. Adopt foresees revenue ahead in video-on-demand, and those options have just expanded for indies via SnagFilms and Sundance. One just hopes VOD doesn’t help indie films online at the expense of local theaters.

3. Dreamworks has hit a rough patch, with Jeffrey Katzenberg losing money, layoffs to 10% of its staff and the resignation of the head of physical production, and the studio hopes a new financing deal with Reliance Entertainment and fewer films under production will make for a smoother road head.

4. DVD rental stores are dying, as we say goodbye to icons like Reel Life South in Brooklyn, while employees at Netflix get to take vacations whenever they want. Netflix has offered info on how its recommendation system works and also revealed it never bothered to use the algorithm it paid $1 million in a contest for because it doesn’t really need it, especially in the shift from DVDs to streaming. Poor DVDs.

5. YouTube is becoming a bigger player in online video thanks to a deal with Paramount and a pay-per-view option for live streaming, but Will Richmond questions its future as an online movie rental service. Many are questioning UltraViolet’s future, as it may be too late to tame Apple. Meanwhile, Amazon has resorted to juking stats to inflate its streaming reputation.

6. In an era when magazines are struggling and even the mighty NFL could keep one afloat for only four issues, it’s interesting to see 52 new magazines start up in the first quarter of this year. A new digital newsstand app could make for a healthy future for magazines on tablets, and newspapers are also getting excited about the tablet revenue model, but there’s still a huge gap between print and digital revenue to make up first. One also wonders how USA Today will slip its adaptive mobile app under hotel room doors.

7. 20% of Americans are curling up with e-books, and as many as 67% of libraries are lending them out, yet we’ve reached a state of uncertainty with the Apple pricing lawsuit. There are also concerns about how Google is treating independent bookstores with its decision to prevent them from selling Google e-books through their websites, and DRM technology isn’t helping indies either, while many are still trying to figure out if Amazon is altruistically helping small presses or not.

8. Spotify is stalling in US subscriber growth, but Glenn Peoples says people are disappointed just because their expectations were unfairly high. Plus, despite $60 million in losses, Spotify is expected to rake in nearly a billion dollars this year. It’s also looking to spread its influence more widely by offering embed codes for users to put songs on blogs and Tumblrs.

9. At least 20% of American adults are not reading WAYM because they don’t use the internet at all. But 61% of US households do have Wifi, so they have no excuse not to be catching up on their media industry news here. If someone were to hack into WAYM, it seems they’d most likely come from China. And Antenna is in good company, because most of the best blogs are on WordPress.

10. Some of the finer News for TV Majors posts from the past few weeks: Execs v. Audiences, More Sitcoms, Freaks & Geeks Walkthrough, Girls Coverage, Sympathy for Showrunners, 2011’s Biggest Moneymakers, Pay TV Costs, NEA Cuts Hurt PBS, Connected TVs, YouTube-Viacom Back On, Political Spending, Simon Criticizes Critics, Xbox Xfinity a Go, NBC’s Odd Ways, Peabody Awards.

1. AOL has had a year of turmoil, so it’s an interesting time for the company to try and resurrect AIM, which I had forgotten existed. I bet if Jeff Bezos backed it, it would work. In other corporate news, the AT&T/T-Mobile deal is looking doomed, leaving AT&T scrambling for last-ditch strategies; Yelp has filed for a big IPO; and Walmart blew its Black Friday sales online.

2. Brad Jordan says Google+ isn’t trying to directly compete with Facebook, but Google does appear to be making Twitter a target for both social media and news functions. Twitter has more than just that to worry about, as rumors swirl that its office operations are a mess.

3. The online on-demand scene in the UK is heating up: Netflix has signed deals with Lionsgate and Miramax for its 2012 UK launch, while the CEO of competitor FilmFlex says his services are ready for the competition, with a FilmFlex & HMV on-demand partnership and LoveFilm touting a Warner Bros. deal and already beating Netflix at Googling. FilmFlex’s corporate co-owner Sony is also rolling out a PS3 download service in the UK.

4. A new report says 35mm film will be dead by 2015, and A.O. Scott assesses the feeling of loss that’s resulting. Other recent changes to long-standing Hollywood institutions include Universal redesigning its logo to mark its 100th birthday and Sony saying goodbye to James L. Brooks. One thing that never changes in Hollywood? That movies sexualize women.

5. Good film news in places we don’t often hear good film news from: an arthouse theater in Sarajevo is thriving; Erbil, Iraq, which went decades without a functioning movie theater, is now hosting a British film festival; and a Ugandan filmmaker won a prestigious grant to finance a Bicycle Thieves-inspired feature.

6. The Tribune Co. bankruptcy case continues to drag on and seems likely to set precedents for shareholder protections and making people angry about ex-CEO payouts. The company is also struggling with falling revenues, and the Chicago Tribune is boosting home delivery rates as much as three-fold to stay afloat. Some worry Tina Brown is pushing Newsweek toward such doom.

7. Compact discs are dying, and FM alternative rock radio is reportedly declining, which is especially unfortunate because radio is still a dominant source for music discovery. Record labels appear to be holding on to the old ways, as a big chunk of them just pulled out of Spotify, which seems to fly in the face of surveys finding that people will pirate if they can’t easily access what they want.

8. Seems like there’s a war of some sort in each post these days, and this time around it’s music cloud wars, with the arrival of iTunes Match. Google Music has started slow, but could end up being a godsend for independent musicians with its indie hub. Meanwhile, Grooveshark seems likely to end up out of the war.

9. Skyrim is selling well, showing that single-player games still have promise, but more importantly, it has also shown that parody site Christwire has still got it, with its post that Skyrim is teaching its players “homo erotic sex maneuvers.”

10. Some of the finer News for TV Majors posts from the past two weeks: Ratings FAQ, Soap Deals Dead, Value of Black Females, Too Ambitious Series, Online Viewing Study, Daytime Still Viable, Whitney’s Shows, The New Boring, Arrested Development Deal, State of Sony, VOD Ad Loads, TCM for TV, NBC’s Midseason.

1. Twitter’s bidding value has reached $4 billion, pretty good for a service whose purpose its own CEO can’t even pinpoint. Another Twitter exec said there are no plans to parlay Twitter into a news network, but Mathew Ingram says in some senses it already is one (and have you watched CNN?), as is social media in general. Twitter can also be used to crowdsource a story for Tim Burton.

2. We’re finally (hopefully) done with two long, drawn-out movie studio stories: Disney has sold Miramax to Filmyard Holdings, and MGM can now officially relaunch itself anew. But we’re not yet done with the long, drawn-out story of who will take over the MPAA. For a time it was said to be Democratic politician Bob Kerrey; now the name is Republican politician Tom Davis. And we’re not sure what the future of the British film industry will be without the long, drawn-out Harry Potter series to rely on.

3. Awards season is shifting into middle gear: Winter’s Bone is really cleaning up, winning at the Gotham Awards and the Torino Film Festival and leading the Independent Spirit Award nominations, which also had a few surprises; the National Board of Review liked The Social Network best; Sundance has announced its competitive slate (and the out of competition fare); the Academy has released the animated and live-action short Oscar nomination shortlist; and Roman Polanski accepted a Best Director award from the European Film Awards via Skype.

4. Blockbuster is hoping a new ad campaign (“We’re not closed yet!”) and a new pricing scheme (“Hopefully you’ll return this late!”) will rescue it. In contrast, the only thing rising faster than Netflix is the volume of articles on the rise of Netflix, which leads David Poland to offer his familiar “Wait a minute” perspective, while Dian L. Chu wonders if a crash is possible, and Paul Carr wonders why the studios don’t like Netflix more.

5. Wii console sales have declined precipitously; at the Xbox’s 5^th birthday mark, there are no new consoles on the horizon; and Disney is shifting attention from console to online and mobile games. And why not, with games like Angry Birds garnering lots of money and new addicts.

6. Hard to keep track of all the piracy and copyright news lately: The US government has shut down over 80 websites suspected of piracy, Fox has gone after an online script trader, Viacom is appealing the YouTube case, Pirate Bay lost an appeal, prosecutors dropped a case against an Xbox hacker, the Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal by a 16-year-old illegal downloader, Google will try out new anti-piracy measures (which make Greg Sandoval wonder which side Google is on now, Team Copyright Owner or Team User), and China (Team China) is fighting intellectual-property abuse.

7. Google’s looking to make a library distribution deal with Miramax, part of a larger plan to feature more long-form content on YouTube. Google’s plan to acquire Groupon fell through, though, ending an already tough week that saw the company investigated for antitrust allegations by the European Union and having to respond to criticism that it helps corrupt businesses. But hey, at least it’s not MySpace.

8. A UK court ruled that paid news aggregator services have to pay newspapers when those services feature newspapers’ online content, even just headlines and short extracts, which could have significant implications (though the ruling will be appealed, of course). Something like Google News (and WAYM!) is ok because it’s free and ad-supported, not subscription-based.

9. Half of the Grammy nominations went to indie artists and labels, but Leonard Pierce says it’s more complicated than that. Spotify took a big financial loss last year, but Bruce Houghton says it’s more complicated than that. Fergie won a Billboard Woman of the Year Award; I wish it was more complicated than that.

10. Good News for TV Majors links from the past two weeks: Ad Volume Standards, The Netflix Challenge, DirecTV May Drop Channels, Walking Dead Closes Writers’ Room, Copps Criticizes Media, Good TVeets (#liesshowrunnerstellyou edition), Terriers Coverage, US Worried About Rep on Canadian TV, Net Neutrality Vote, Comcast Dispute, Attention Span Issue.

1. P2P file-sharing service LimeWire has been shut down. David Barrett gives us 10 things to expect in its wake, Bearshare has already gotten a bump from its demise, and others are still pinning hopes on Spotify coming to the US. No matter what fills the LimeWire vacuum, the music industry must continue to battle declines in digital music profits and digital album sales, and Austin Carr says the industry needs to learn a lesson from Lady Gaga’s one billion YouTube views, while Jason Hartley says musicians will persevere through any negative consequences of illegal file-sharing, even if record execs won’t (and one tends to hope they won’t when you see them go after millions in damages from a Minneapolis woman who shared all of 24 songs on Kazaa, even if she isn’t so sympathetic either).

2. YouTube has hit one billion subscriptions and a half-billion promoted video views, and now it’s even got Turkey back on board. All those views mean video continues to fill up internet traffic, which Nielsen’s been doing a shoddy job of measuring lately.

3. MySpace, a thing on the internet that exists, has been redesigned into more of an entertainment destination, even a social television network of the future, though that future better arrive fast or it won’t be much of a thing existing the internet anymore (kind of like Chatroulette). Instead, it will continue to get demolished by services like Twitter, which is adding 370,000 new users a day and is somehow worth $1.6 billion now (seriously…how? I’ve got 6,000+ tweets that aren’t worth a dime).

4. It appears that every telecom company is suing every other telecom company, and Google is suing the U.S. government for anti-competitive behavior (though some think Google is a monopoly itself). Nearly half of Apple’s revenue comes from the iPhone, so Steve Jobs better worry about the Android’s rising sales. And Apple might be interested in acquiring Sony, though some analysts say Sony’s more down with Google than Apple.

5. Since going behind a paywall, The Times of London and Sunday Times have lost 4 million online visitors, gained only 105,000 paying subscribers, and appear to have about 362,000 customers behind the paywall. While those numbers look scary, it’s money that matters in the end, and subscriptions might offer more revenue than just advertising, plus advertisers might appreciate the more engaged readership a subscription would seemingly attract. It’s the new old media dilemma. Meanwhile, US News & World Report is dropping its print subscription option and going newsstand and digital only, and the AP has to upgrade its digital revenue streams as newspaper revenue falls due to ever-constant circulation declines (source of the latter article: the AP).

6. A conference of studio executives debating the future of Blu-ray indicated that there isn’t much consensus yet on the issue of DVD release windows, but there is consensus that the studios need to strike more favorable deals with Netflix. The studios will also be dealing with Redbox for streaming soon, and Wayne Friedman suggests Redbox follow Netflix’s lead and try to cooperate with content providers, though David Pakman points out that Netflix’s stunning success has really come from its leverage over the studios. With all these streaming movies on the horizon, some are now questioning the capacity of the internet to keep up with the demand.

7. Lots o’ drama in Hollywood, as usual: Rupert Murdoch is threatening stars who won’t do News Corp.’s PR bidding, Patrick Goldstein continues to be frustrated with the inconsistencies of MPAA ratings rulings, MGM has filed for bankruptcy and will soon be run by Spyglass Entertainment, which at least boosts MGM’s chance of maintaining its 50% stake in The Hobbit, whose ongoing drama Kristin Thompson catches us up on.

8. Independent filmmakers continue to struggle to find studio support, and piracy continues to be a major concern. Some believe the internet is a savior (and one-time indie darling Ed Burns has turned to digital distribution), while others see the internet as the enemy. Perhaps something can be learned from the development and distribution process of this year’s defining indie success, Winter’s Bone.

9. The Supreme Court heard arguments on Tuesday about banning the sale of violent video games to minors versus considering them protected by free speech doctrines, and the Court’s eventual ruling the issue could have a significant impact on consumers. Consumers are starting to cool on music-based games, and tabletop gaming is shrinking dramatically, while Microsoft has very high hopes for holiday Kinect sales.

10. Some good News for TV Majors links from the past two weeks: Olbermann Suspended, Retrans Effect, More Late Night Ratings, News Corp Wants BSkyB, House Win Helps Industry, The Unraveling of TV, Walking Dead & Commitment, More Fox-Cablevision, Program Choices & You, Political Spending & Targeting.

1. Jeff Price has launched a six-part series looking at the state of the music industry, from revenue to piracy and everything in between. Former UK music exec Rob Dickens suggests radically lowering the price of music to save it from piracy and boost revenue, an idea which Ian S. Port agrees with and insists won’t devalue music. Google is testing a new search engine designed to curb digital music piracy in India, but the music industry doesn’t think Google is doing enough to fight piracy.

2. Google is trying to keep up with Apple in mobile activations, but despite Google’s impressive revenue results lately, Henry Blodget insists the company is just a one-trick pony of search wonders. Pretty good trick, though, like Google Instant, which is garnering fans, if not more revenue. Google has figured out another trick: avoiding paying taxes thanks to a complicated overseas scheme.

3. Apple has tons of cash laying around, so if I was the 9-year-old iPod, I’d ask for a really expensive birthday present (maybe an iPad?). It’s still too early to tell if the iPad will make a ton of cash from magazine and newspaper sales but apps sales for Apple devices have reached the 7 billion mark, and a Nielsen study shows consumers increasingly connected to such devices. Apple needs to watch out, though, because its fart app supremacy may be in jeopardy. (I’d bet the 9-year-old has suggestions for improvement there.)

4. New York Times ad dollars have declined, as have magazine launches this year, and online advertising is thriving, but UK journalist Peter Preston says the evidence just isn’t there to prove that the internet is killing print. Also counter to what most would assume, a market analyst study claims that hard news generates more ad revenue online than LiLo news. And I’m sure we’d all be in much better moods for clicking on ads if newspapers could figure out better ways to counter abusive commenters.

5. The Weinstein Co. has hired a new production president, who will hopefully get them back on the award-winning track. Weinstein Co. does have a few films nominated for the Gotham Awards, which apparently hosts a great party. The Weinsteins can fill hours of cocktail conversation at the party with tales of their battle against an NC-17 rating for Blue Valentine. Also a good Gotham Awards party conversation starter: the MPAA ratings and male nudity. If Ken Loach shows up at the party, be sure to have a big drink handy; he might talk your ear off about how cinema has been debased by Hollywood and TV.

6. The two studio news stories I haven’t linked to lately because I got bored of hearing about them have now threatened to become one: MGM and Lionsgate. Hearing nothing but glowing praise for Pixar can get a little boring, but here comes a little bad press to shake things up: accusations of sexism for the firing of its first female director. Steven Zeitchik has some info on movies you’ll never hear from again, and you’ll likely be hearing more about 3D sound — literally! Ha! See what I did there?

7. Netflix this, Netflix that, Netflix the other. Blockbuster? Not so much. Sorry ‘bout that, DVDs and video stores. And sorry studios, you coulda had a piece of that.

8. Redbox is entering the video game rental business, while game sales continue to decline, and EA’s stock price took a hit allegedly due to negative Medal of Honor reviews. Maybe EA should follow the Kinect’s lead and have Oprah give it away to her audience; I’d buy stock in whatever it is that makes people act like that. But such passion raises a question: should game developers be swayed by fan input?

9. Twitter is popular in Brazil, but not at the Washington Post, and Twitter is more popular than Facebook for click-throughs. Facebook Places has not hurt the popularity of Foursquare yet, nor has The Social Network hurt Facebook’s popularity. And internet popularity might be measured more by social networking than searching soon, as long as we’re not measuring popularity by actual profits.

10. Some good News for TV Majors links from the last two weeks: Ratings Delineation, Mad Men finale reviews and good tweets, Cable & Satellite Future, Albrecht Profile, BBC Freezing the Fee, Over-the-Top Competitors, Glee Cast in GQ, Quitting Cable, Networks Block Google, Creator Demands.