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Pearl Jam Accuses AT&T of Censoring Anti-Bush Lyrics During Lollapalooza Webcast (WSJ)
When rock band Pearl Jam sung the lyrics "George Bush, leave this world alone" at a music festival over the weekend, fans following along online didn't hear the message chanted from a Chicago stage. AT&T Inc., which broadcast the performance on its Blue Room Web site, edited the lyrics from its live Webcast of the Sunday performance at Lollapalooza, leaving the musicians to cry censorship. HuffPo: Your world, censored.

Cable Networks Boost News Corp. Earnings (NYT)
News Corporation reported strong quarterly earnings yesterday, but the announcement was upstaged by Rupert Murdoch's comments on the company's recent deal to buy the publisher of the Wall Street Journal. Earnings were up 4.5 percent for the quarter that ended June 30, capping a very strong fiscal year in which profit rose 48.1 percent, led by gains at Fox News Channel, an Italian satellite television service and the MySpace social networking site. NYP: News Corp. outlines plan for Dow Jones. E&P: Will sell Ottaway newspapers. B&C: Deal to close in three-to-four months. Scotsman.com: Murdoch may make Journal free online. The Onion: Fridays will be casual fact-checking day. Independent: Murdoch: I was treated like a "genocidal tyrant" in Journal battle.

Bad News Barry (WaPo)
Howard Kurtz: Television has been running the replays, the newspaper stories are on the front page, the Web sites are giving it big play, but there is something distinctly underwhelming about Barry Bonds hitting No. 756. It's been a joyless process for many of the journalists chronicling when Bonds would break the record. That, of course, was inevitable, unless Bonds got hit by a bus, but my sense is that there was more revulsion than excitement in the country. AdAge: With one historic swing, three companies get extra media exposure.

Fatigue: Debate Audience Fades Under a Million Viewers (TVNewser)
The AFL-CIO Democratic forum last night on MSNBC was the lowest rated of the eight primary debates/forums held this election season. Based on live plus-same day data, Nielsen found the debate had 960,000 total viewers and 340,000 viewers in the 25-54 demo. B&C: ABC, NBC loosen hold on debate footage.

PETA Lashes Out at Money Honey (Page Six)
Maria Bartiromo has People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals screeching after she posed in a $3,695 Michael Kors wool coat and gushed about its fluffy fox-fur cuffs. In More magazine's September feature on fashionable female movers and shakers over 40, CNBC's "Money Honey" is seen smiling seductively in a skin-tight Celine matte jersey dress and the Kors coat. She raves: "Chic, sexy clothes are the real me ... The coat is spectacular; the fur cuffs give it just the right amount of glamour."

Google News Testing Comments (Post I.T.)
Google has introduced a feature that allows comments on news stories — from the people who are mentioned in those stories. News stories and blog entries have long offered a chance for readers to chime in, but in a test that begins this week, Google will allow comments only from the people in the story and then post those comments alongside entries on Google News.

Self Editor to Keynote Sex Toy Convention (WWD)
There seem to be few places where editors won't go these days to push their magazines. Just ask Lucy Danziger, editor-in-chief of Self, who will be in Cincinnati today — not to visit hometown heavyweight advertiser Procter & Gamble, but instead to be the keynote speaker at Pure Romance 2007. For the uninitiated, Pure Romance has a similar business model to Avon or Mary Kay — except that instead of in-home skin care parties, Pure Romance consultants sell sex toys and products with names such as Ex-T-Cee and Mini Nights of Passion.

Police Arrest French Teen Over Harry Potter Translation (Reuters)
Police arrested a teenager suspected of posting his own translation of the latest Harry Potter novel on the Internet weeks before the official French release, the book's publishers said on Wednesday. The 16-year-old schoolboy, from the Aix-en-Provence region in southern France, was taken into custody by a police anti-counterfeiting unit and later released. GalleyCat: Potter ending causes consternation among bookies.

Daily Kos Co-Founder Fined $30,000 (Drudge Report)
Prominent liberal blogger Jerome Armstrong has agreed to pay nearly $30,000 in fines in a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over allegations that Armstrong touted the stock of a software company, without disclosing that he was being paid to do so, The New York Times reports. Armstrong is the co-author of Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots and the Rise of People-Powered Politics with Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos. He is also the founder of the Democratic activist site MyDD.com.

Here Comes Halo 3 to Get H'wood Treatment (WSJ)
For years, movie studios have linked up with well-known consumer brands to help create marketing that promotes food, retail and other products alongside blockbuster films such as Transformers or Shrek the Third. But the next big entertainment property to get the Hollywood-style cross-merchandising treatment isn't a movie — it's a Microsoft Corp. videogame called Halo 3.

Real Estate: 'Monopoly' for the MySpace Age (WaPo)
Weblo, a new Internet site, is offering online versions of every piece of property on the planet and a real-money transaction system to go with them. It all works like an online version of Monopoly, but aims for the appeal of fantasy video games such as World of Warcraft and social networking sites such as MySpace.

Universal Gets Loud (AP)
The Universal Music Group said on Wednesday that it had acquired a stake in the operator of the urban social networking Web site Loud.com. The company, a unit of Vivendi, based in Paris, did not disclose the size of its investment in the Web site, which also operates under the name Battlerap.com.

NYTimes.com to Host Freakonomics Blog (E&P)
NYTimes.com announced today that it is now the exclusive host of the popular Freakonomics blog. The deal will bring best-selling Freakonomics authors Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt to the online Opinion section of the Times. Melissa Lafsky, previously of The Huffington Post, is the blog's newly appointed editor.

Former Take-Two Official Is Sentenced in Backdating Case (Bloomberg)
Take-Two Interactive Software's former general counsel, Kenneth I. Selterman, was sentenced yesterday to three years of probation for falsifying a letter to regulators. He is the third former executive from the video game company, the maker of the Grand Theft Auto series, to be sentenced in a stock option backdating investigation.

Equity Firm Invests $100M in NBC Universal-News Corp. Online Venture (NYT)
The joint venture between NBC Universal and the News Corporation to bring their television shows and movies onto the Internet still lacks a Web site. It still has no name. But the company, still known only by the working name of "New Site," now has some deeper pockets. Providence Equity Partners, a media investment firm based in Rhode Island, has invested $100 million for a 10 percent stake in the joint venture, people with knowledge of the deal said.

Rolling Stone Cover Boy Causing Old-Guard Readers To Yell 'Get Off My Lawn' (Idolator)
Maura Johnston: The next issue of Rolling Stone has as its cover subject High School Musical cutie/frequent Bop subject Zac Efron. I think it's admirable that RS decided to seize the moment and actually put on its cover an artist who a) is under 40 and b) has had something resembling music-biz success this year. But the fact that Efron's music career was spawned in large part by the Disney Channel has resulted in some fussing from readers.

Proposed Blogger Union Sparks Controversy (PR Week)
Hamilton Nolan: When word started to circulate out of the blogger-heavy YearlyKos Convention that some were calling for the creation of a "blogger union," reaction was swift and widespread, both in the blogosphere and in the mainstream media. Some mocked the idea as impractical. Others — a relative handful — offered varying degrees of support. But the most interesting thing about the uproar was that it occurred at all.