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David Fischer, the managing director of Fox Interactive Europe, has left the company, according to an internal memo sent out by MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe...he is leaving after a year. Travis Katz SVP & General Manager of FIM International will act as interim MD of Europe. No indication where Fischer is going to.

-- UK satellite broadcaster BSkyB has given more detail on the post to be taken up by AOL UK MD Andy Jonesco. Currently on gardening leave, Jonesco takes the new position of MD, Online Business Unit (OBU), tasked with exploiting web advertising opportunities and, according to mad.co.uk, “he will oversee development of a full-service portal for Sky customers that will provide a full suite of web tools together with a range of rich content from Sky and third parties”. Shouldn’t be too much trouble - apart from the Google Video-powered new user-gen video site SkyCast, BSkyB already has a deal with the search site that gives sky.com customers branded Gmail accounts and more (a variant of Mountain View’s white label Apps On Your Domain package); might it be possible to speculate Google Personalized Homepage to tick the “portal” box? Meanwhile, Paul Wright has been appointed sales director for Sky Digital Media, a web ad sales division.
-- Emap: The AOL exodus continues. Interim head of portal development Jonathan Turpin has left to take up the first of Emap’s three new digital director positions. Turpin will become digital director in the company’s radio division; two more digital appointments are coming soon in its lifestyle and specialist consumer divisions. Turpin has previously been CEO of the Fish4 classifieds network and held positions with early BBC online properties.
-- Lastminute.com: Elsewhere in UK shake-ups, travel retailer and 90s dot.com poster child Lastminute.com has appointed Alistair Daly as marketing director. The company last month lured new CMO Simon Thompson from Motorola Europe, but Daly will report to UK MD Mark Jones.

EMI and Bertelsmann have agreed to settle their four-year-old Napster dispute out of court. EMI was amongst a gaggle of record labels to sue the German group in 2003, claiming its investment in the then-controversial original incarnation was tantamount to copyright infringement. Bertelsmann bankrolled Napster to the tune of $85 million, drawing rival labels’ fire, before its outright acquisition was blocked on a technicality, finally forcing that iteration of Napster out of business. Terms of the settlement were not revealed but Bertelsmann admits no responsibility. Universal last year got $61 million from a similar settlement; anonymous sources in the LA Times put EMI’s pay-day at anywhere between $50 million and $150 million. EMI CEO Eric Nicoli: “We can now put this matter behind us and continue to pursue the development of new legitimate digital music business models.”

Google has come out with a bullish defence against Viacom’s $1 billion copyright lawsuit. The Guardian quotes Google’s head of video content partnerships, Patrick Walker, speaking in London: “Viacom took one approach, and people like the BBC have taken another approach. We’re not slowing down in any way. It goes to tell that the usage of YouTube has grown significantly from the Viacom announcement. We don’t see it impacting our business.”
The BBC signed a carriage and ad revenue-share deal with the video sharing site last month that places short program clips on three YouTube channels. Viacom, on the other hand, served a lawsuit claiming a massive copyright abuse over YouTube’s use of some 150,000 clips. The two companies operate in different markets, of course - BBC has been charged with adding more commercial revenue streams though its content is owned by the British public, while Viacom’s material is its own to monetize.
Related:
- More on Youtube-Rivals JV: Fox, NBC and Sony; Distribution on MySpace, MSN and Yahoo
- BBC In Clips Deal With YouTube; Ad Rev Share; UK Blackout On News Clip
- Viacom Sues Google-YouTube: Wants More Than $1 Billion In Damages, Injunction

Last year, Google formed a political action committee to lobby Washington DC on internet competition and freedom issues. Now it’s turning its attention to Brussels. FT.com reports the search giant has advertised to hire a network of lobbyists in at least 10 European capitals in an effort to win influence in the continent’s notoriously hands-on regulatory environment. “Privacy, freedom of expression, copyrights, competition and security, regulation of online content, advertising and technology” will be the key policy areas for the new recruits, according to the company. Recent reports had suggested Google employed just one London-based European lobbyist, but its Euro head of communication and policy affairs has ties to the UK’s resurgent Conservative party. Continental regulators have so far stayed away from the Mountain View, California, outfit but, in several individual jurisidictions over the last year or two, Google has lost out on Google News’ use of newspaper and wire content and has been forced to give up its Gmail name. With the European Commmission looking to extend its 18-year-old TV regulation rules to some internet video content, Google will want its say, having just splashed out $1.65 billion on just such a service. With the continued dominance of AdSense in the search marketing sector, it will be keen to avoid ending up with the kind of antitrust probems that have dogged Microsoft in Europe.
Related:
-- Google Roundup: Lobbying Intensifies; Verizon Signs On To AdWords; Mapping Ads
-- Mr. Brin Goes To Washington; Google Lobbying Still In Beta