Murdoch vs Google

Rupert Murdoch would not surely sue Google right? I think it would be a mistake to bite the hand that feeds you bread. His proposal to charge online customers for news and block Google from using headlines and paragraphs of news stories in search results is very interesting.

This week in a 35 minute interview with Sky News Australia (a third owned by Murdoch), Murdoch indicated that he would use legal means to prevent Google and other search engines from taking his newspaper material.

It is a very topical issue since many readers, including myself are used to online newspapers being free and searching for new stories. I think it would harm the ability of Google and News Corporation papers to generate advertising revenues. However, it would be more detrimental to News Corporation as I believe that people will easily shift their reading habits and view other free online sources. Google can generate money from other sources but News Corporation cannot. It’s a two way street.

But as quoted by Murdoch “What’s the point of having someone come occasionally who likes a headline they see on Google? We’d rather have fewer people coming to our web sites and paying”. Paying for news has been successful for the Wall Street Journal but I do not really expect people to pay to view The Sun. It is not worrying for Murdoch?

Google has been quoted in the Australian “its news listings service and web searches were a tremendous source of promotion” for news organizations, sending them about 100,000 clicks every minute”. I think Murdoch might be wrong.

This issue is not only blocking searches on Google search service but the fact that Murdoch believes search engines are breaching copyright law. This is where search engines are using the legal justification of ‘fair use’ for reproducing excerpts of news stories online.

I do not know much about copyright law but am beginning to get an understanding that the internet is a domain that has a cloudy area between breaching copyright law or not. There are so many different types of opinion on the issue. However, to avoid expensive legal action Google has the ability to remove content from Google News at a publishers’ request. It will save everyone a lot of time and money.

In the press this week the headlines for this story was dominated by the name ‘Murdoch’. His influence in the media is far-reaching. It is interesting that Sky News Australia granted the interview as I believe it could have been more impartial. However when I watched the interview I felt it was slightly subjective since I wonder what was the motives of the interview. Was it to scare Google or for self promotion.

The Australian reported a response from Google and the ability to take off stories from search results. It was very factual. I found that the language of the article was very colloquial since it contained a lot of quotes. I think that was a good way to produce the article considering The Australian is a News Corp paper.

The Financial Times was a short article however it focused more on Murdoch attacking the BBC. The content quoted the Sky News interview and was very UK centric. But I suppose that can be expected from a UK paper.

I also read an article from the BBC. The interesting thing about this article was that it failed to mention Murdoch’s criticism of the BBC and the way they handle taxpayer funds from TV licenses. It was very concise and direct. It failed to give any background information but I suspect the article was written with the intention for a response from the BBC in another article.

The Guardian I felt was the most opinionated. It uses words to describe Murdoch’s staff as ‘lieutenants’ and challenges Murdoch on the other ways to access the Wall Street Journal without a subscription. The article also chose quotes that made it seem Murdoch was an angry man. However, the Guardian was the only news source that embedded the Sky News interview into their article. It was a good form of reference to understand the context of the article.

In my opinion I think News Corporation should not remove its papers from search results since I enjoy browsing for different news. I also highly believe that it would be difficult for Murdoch to get subscribers to pay for tabloid papers such as the The Sun or The New York Post. It also seems there is going to be some difficulties in implementing the online pay model since it has already been delayed. The test will be the money. Who will get more advertising revenue, News Corp or Google?

Sources

Youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7GkJqRv3BI&feature=player_embedded

The Australian
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/news-corporation-stories-can-be-taken-off-google/story-fn3dxix6-1225796268717

Financial Times
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ab874200-cd28-11de-a748-00144feabdc0.html

Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/nov/09/murdoch-google

BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8351331.stm

Sydney Morning Herald
http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-world/murdoch-stories-can-be-taken-off-google-20091110-i7nb.html

Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1226559/Rupert-Murdoch-threatens-sue-BBC-stories-stolen-newspapers.html#

CNBC

http://www.cnbc.com/id/33811171