cord cuttingeBooks Won’t Actually Be Getting a Curfew in Germany (Ink, Bits & Pixels)
Yes, that is as crazy as it sounds, but now it appears that German regulators recognize that fact as well. A new story crossed my desk this morning which suggests that the curfew might not be enforced after all.

TeleRead Take: So glad it appears sanity is prevailing here. With the global economy, restrictions like this make no sense anymore (assuming they ever did).
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New Study Shows A Rise In Cord Cutting – 8.2 Percent Ditched Pay TV In 2014, Up 1.3% YoY (TechCrunch)
There’s been some debate about how many consumers are actually cutting ties with their pay TV providers and replacing them with over-the-top streaming media services – a trend generally referred to as “cord cutting.” But a recent study indicates that the number of cord cutters in North America is, in fact growing – in 2014, 8.2 percent of former pay TV subscribers surveyed by TiVo subsidiary Digitalsmiths said they ditched their service – an increase of 1.3 percent over the prior year. Meanwhile, a much larger 45.2 percent said they reduced their cable or satellite TV service during the same time frame.

TeleRead Take: We cut the cord many years ago (maybe even as long as a decade now). Honestly, never missed it. Okay, I miss BBC America when Doctor Who is on, but for that, there’s Amazon Instant Video.
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Free Music Showdown: What $0 Gets You on the Best Streaming Services (Lifehacker)
Now that Google has joined the ranks of the free streaming services, we decided to take a look and see which ones offer the best features. Here are the key differences, and which service is best for which type of user.

TeleRead Take: Nice roundup of the major options.
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Penguin Merges Berkley, NAL (Publisher’s Weekly)
As sales of mass market paperbacks continue to decline, the Penguin Publishing Group has combined its two divisions that house the format–Berkley and New American Library–into a single group called the Berkley Publishing Group. Among other things, the merger will result in the elimination of a currently unspecified number of positions.

TeleRead Take: Too bad for the people who are losing their positions, but the decline of the mass market paperback is probably going to lead to more division mergers like this in the future.
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Kindle Daily Deals: Two Books in the Lomax and Biggs Mystery Series (and others)

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