http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ab874200-cd28-11de-a748-00144feabdc0.html
Rupert Murdoch said that he plans to use legal action to stop the BBC and Google from “stealing” News Corporation’s content. The article quotes him as saying that he does not expect any action to make it to court before the BBC “adapts,” as they are aware of the law and, presumably, the fact that they are breaking it.
The article also quotes Murdoch’s son, James, who heads News Corp.’s operations in Europe and Asia. The younger Murdoch echoes his father’s sentiments, somewhat harshly criticizing the BBC for its use of their newspapers’ content.
I was most struck by the elder Murdoch’s statement concerning the barring of Google and other news aggregators from using only headlines and the first few lines of articles in their search results. He argues that the fair use doctrine they operate under would be found unlawful in court, yet he admits that the advertising revenue brought in due to his company’s content being so freely available on the Web is enough that he will “take” a legal decision in his favor “slowly.” No surprise that a guy so well known for his ruthless-businessman/profit-driven reputation is willing to wait on challenging something based on ideology because the current situation offers some benefit.
Despite the cynicism of that last line, I have to agree with Murdoch’s position. Putting aside my disparity in respect for the BBC’s journalism over that of Fox News, I think his attitude about the availability of news content on the Web is most likely the way of the future.
Before the Internet and free news sites, print news was available only through payed access, whether a subscription or the price at a newsstand. Your content was your content, and if someone wanted it they had to go to you. It’s true that advertising was where the money was, but those dollars were attracted by the number of people paying for content. The model of free news sites bringing in adequate revenue solely from Internet advertising seems less viable, at least in light of the current state of things, than the more traditional model of subscribers and/or micropayers giving marketers a more consistent and comfortable picture of online news providers’ readerships.
And to do that, news providers will have to protect their material with the tenacity that Murdoch is.
