Report: Rupert Murdoch “Ready To Sue” Google

Although a few months have passed since the last big flareup, News Corp. may still be willing to go to war with Google.  A fresh report indicates that Rupert Murdoch is indeed prepared to take the search giant to court, and has been talking to Microsoft about an exclusive deal, too.

Gabriel Sherman recently published a long profile of Murdoch for New York magazine, and within the profile, quoted someone he described as "a senior media executive."  This person said with regards to the CEO and chairman of News Corp., "He's pretty tightly wound up over Google and has been ready to sue them.  He doesn't trust them at all."

Then there was another interesting tidbit: apparently the Chief Digital Officer of News Corp., Jonathan Miller, "has also been in talks with Microsoft about possibly pulling all of News Corp.'s content from Google and signing an exclusive distribution deal with Bing."

Unfortunately, potential timetables weren't outlined; there's no telling whether Murdoch is willing to spend years negotiating with Google, or if he'll unleash the lawyers next week.

Still, it sounds like Murdoch's statements about blocking Google weren't just so much bluster or a bluff.  A showdown over whether or not online news should be free remains possible.

Mark Cuban Updates His Stance on Google

Update: Cuban has now posted a lengthy explanation of his stance on Google. Essentially, he appears to view Google as helpful if not necesary for lesser known brands, but as a bad business decision for big names in the news industry.

Oriinal Article: The always outspoken Mark Cuban has contributed his thoughts on the whole news aggregation/Google News/publisher debate, one that is most often credited to Rupert Murdoch. It appears that Cuban has a similar opinion on the matter.

Cuban spoke at a keynote address this week at the AlwaysOn OnMedia NYC 2010 Conference, and is quoted by numerous sources as calling Google in particular a "vampire."

"When you think about vampires, they just suck on your blood," he is quoted as saying, reportedly telling newspapers and other publishers to "show some balls" and block Google News and, "There's absolutely no reason for you guys to be indexed on Google News ... if they don't pay you."

Michael Arrington points out that at the TechCrunch50 conference in 2008, Cuban said he'd like to be an investor in TechMeme, which provides a similar service to Google News and other aggregators. In addition, Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land notes (in great detail) that Cuban is an investor in Mahalo, which actually "touts to advertisers how it taps into Google to generate page views."

While on the topic of the news industry debates, the topic of charging for news is always a conversation starter. The Wall Street Journal has taken down its pay wall for the day, giving users access to articles that would otherwise require a subscription to access. The effort comes as the result of a sponsorship from Acura (Via SIA).
 

Have You Read This?

> News Corp. Blocks Content from News Aggregation Site

> Do You Have the "Right" to Link?

> Murdoch On Blocking Search Engines: "I Think We Will"

> Murdoch's War with the Aggregators

> Is it Really Crazy to Block Google?

Murdoch’s War with the Aggregators

Rupert Murdoch spoke last week at the FTC's journalism and the Internet workshop and again slammed news aggregators and search engines:

"And yet there are those who think they have a right to take our news content and use it for their own purposes without contributing a penny to its production. Some rewrite, at times without attribution, the news stories of expensive and distinguished journalists who invested days, weeks or even months in their stories—all under the tattered veil of "fair use.""

So what does Murdoch really want to happen? It sounds as if he wants the rules of fair use to be drastically changed or even to be eliminated. Even if fair use was eliminated the newspaper revenue problem would still remain ... so why fight the aggregators?  

The aggregators like Google News and the search engines themselves drive tons of free traffic to newspaper websites. The assumption from the beginning of news aggregation was that free traffic was a good thing that could be turned into increased ad revenue for the content creator.

I should mention that I know a little bit about news aggregation since I created the very first news aggregation site on the Internet, NewsLinx.com in 1996. I faced a similar backlash from newspaper companies back then, with many including the Wall Street Journal actually contacting me asking if I had permission to deep link to their articles. My typical answer was that I did not have permission and since the nature of the Internet was links to content, I didn't believe I needed permission. Their reply 100% of the time was to keep linking, because I was driving them a lot of free traffic. 

Murdoch and other publishers have it within their power to exclude themselves from Google and any other search engine. Why complain about the problem when it can be fixed today for free? News Corp can remove all traces of their content from Google, Google News, Bing and Yahoo by simply contacting their own IT department!

The truth is that Murdoch actually wants it both ways. He wants the traffic from aggregators and search engines and he wants them to pay him for the privilege of driving that traffic to him. Rumors are that Murdoch is currently working on a deal with Microsoft's Bing to do just that.

What Murdoch really may want is for Google, with a 70%+ market share, to pay him not to exclude his content from Google's engine. Murdoch believes that Google is profiting from the content of his online properties which includes the Wall Street Journal. After all, without the content of major publishers Google would be of less interest to its users, wouldn't it?

If you removed the content of all old media publications from the Google search engine what would Google be left with? Its search results would consist of blogs (which do a lot of rewriting) and independent sites of which many are Internet only publications. Would that make Google less relevant and eventually less used by the public? It would still include our site WebProNews, CNet, Mashable, Politico and thousands of other newsand information websites who refused to join the "no-index coalition".

It would strike a blow at Google's goal of making all of the world's information accessible, but it wouldn't necessarily make Google significantly less valuable to its users. The Internet includes social media, which Google now includes as well, where the people in the stories are also the reporters. The first information about the Hudson River plane landing came from a passenger Twittering about it. Even if you eliminated mainstream press reports from all search engines and news aggregation services it wouldn't eliminate the news from being reported or from people quickly finding out about it.  

 

Talks Surface of a Newspaper Industry Bailout

“You gotta be freakin’ kidding me!”

That was my reaction to a Reuters article that I came across. I am still a little taken aback, as they say, about the even the threat of the US government looking into ways to bailout the struggling newspaper / old school media industry. Right now it’s more talk than anything else but if someone said it in a public forum then you know there are greater rumblings going through Washington with a similar stink on them. I guess you can guess where I stand on this one, huh?

The Reuters article starts off

A top Democratic lawmaker predicted on Wednesday that the government will be involved in shaping the future for struggling U.S. media organizations.

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, saying quality journalism was essential to U.S. democracy, said eventually government would have to help resolve the problems caused by a failing business model.

Waxman, other U.S. lawmakers and regulators are looking into various options to help a newspaper industry hurt by the shift in advertising revenues to online platforms.

Can you see me shaking my head now? Did the government bailout the horse and buggy industry when the automobile was invented? Did the government bailout the radio industry when TV came along? Did anyone bailout the transcribers of the world when the Gutenberg press started producing the printed word?

If journalism is essential to the US democracy then let the free market system that has built this democracy into one of the greatest powers of the modern age (at least until recently that is) take care of how this plays out! The last thing we need is the government handing tax benefits and even worse, more deficit funded handouts to the likes of the Washington Post, New York Times and anything that Rupert Murdoch is whining about these days.

So who will profit from this concept more: our democracy or the likes of Rupert Murdoch? Hey let’s just go out and figure out which failing business model victim looks the most like AIG, Bank of America or Government General Motors and throw money at their executives business and see just how much better it gets. WTF!

This is not a government issue for goodness sake. This is a paradigm shift issue. The world is changing and not everything survives change. Why are we so obsessed with keeping something alive that may not have a place in the new world media order? And if it does have a place let the free market principles that allowed it to thrive for so long determine what piece or pieces will move forward as we boldly go further in the digital age.

Of course there is some press constituency that thinks this a great idea. Wonder who pays their bills?

Free Press, a public interest group, said the search for solutions to the crisis in journalism should be premised on the idea that news-gathering is a public service, not a commodity.

Waxman’s “indication that government has a role to play is both bold and soberly sensible,” said Free Press Policy Director Ben Scott on the sidelines of the FTC conference.

I call BS on this one. Honestly, if the newspapers were truly a public service shouldn’t they have acted more responsibly to the change that very public is undergoing in how it consumes news? Business change is not always about failure; it’s usually more about progress and smarts or lack thereof. If the newspapers have ignored the myriad tell tale signs that have been written on the wall for years now why should MY TAX dollars save them from their own arrogance and stupidity? What have they done for me and my business?

Geesh, just the rumor of this happening really ticks me off! Hey, Senator Waxman and anyone else who thinks this is a good idea! Shut up and go read your Washington Post while it’s still here!

Phew! That felt great because I am part of the new free press and I plan on being around in the digital age as long as I can identify what people really want. Will it last forever? Probably not but if I am not smart enough to get on board the next train that is heading for the future don’t bail me out. That’ll be my problem not yours.

UPDATE: Google CEO Eric Schmidt gives the WSJ his ideas for fixing the “crisis” in the newspaper industry.

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