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Murdoch Demands Kindle Users' Info
In yet another move to display how antiquated and completely ignorant of digital culture he is, Rupert Murdoch has started demanding that Amazon hand over user info for all Kindle users. This demand comes right after Murdoch just finished negotiating a larger share of revenue from Amazon sales. At least Amazon hasn't decided to comply with this request yet. "'As I've said before, the traditional business model has to change rapidly to ensure that our journalistic businesses can return to their old margins of profitability,' Murdoch said. 'Quality journalism is not cheap, and an industry that gives away its content is simply cannibalizing its ability to produce good reporting.'"
What the hell is this? Twitter? some blag? Where on earth is the link to TFA?
I was just about to post this... Everything he controls is pure blather and bustle. I hope he starts 'charging' so he can find out how much people truly value his sputem.
The dead-tree publishers have your address so they can deliver their product to you. They may have your phone number as well so they can contact you concerning their product. The electronic publisher has your IP address so they can deliver the product to you and they might have your email address so they can contact you concerning the product.
Murdock doesn't need or deserve any additional demographic information concerning his subscribers. He already has all that he needs. He's asking for additional information above and beyond what is required to conduct the transaction. That's the big deal.
I too can see why he expects this information - he's old and living in the fantasy of world passed by.
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
Yes, but he wouldn't have this information if you walked into a book store and bought the paper from them, even if you bought the paper every single day which seems closer to how the Kindle process works.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law - Aleister Crowley
Yeah but the reason I buy from amazon is that I only have to trust that one very trustworthy vendor. Only Amazon has my card info and my address. If I want to buy a book, that doesn't mean that some random bookstore in North Dakota now has my personal information.. it's all handled through a trusted party.
That's stupid. Cable television got popular because it provided more content than you could get for free, and because (at least initially) it didn't have advertising that the OTA channels did.
The problem is that Murdoch thinks that someone owns the news. That is seriously different than the television situation. You CANNOT copyright facts. It would be perfectly legal for someone to read the WSJ, rewrite the stories, and give them away for free with small ads nearby. And I suspect that is exactly what will happen if paywalls are erected.
Microtransactions DO NOT WORK. They never will work... the cost to do the transaction will always be higher than the value transferred. I am not going to put payment details into every random site I want to look at. Nor is anyone else. Some very specialist sites can do that, but for everyone as a whole? It'll never happen.
Things will remain free because that's what the marginal cost drives them to. Hell, look at your comment... should I have paid a microtransaction fee to look at it? Should you get reimbursed for writing it? How about my response here... should I charge you for being able to read it?
The mistake everyone is making is thinking that journalism from newspapers is somehow special. It isn't. In fact, bloggers and many other people who are actually close to the action do a better job of reporting what is actually going on, instead of it being skewed through the lens of a reporter that may or may not give a shit about the subject matter being reported.
My point is that the world is changing. Newspapers are no longer the gateway to information. And if they insist on trying to do things like charging micropayments, all they will do is accelerate their demise. Unless they do something like the RIAA/MPAA and essentially buy off some senators and judges and so on. I know that's what the AP is trying to do.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
In fact, by any reasonable measure, "digital culture" has vastly increased publishers' awareness of who their customers are and what, precisely, they are reading and ignoring. So the premise of the summary's bias is blatantly false. Right or wrong, Murdoch's demand is perfectly in keeping with the times. And it is not at all a foregone conclusion that Murdoch's business instincts are wrong; he believes good reporting is worth paying for, and Kindle WSJ subscribers are examples of precisely that.
Since when has any member of the Murdoch media empire ever engaged in "Quality journalism". This is the owner of Fox News who went to a court of appeals to affirm their right to force their journalists to lie in their broadcasts. This is the owner of the network which, in the weeks before the invasion of Iraq, ran stories that Saddam had drones he was planning to use to spray chemical and biological weapons on American cities.
Granted the WSJ is probably still doing useful reporting, I don't think Rupert has managed to infect it with his spin machine.... yet.
@de_machina