Getty Images Inc.

Getty Images made an interesting content-usage model announcement last week. After years of playing whack-a-mole with everyone who's ever stolen one of their images, Getty decided to embrace the free model for a portion of their library. You'll find additional details on this here and here.

"I'm not comfortable discussing the contents of that meeting."

That's what Russell Grandinetti, Amazon's (AMZN) vice president for Kindle content, said when asked in court Friday about a meeting he attended in Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos' Seattle boathouse on Sunday Jan. 24, 2010.

It was the only question in more than four hours of testimony that Grandinetti declined to answer.

Jan. 24 was a significant date in several respects. Amazon executives knew that Apple (AAPL) had scheduled a major product announcement for the following Wednesday.

Microsoft is reportedly interested in buying the digital assets of Barnes & Noble's Nook Media for $1 billion. But analysts are divided over whether the deal makes sense.

Microsoft already has a 16.8% equity stake in the Barnes & Noble subsidiary, which includes the bookseller's digital book and college book businesses. Microsoft invested $300 million in Nook Media in April 2012, valuing the new company at $1.7 billion at the time. Microsoft and Barnes & Noble completed their strategic partnership last October. Education and news publisher Pearson  subsequently took a 5% stake

It was the crime writer, on Amazon, under an assumed name, stabbing his fellow novelists in the back. The plot was uncovered earlier this month by thriller writer Jeremy Duns, who revealed the poison penmanship in a series of tweets. “This is RJ Ellory writing about his own book. And he has done this for them all, and yes, I’m proving it in the next few minutes,” Duns tweeted, before exposing Ellory’s pseudonyms. Ellory confessed, and the ensuing scandal prompted hundreds of writers to sign a pledge condemning sock puppetry.