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Rupert Murdoch Says Google Is Stealing His Content

Posted by timothy on from the what-part-of-come-in-don't-you-understand? dept.

Hugh Pickens writes Weston Kosova writes in Newsweek that Rupert Murdoch gave an impassioned speech to media executives in Beijing decrying that search engines — in particular Google — are stealing from him, because Google links to his stories but doesn't pay News Corp. to do so. 'The aggregators and plagiarists will soon have to pay a price for the co-opting of our content,' Murdoch says. 'But if we do not take advantage of the current movement toward paid content, it will be the content creators — the people in this hall — who will pay the ultimate price and the content kleptomaniacs who triumph.' But if Murdoch really thinks Google is stealing from him, and if he really wants Google to stop driving all those readers to his Web sites at no charge, he can simply stop Google from linking to their news stories by going to his Web site's robot.txt file and adding 'Disallow.'"

109 of 504 comments (clear)

  1. Dear Mr Murdoch by presidenteloco · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If you don't want to be hyperlinked to, you might consider

    not putting your content on the worldwide web.

    Dolt.

    --

    Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
    1. Re:Dear Mr Murdoch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      He wants the hyperlinks. AND a fee paid to him for the privilege.

    2. Re:Dear Mr Murdoch by SEAL · · Score: 5, Informative

      Or make your site subscription-based. Of course you might want to talk with the guys over at Slate first to see how well that works out...

    3. Re:Dear Mr Murdoch by Odinlake · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Additionally, if you want to be on the web but not listed by google there is a "bots" file. Dunno if that works with news aggregation but there's probably some way for little guys like Rupy to opt-out.

      Oh my but the he wouldn't be paid would he?

    4. Re:Dear Mr Murdoch by interkin3tic · · Score: 5, Funny

      You have to look at it from his perspective.

      Basically his perspective is "Someone else has money. I want it." ...

      Not the best perspective by my standards, but he has many times more money than I do, so who am I to say he's a F*#@#ing idiot.

    5. Re:Dear Mr Murdoch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Mr Murdoch may be simply quite too stupid to understand the plumbing of the internet and that he indeed does have control of some of the values, ie Robots files. His father (or grandfather) was probably indoor plumbing-challenged too, with all those levers and values on toilets, etc.

      At some point, old age, impacts the ability of some people to understand new things.

      Mr. Murdoch may be an example of the old dogs and new tricks syndrome.

      Given his personaility, it is probably unlikey that given his nepotistic and dictatorial tendencies, that he is likely to hear that his business model may be someout out of step with the 21th century.

      It is sad in a certain way.

    6. Re:Dear Mr Murdoch by stumblingblock · · Score: 2, Informative

      Quite simply, Mr Murdoch wants some of
      Google's money. His business admirers agree (applause).

    7. Re:Dear Mr Murdoch by Pharmboy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That is the key: He wants the traffic, and he wants Google to PAY him for driving the traffic to him. It is kinda like Google adwords, except they pay you to advertise. (there is a soviet russia joke somwhere in there)

      If he wanted to disallow Google, adding two lines to robots.txt is all it takes. This is just a money grab by someone who appears to really not "get it" about how the interweb works, and how there is simply more supply than demand when it comes to internet content of all kinds.

      Google could simply choose to exclude Fox News from any spidering for news, but then RM would be suing Google saying they exclude him because they are (insert reasons here, such as "conservative"). Again, it is just a money grab by an old man who thinks "reading on the internet is like reading a paper, someone should pay for the right to read it", and you can't equate the two. It is more than just the medium that has changed.

      --
      Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
    8. Re:Dear Mr Murdoch by mysidia · · Score: 2, Informative

      META is not recommended primarily because it's as a lost cause/wasted effort, since most robots (even legitimate ones) don't understand it.

      robots.txt is part of the robots exclusion standard, which has been around for 20 years and should be implemented by all legitimate robots.

      Plus, if you want to pick on Google specifically, you can list their user agent in your robots.txt

      User-Agent: GoogleBot
      Disallow: /

      Or if feeling evil

      User-Agent: *
      Disallow: /
      User-Agent: GoogleBot
      Crawl-Delay: 51840000.0 Disallow:

    9. Re:Dear Mr Murdoch by Narcogen · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Again, it is just a money grab by an old man who thinks "reading on the internet is like reading a paper, someone should pay for the right to read it", and you can't equate the two. It is more than just the medium that has changed.

      Except that was never how newspapers worked, either, and Murdoch of all people should know it. Subscription fees and newsstand prices never did much more than pay for duplication and distribution. They certainly didn't contribute much, if any at all, to the costs of newsgathering.

      So essentially in the old model news was free to anybody who bought a paper-- a paper full of advertisements, which are what really paid for the content to be generated. Advertisers knew how much to pay based on the demographics of the subscriber base and the paper's circulation.

      Freed from the tyranny of ink and paper, content can now be delivered for pretty close to free-- so most of the time you don't need to subscribe or pay a newsstand cover charge, you just need to have Internet access. Advertisers, if they are thinking about it rationally, love this because unlike with newspapers and magazines, they know exactly how many people viewed an ad, how many people clicked it, and they may know a great deal more about that person, demographically, than they ever knew about any individual or group of individuals that made up a newspaper's subscriber base.

      What I expect Murdoch is whining about is not Google Search. That does deliver him traffic. He's probably on about Google Reader, which uses RSS to present stories, whole or in part, divorced from the source's presentation (and thus its advertising). However I do suspect that like search, making content available in RSS does News Corp more good than harm-- if not, they could simply stop providing it.

      If Google Reader is screenscraping News Corp sites then he's got a legitimate complaint. It's the equivalent of rip-and-read, but on the Internet.

    10. Re:Dear Mr Murdoch by SanityInAnarchy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is where I really wish Google occasionally actually wrote the letters we pretend they do. For example:

      Dear Mr. Murdoch,
      As requested, we have stopped copying your content without permission. Unfortunately, this has resulted in your sites being removed from Google Search results, as our spiders have to copy content in order to index it. Sorry about that.

      --
      Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
    11. Re:Dear Mr Murdoch by linzeal · · Score: 2, Funny

      We should celebrate the senile and powerful they make the last foolish stand for each generation before they are laughed to death. It is like macabre performance art.

      --
      An Education is the Font of All Liberty
    12. Re:Dear Mr Murdoch by Cyberllama · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Google should helpfully remove all links to newscorp owned sites. See how old Rupert likes that. He'd be crying in outrage pretty much instantly.

    13. Re:Dear Mr Murdoch by WCguru42 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sorry people, but Murdoch has a point. Professional reporting takes time and money, and if no one pays for it, it's not going to happen.

      His advertisers are paying for it. His subscriptions (if any of his sites are subscription based) are paying for it. News sources deserve to make a profit if there product warrants it in the general capitalistic model. But Google should not be paying for it. That's like asking for money from someone who tells a friend to check out a wall street journal article because they thought it best answered the question their friend had.

      --
      "Educate the mind but never at the expense of the soul."~Blessed Basil Moreau
    14. Re:Dear Mr Murdoch by sortius_nod · · Score: 4, Insightful

      News corp, and unfortunately a company I work for are getting it wrong time and time again with the whole digital age. They are expecting people to pay for a service that advertising has paid for since newspapers were invented. It's general knowledge in the industry that if there were no subscribers (ie, people paying), not much would change. As long as the paper is in people's hands and advertisers are willing to pay stupid amounts for space, everyone gets paid.

    15. Re:Dear Mr Murdoch by dbIII · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This is just a money grab by someone who appears to really not "get it" about how the interweb works

      The old bastard may be old be he's not stupid, he gets it all right. The problem here is that he wants to change it all so that he can make money from things we didn't have to pay for in the past.
      It's the old story about fencing things off and then charging admission. Murdoch has been very active in the internet space for well over a decade. I lost a job in 2001 after Murdoch bought the company I was with and kept just the small bit he was after to use for internet publishing. It wasn't just someone employed by Murdoch doing this, he was involved himself.
      Anecdotes aside, it appears that he wants us all to pay him subscription fees and many things are in the way, google for a start.

    16. Re:Dear Mr Murdoch by ImYourVirus · · Score: 2

      Yeah because suing someone because they don't link to you is a valid suit, that'd be like any person suing any site for not linking to their site.

      But some (luddite) judge (who knows nothing) would be stupid enough to make it valid, thus opening the door for anyone with a site to sue another site for not linking to them.

      --
      Why is common sense called that if it's not common?
    17. Re:Dear Mr Murdoch by fastest+fascist · · Score: 2, Funny

      Nah, he just wants to run things his way and have the search companies pay him. If he blocks Google et al. from indexing his sites, there's no money in that for him. So it's better for him to pretend robots.txt etc. don't exist at all and instead make a case for a very different kind of web - one that allows him to get more money.

    18. Re:Dear Mr Murdoch by damburger · · Score: 3, Insightful

      True. The 'move towards paid content' he describes is the movement he wants to start. Enclosure is exactly the right analogue; men like him have always made money by setting themselves up as middlemen, not adding to the system but simple charging for access to part of it that was previously free.

      --
      If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
    19. Re:Dear Mr Murdoch by damburger · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Professional reporting is dead, and nowhere demonstrates this more elegantly that Fox News.

      Precisely because its expensive to send out correspondents to do real reporting, big media has stopped doing it. Having Bill O'Reilly throw a tantrum at some unsuspecting guest is cheap and grabs ratings.

      Consider the recent turmoil after the Iranian election; twitter contained almost as much information as the big news outlets (who were, in some cases, reporting what was on twitter). How many of them actually had guys on the ground in Iran? I can't think of a single one, because it would be expensive and dangerous work. So the news sites did what the rest of us did and looked on twitter. If they do that, then why are they needed?

      --
      If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
    20. Re:Dear Mr Murdoch by damburger · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Don't turn this into blanket gerontophobia please. Plenty of old people understand and use the internet perfectly well. In fact, I think Murdoch is in command of his faculties and does understand the internet (he can afford to have the very best people explain him to it, after all) - I think he is just being damn greedy. He isn't being stupid, he is counting on everyone else being stupid - a strategy that has served him well with business ventures such as Fox News and The Sun.

      --
      If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
    21. Re:Dear Mr Murdoch by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 2, Interesting

      This article is about Rupert Murdoch so we're not talking about real news.

      We have too much news as it is. There isn't enough interesting things going on to justify numerous 24 hour news outlets. Imo, this is why some are sensationalising news and effectively turning opinion into fact too.

      We don't need that and it's damages society.

      We could do with these big news corporations falling apart. Go back to more localised news and if you want to find out about news outside of your area then go to Google.

    22. Re:Dear Mr Murdoch by Eunuchswear · · Score: 2, Funny

      The issue here is that if you are charging for something that someone else is giving away for free, your'e not going to survive. The point of this meeting, and of Murdoch's speech is that the "content providers" have to join together and demand payment for all "quality" content, and they have to join together to aggressively defend their IP.

      I love the smell of a price fixing cartel in the morning.

      --
      Watch this Heartland Institute video
    23. Re:Dear Mr Murdoch by xaxa · · Score: 3, Informative

      Precisely because its expensive to send out correspondents to do real reporting, big media has stopped doing it.

      In the last couple of months hundreds of adverts have appeared in London (mostly on the Underground) for the Times saying how they have lots of science correspondants. Although having just searched Google for one to check I remembered it correctly, I'm no longer as impressed.

    24. Re:Dear Mr Murdoch by xaxa · · Score: 2, Informative

      Incidentally, the BBC had a reporter in Iran -- at least until he was expelled, I don't know what they have there now.

    25. Re:Dear Mr Murdoch by thejynxed · · Score: 4, Informative

      Google News is what is he's complaining about.

      He doesn't mind the search links, the RSS feed, etc.

      He's complaining that Google News is gathering the content from his News Corp properties using their Googlebot, and taking all of the advertising revenue because Google places their own paid ads on the pages instead of the News Corp ads that would appear from the originating sites.

      This is the same issue/complaint that organizations like the AP and Reuters have with Google.

      --
      @Mindless Drivel: 100% of Twitter posts ever Tweeted.
    26. Re:Dear Mr Murdoch by Wowsers · · Score: 2, Informative

      A good few years ago now, Rupert had certain sections of The Times and The Sunday Times as subscription pages, certainly the archive section was subscription (basically any story over a week old went into the archive which you had to pay to access). They even had a CD-ROM of The Times archive (I remember using it at university - it only went back to about 1990 articles IIRC). Not enough people paid up to justify running the "archive", so it was removed and now we have the free for all, so long as Rupert allows the sites to be indexed.

      Maybe Rupert forgot that he already tried the pay per view method, and people weren't interested.

      --
      Take Nobody's Word For It.
    27. Re:Dear Mr Murdoch by kale77in · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Dunno if that works with news aggregation

      That's rather the question, as he'd presumably still want to appear in Google search results outside of Google News. So a simple Disallow wouldn't *quite* do the job; he'd have to be able to disallow only the news aggregators, which would only be possible if they had a different signature to regular Googlebot.

      So he may have to just dissallow everything, which would be fair. Is there any way, as a community service, way we could all chip in a few bucks and buy him an Internet Death Penalty?

    28. Re:Dear Mr Murdoch by WaywardGeek · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Actually, I have it on pretty good authority that Obama was born in Hawaii, is a practising Christian, prefers women to men, wrote a couple of insightful books, and got elected democratically to lead the world's leading democracy, rather than a communist nation. I also heard he won some prize recently, but I could be mistaken about that.

      However, many people prefer to believe fiction rather than the truth. Feel free to dig for your own particular flavor of fiction if you are looking to blind yourself. It's amazing how many of us prefer such fiction to real news, which is one of the many reasons news providers are in trouble.

      --
      Celebrate failure, and then learn from it - Nolan Bushnell
    29. Re:Dear Mr Murdoch by tcr · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Hmm... not convinced.

      I do remember reading an article that said he has his emails printed out and brought to him...

      He's probably wandering around NewsCorp HQ right now, trying to find the typing pool.

      --


      Information wants to be beer.
    30. Re:Dear Mr Murdoch by aeschenkarnos · · Score: 2, Funny

      Sad? Sad? Dude, this is Rupert Fucking Murdoch we're talking about. The most evil man alive. Every second his foul influence remains on the earth is a second too long.

    31. Re:Dear Mr Murdoch by MBGMorden · · Score: 2, Interesting

      As newspapers go out of business the value of the remaining ones will increase. It will mean more valuable advertising space, more readers, perhaps even a desire to pay for some more specialized news.

      That's the key point there. If you go to Google News and find an article on something even remotely national newsworthy, you'll see their little link at the bottom "View 3000+ news articles . . .". Most of them say pretty much the same thing over and over. That's an over-saturated market. Of course some are going to go out of business with the transition to online news simply because a single provider can reach a much larger number of subscribers.

      The ones who figure out how to survive in the market will be the ones to stay. Old relics like Murdoch will go and won't likely be missed. Whatever the case though, the market will support whatever it deems most acceptable and reasonable. If that means paying for news then we'll pay for news - but still from a MUCH smaller pool of providers than exist now. However, if it means not paying for news, and I don't believe the market will pay for it, then no amount of temper tantrums from rich old geezers will change that.

      --
      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
  2. I feel so sorry for poor little Ruppy by onionman · · Score: 3, Funny

    Must be absolutely horrible having all those evil search engines actually index his pages! I guess his robots files aren't working or something.

  3. Right ... by gslavik · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Media companies want Google to pay, not us (consumers). Because you can charge Google $X (where X has 7 digits) whereas to get consumer money, you have to produce a useful product.

    1. Re:Right ... by BKX · · Score: 4, Informative

      Dude, go back school. 0.000001 only has one sigfig. 1.000000 has 7. 0.000001000000 has seven also.

    2. Re:Right ... by thetoadwarrior · · Score: 2, Informative

      Yeah because Murdoch knows he panders to poor inbred mouth breathers and there is no money to be made from racist douche bags in a trailer park.

      Perhaps his new companies should try raising the bar on their quality rather than asking Google to fund their half assed "journalism".

    3. Re:Right ... by TrekkieGod · · Score: 2, Informative

      Actually I'm pretty sure that putting .0000000010000000 the second set of 0's are still significant since you're indicating a level of precision beyond the 7 significant digits...

      Uh...yeah, the second set of 0's are significant. The first set still aren't.

      --

      Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.

  4. Maybe he doesn't know? by Golddess · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Someone should send an email explaining robot.txt to the poor guy. Maybe he's just ignorant about how to keep the big bad Google from "stealing" his content.

    --
    "I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
    1. Re:Maybe he doesn't know? by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Oh; but the poor baby wants it both ways: He wants google to index his stuff, and pay him for the privilege of indexing his stuff.

      If this involved google ignoring robot.txt or something, and crawling him without his permission, I'd be rather more sympathetic. As it is, though, these guys haven't asked for that, because they know that it is valuable to them; but are still whining about how oppressed they are. Fuck 'em.

    2. Re:Maybe he doesn't know? by wizardforce · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Murdoch needs Google a lot more than Google needs Murdoch. All Google has to do is ignore Murdoch's content entirely until Murdoch learns his lesson or until his media empire collapses like the newspapers did. As for myself, I'm rooting for the latter to occur.

      --
      Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
    3. Re:Maybe he doesn't know? by GaryPatterson · · Score: 5, Informative

      Murdoch is not an Australian - he gave up his citizenship as soon as it hindered his US interests.

      He's as American as any other immigrant.

      On behalf of Australians everywhere, I'm sorry that he's your problem now.

  5. A simple solution by ivoras · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There's a very simple, mutually beneficial solution to this - Google should do Mr. Murdoch a favor and stop indexing his content. It's really a win-win scenario for everyone (including readers).

    --
    -- Sig down
    1. Re:A simple solution by TRS80NT · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "...everyone (especially readers)."
      There. Fixed that for you.

      --
      Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.
    2. Re:A simple solution by Strange+Attractor · · Score: 5, Insightful

      We subscribe to four weekly paper magazines and use Google News to see what's happening on shorter time scales. For me as a consumer, News Corp's stuff is distracting and annoying clutter when Google indexes it.

      I for one, second ivoras' solution.

    3. Re:A simple solution by fermion · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It will do no good. Murdoch lives in a fantasy world where one is not responsible for one's own actions. Just watch Fox News. When someone loses a job, it is the governments fault, and due to the fact that the person had no skills or chose to sell crappy products. The free market only works when the big business can do whatever they want, and smaller firms have to be subservient to them. The responsible free market solution is to at least block content from all users who are not subscribers, and at most put forth a competing search engine that requires a fee prior to linking to copyright information. but this would be the capatilist solution, which Murdoch would never go for. Instead he uses the socialist solution which is to have government pass more regulations which the tax payers then have to fund. It is like asking police to make sure that newspaper are read by only one person, then thrown away. I am sure he would love a law where our police would be responsible for arresting people who leave newspapers on park benches, or fining business who buy a personal subscription and then allow the customers to read it. Who cares if our taxes goes up. He doesn't pay them.

      --
      "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
    4. Re:A simple solution by thetoastman · · Score: 2, Insightful

      There's a very simple, mutually beneficial solution to this - Google should do Mr. Murdoch a favor and stop indexing his content. It's really a win-win scenario for everyone (including readers).

      I vote for this. I find that Murdock's properties provide noise at best and inflammatory rhetoric at worst. I would prefer to not see them on the "Top News" or "World News" gadgets that Google provides for iGoogle.

      If I want incoherent ramblings, I'll listen to the guy on the street corner. If I want gossip, I'll lean over the fence and listen to the two neighborhood gossips talk.

      If I want news, I'll refer to virtually any other publication that one provided by a property that Murdock owns.

    5. Re:A simple solution by damburger · · Score: 4, Funny

      Looking at those girls, the first word that comes to mind is not 'expensive'...

      --
      If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
    6. Re:A simple solution by Wildclaw · · Score: 2, Informative

      socialist

      I don't think that word means what you think it does. The socialist solution would be to create a public newspaper, or in the case of extreme socialism, confiscating private newspapers companies. But you rarely here about socialist solutions nowadays, because there hardly are any real socialists in politics. Instead it is all about the government hiring private contractors, or the government paying money to private companies so they can build infrastructure. Or the government selling its property to private owners. There is nothing socialist at all about it.

      Where is the public or worker ownership? It simply isn't there. The public and working class ownership has been going downhill for 30 years in pretty much all western countries. In fact, governments and worker class people are mostly in debt nowadays. Anyone calling that socialist has been listening too much to Fox News. It is simply modern credit and banana republic capitalism intertwined.

      And beyond ownership. Lets look at salaries and taxes. A socialistic system aims to ensure that individuals get compensated roughly based on the amount of labor they put in. The quality of the labor is of secondary consideration, and while it can be used as an incentive it should be kept in control. What that means in practice, is a tax system with high top margin taxes, to ensure that a single individual doesn't greedily grab everything. Again, those margin taxes have been completely negated in the last 30 years, in a strong anti socialist movement.

      Of course, most people are gullible and think social welfare is socialism. It isn't. Social welfare is simply a way to keep a dysfunctional society (a society with huge wage differences and high unemployment) under control. As for wealth redistribution in general, it is not socialism either. It is simply sound economic policy to keep the economy balanced, ensuring that wealth doesn't get over concentrated. It does fit well with a socialistic tax system, but that is because modern capitalistic ideas simply have no idea at all of balance.

  6. dear Rupert, by Ralph+Spoilsport · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Fuck off you pinhead. As noted: go to robot.txt file and add Disallow. Then they won't be able to steal from you. And no one will come to your fascist propaganda machine. don't like it? tough. Welcome to the 21st century.

    --
    Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
    1. Re:dear Rupert, by tagno25 · · Score: 5, Informative
      and here is foxnews.com's robot.txt

      User-agent: *
      Disallow: /printer_friendly_story
      Disallow: /projects/livestream
      #
      User-agent: gsa-crawler
      Allow: /printer_friendly_story
      Allow: /google_search_index.xml
      Allow: /google_news_index.xml
      Allow: /*.xml.gz
      #
      Sitemap: http://www.foxnews.com/google_search_index.xml
      Sitemap: http://www.foxnews.com/google_news_index.xml

      Notice the sitemap section, they are directly telling Google what news they have

  7. Please Google... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Please Google, teach this old bag a lesson and kill all links to his website so we can no longer find any of his companies online. Do it!!! It would be a glorious day when we would be allowed to go to other news sources and let Murdoch die a slow death holding on to a fading newspaper.

    1. Re:Please Google... by WSOGMM · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Please Google, teach this old bag a lesson and kill all links to his website so we can no longer find any of his companies online. Do it!!! It would be a glorious day when we would be allowed to go to other news sources and let Murdoch die a slow death holding on to a fading newspaper.

      As much as I hate Murdoch... all of those people that are just encouraging Google to teach him a lesson, you are also encouraging Google to be Evil. I dunno about you guys, but I, for one, don't want Google turning into Apple or Microsoft. We're the good guys, remember?!

    2. Re:Please Google... by swillden · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What's evil about complying with the man's publicly stated wishes?

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
  8. Read between the lines ... by ScrewMaster · · Score: 4, Interesting

    if he really wants Google to stop driving all those readers to his Web sites at no charge, he can simply stop Google from linking to their news stories by going to his Web site's robot.txt file and adding 'Disallow.

    Murdoch may be a complete asshole but he's hardly stupid: I'm sure his tech people explained to him that Google respects the Robot Exclusion Protocol. All the big boys do ... not to do so would be a. sleazy and b. stupid, since there are plenty of litigious fucks like Murdoch out there. The fact that he's making such misinformed claims in apparent ignorance indicates that he has another agenda, one of which we currently know nothing. Ultimately though, I think it comes down to an outfit like Google, with the stated goal of indexing all the world's knowledge, coming into direct conflict with those who wish to restrict access to knowledge for profit. What makes matters worse for the likes of Murdoch is that Google makes its money from other sources, and is not responsive to the same motivations and perceived threats as the incumbent news organizations. If Newscorp and every other such "service" were to disappear tomorrow, it would make little difference to Google's bottom line.

    --
    The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    1. Re:Read between the lines ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      http://www.newscorp.com/robots.txt:
      User-Agent: *
      Disallow:

      Hmm, so they have heard of robots.txt and already made the decision not to restrict any search engines...

    2. Re:Read between the lines ... by Chaos+Incarnate · · Score: 4, Informative

      Not only that, but the one on foxnews.com provides Google sitemaps.

      --
      Benford's Corollary to Clarke's Law: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
    3. Re:Read between the lines ... by ScrewMaster · · Score: 5, Funny

      Not only that, but the one on foxnews.com provides Google sitemaps.

      That's too bad. Google's spider really has better things to do than index Fox News ... for example, my great aunt Betty's second cousin's daughter's wedding photos.

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    4. Re:Read between the lines ... by timmarhy · · Score: 2, Interesting
      it's pretty straight forward. google sells ads and so does rupert, they are in direct compeition for the same dollars. he just wants to try smear them as much as he can. he knows full well that he can stop them indexing his sites (to all you moron's prattling about robots.txt).

      if google isn't in the least bit afraid of rupert and he knows this as well, it's just the game thats played at that level.

      --
      If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
    5. Re:Read between the lines ... by janwedekind · · Score: 2, Insightful

      He is just doing what he does best: Spreading FUD and steering public opinion. Some time ago there was an interview with the very same Murdoch proudly explaining how the purchase of MySpace would transform his media empire.
      But he would rather see a world in which Google faces strong mistrust by people and their governments. That's why he is spreading this nonsense. What an imposter!

  9. Google should follow his wishes by AuMatar · · Score: 2, Insightful

    And stop linking to his sites- he deserves it. And the resulting reduction in traffic to foxnews would make the world a better place.

    --
    I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
  10. Rupert Murdoch is something else. by Cytlid · · Score: 4, Funny

    I bet he thinks the dewey decimal system "steals" content from libraries by classifying and categorizing books.

    --
    FLR
  11. The Irony... by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 4, Insightful

    'The aggregators and plagiarists will soon have to pay a price for the co-opting of our content,

    Considering that Murdoch owns MySpace and markets it to artists as a place where independents, and even established artists, can show their wares - in effect aggregating boatloads of content that is not his in the first place - the irony of his whining is almost too much to bear.

    --
    When information is power, privacy is freedom.
  12. Re:How can someone be so rich and stupid by dangitman · · Score: 2, Funny

    Yeah, Murdoch's really stupid... like a Fox.

    --
    ... and then they built the supercollider.
  13. The online media world without Newscorp by HangingChad · · Score: 2

    Gosh, what tragedy. Guess we'll just have to suck it up and get by without their relentlessly negative hate spew.

    Don't let the search engine door hit you on the way out bunghole.

    --
    That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
  14. movement toward paid content? by boguslinks · · Score: 5, Insightful

    But if we do not take advantage of the current movement toward paid content

    The only evidence of a "movement toward paid content" that I have seen is Rupert Murdoch telling people that there is a movement toward paid content.

    1. Re:movement toward paid content? by grcumb · · Score: 2, Insightful

      But if we do not take advantage of the current movement toward paid content

      The only evidence of a "movement toward paid content" that I have seen is Rupert Murdoch telling people that there is a movement toward paid content.

      And you think it won't work? It worked with Iraq.

      Just sayin'....

      --
      Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
    2. Re:movement toward paid content? by slimjim8094 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Typical News Corp. Look at the recent Faux News bits about the tea parties - "OMG ITS SUCH A NATIONWIDE GRASSROOTS PROTEST!"

      The entirety of his business model, it seems, is to come up with something and go on about how big a deal it is, until it actually becomes a semi-big deal.

      --
      I have developed a truly marvelous proof of this comment, which this signature is too narrow to contain.
  15. Misinterpretation by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm not sure why some of you think he doesn't want Google to link to him - that's not what he says at all. What Rupert Murdoch wants is for Google to link to him and pay him money for the privilege. He's smart enough to know that his media empire, from which he's made billions, is dying - but he isn't smart enough to figure out how to transform his dying business into a new type that can survive and thrive in the new electronic world (but then neither has anyone else as of yet). So he's doing the only thing he can think of, which is attempt to shift the blame over to the innovators that are responsible for his industry dying.

    Now, as the old media continues to die off, I wouldn't be all that surprised to see a company like Google make an effort to build a new media company with paid reporters and the like - but there's absolutely no reason that would involve someone like Rupert Murdoch, since he'd basically be relegated to the role of unnecessary middle-man.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
    1. Re:Misinterpretation by Lord+Kano · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I wouldn't be all that surprised to see a company like Google make an effort to build a new media company with paid reporters and the like

      Why do through all of that when if you wait a few years there'll be a firesale at Fox, CNN and MSNBC? Why spend a billion dollars to get up your own media service when you can pick and choose the good parts from the competition for pennies on the dollar?

      LK

      --
      "Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
  16. http://www.foxnews.com/robots.txt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    User-agent: *
    Disallow: /printer_friendly_story
    Disallow: /projects/livestream
    #
    User-agent: gsa-crawler
    Allow: /printer_friendly_story
    Allow: /google_search_index.xml
    Allow: /google_news_index.xml
    Allow: /*.xml.gz
    #
    Sitemap: http://www.foxnews.com/google_search_index.xml
    Sitemap: http://www.foxnews.com/google_news_index.xml

  17. Re:Murdoch has bigger plans... by calmofthestorm · · Score: 2, Insightful

    They'll be be money to be made for those who defect.

    --
    93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
  18. Re:google: another banker owned entity by schon · · Score: 4, Informative

    Technically he is right.

    No, he isn't.

    And Google really do take without providing anything back.

    Bullshit. As the summary stated: if Newscorp really was the victim here, they'd implement a robots.txt file telling Google to go away.

    The problem is that if Google went away, Newscorp would lose business.

    The rest of your post is even more idiotic than your first two sentences. (Come on, legal theft? If it was theft, it wouldn't be legal, asshat.)

    You have every choice not to deal with them. It's perfectly possible to do without - there are other search engines, other webmail providers, other banner networks. If you have a website, you can even exclude them in your robots.txt if you want.

  19. Ronald Reagan put it best by russotto · · Score: 2, Funny

    "There you go again".

  20. Murdoch not so smart, really by syousef · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Murdoch may be a complete asshole but he's hardly stupid:

    You're falling into the trap of thinking that success in high places must mean competence. The world isn't nearly that sane. So long as the guy hires smart people and is smart enough not to put too many obstacles in their way, that's smart enough.

    Being an asshole however does seem to be a pre-requisit to great wealth. If you're fair to everyone and share your wealth, you simply never get rich enough for people to know your name. (You may make enough to live comfortably and have a good life, but you won't get rich and people will try to take advantage of you).

    There's also the illusion that if you're bad tempered and mean you're getting ahead because you "don't put up with crap" and "don't suffer fools" and "don't get emotional when it comes to the tough decisions". In reality you're just a lucky arsehole whose only talent is in exploiting people.

    --
    These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
    1. Re:Murdoch not so smart, really by QuantumG · · Score: 2, Interesting

      umm.. I know lots of "computer literate" people who have never heard of robots.txt.. the vast majority of people I know actually. This whole internet thing is still just magic to most people.

      --
      How we know is more important than what we know.
    2. Re:Murdoch not so smart, really by QuantumG · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No.. and neither does Murdoch.

      --
      How we know is more important than what we know.
    3. Re:Murdoch not so smart, really by ScrewMaster · · Score: 2, Insightful

      No.. and neither does Murdoch.

      True, and that's why I referred to "his tech people". Presumably he has advisors to help him understand the rudiments of what his Web operations are doing (at least, those parts that are relevant to his corporate strategizing), and I further assume that he's smart enough to consult them. If he's not, then silly comments about Google "stealing" content are to be expected from him. If he is, then he's dissembling for some other reason.

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
    4. Re:Murdoch not so smart, really by QuantumG · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Riight. 1. If I was one of Murdoch's techs I'd be keeping particularly quiet about how stupid he sounds.. and 2. I expect Murdoch wouldn't even consider the possibility that other people see things differently to him, let alone that he might be wrong about something, or not understand it fully.

      --
      How we know is more important than what we know.
  21. Kick the fox out of the henhouse by Improv · · Score: 2, Insightful

    It is a difficult problem of our times how traditional news media can survive with the expectations we have of the internet. It is another difficult problem how one can combat news institutes that have contempt for real journalism and become institutes for advocacy.

    While we figure out how to solve the first problem, we can use the first problem to help against the second. In the end, we're best off both with FoxNews/SkyNews gone and traditional journalism revived and (somehow) funded.

    --
    For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
  22. Real problem by cdrguru · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The real problem is simply answered. Can I, through the use of Google obtain Rupert Murdoch's content without ever visiting his site or seeing ads on his site?

    If the answer is no, then someone doesn't understand.

    If the answer is yes, then there is a real problem. I tend to think that the answer is yes on a couple of levels. First off, can I use a "Murdoch" headline and then read the content somewhere else? Yup, I am sure I can do that. Secondly, can I use Google to grab "Murdoch" content without visiting any of his sites? Yup, I can use the Google cache and never touch the original site.

    Finally, doesn't Google show enough of the text to let me know if I really want to look at the whole article on the site?

    No, this isn't anywhere near as simple as just using robots.txt to deter Google from indexing. This is using a service from Google to preempt other sites.

    1. Re:Real problem by SEE · · Score: 3, Informative

      No, this isn't anywhere near as simple as just using robots.txt to deter Google from indexing.

      Sure it is. If Google's spider is blocked from indexing "Murdoch" content by robots.txt, it's also blocked from caching any "Murdoch" content, the "Murdoch" headline never shows up on Google News, and there isn't any "Murdoch" text appearing to let me know if I really want to look that the whole article.

      Murdoch has, in fact, deliberately made content available for free by and through Google. Before Murdoch took over the Wall Street Journal, all Wall Street Journal news content could not be accessed by Google News, and could not be obtained by using Google News or a Google cache. You could only get WSJ content by going to the WSJ site. After Murdoch took over the Wall Street Journal, all Wall Street Journal content was made accessible to Google News. Furthermore, the WSJ paywall was deliberately lowered to allow people to read articles on the WSJ site for free if they follow a link to the article from Google News.

      Murdoch isn't letting Google access this content by accident or through ignorance. He has actively chosen to make this content available by and through Google. He can undo that any time he chooses, for any of his sites.

  23. Murdoch is not a technophobe by TapeCutter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Remeber that Murdoch is the guy who in the 80's busted the UK's entrenched print unions by modernising the Fleet street presses.

    He doesn't want Google or anyone else to stop linking or he would have already stopped them by technical means, what he wants is a slice of Google pie, the bigger the slice the better. If he thinks ordinary people can't see through his feigned "push for paid content" then his sense of entilment must be at least an order of magnitute larger than his media empire.

    --
    And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    1. Re:Murdoch is not a technophobe by Planesdragon · · Score: 3, Insightful

      He doesn't want Google or anyone else to stop linking or he would have already stopped them by technical means, what he wants is a slice of Google pie, the bigger the slice the better.

      Google is fairly high on contention for "most profitable site on the 'web." A big reason for why they are so profitable is that they have a trusted search engine & an only sliightly-less-trusted news aggrigator. Both of these two exist by pointing to work someone ELSE is doing.

      Now, Google's all fine and dandy with not getting any direct revenue from these things -- they get trust, and knowledge, which let them sell the ads that bring in all that revenue.

      Murdoch's News Corp, otoh, is on all fronts doing what everyone else in the "actually do research and write something" industry is doing -- losing money. News Corp can insulate themselves fairly well, by just funneling money from profitable venutres that don't produce a lot of original material (Fox News TV) to those that produce the material (Wall Street Journal). But, while this works for Murdoch, it doesn't really work for anyone else.

      And it should, because we are FAR better served as a country by having professional journalists and bloggers, than by having bloggers alone.

    2. Re:Murdoch is not a technophobe by Asclepius99 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think you're giving the man too much credit. You're reasoning is that because he knew a technology back in the 80s he should be aware of how technology works 20 years later and in a completely different medium.

      It seems to me that this is more of a cause of him not understanding exactly how the internet works. Especially since he calls them "plagiarists" and "content kleptomaniacs*", which implies he thinks that they somehow are copying and keeping his content. Maybe he was just trying to be dramatic to get more attention, but I'm still pretty sure he's not exactly sure what it means when a search engine links to the page of a website without going through it. (This is guessing a lot, but I tend to think he believes that if he goes to paid content using a Google search will bring you to the content by going around the page that asks you to pay for it.)

      *Google probably is the definition of a content kleptomaniac. They store all your information on their servers forever and their terms and agreements state that pretty much any content you e-mail, use their hosting service for, or put in any of their other tools becomes theirs. However, them being a search engine is pretty much their only service that they aren't kleptomaniacs about.

    3. Re:Murdoch is not a technophobe by Pax681 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Eddie Shah got that ball rolling with the the union busting.

      he was the first guy to invoke thatchers anti union laws and also he started the modernisation of the fleet street printing.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddy_Shah

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Today_(UK_newspaper)

    4. Re:Murdoch is not a technophobe by jasonditz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The line between professional blogger and professional journalist is an increasingly murky one (from day to day I'm not even sure which I am, but its definitely one or the other), and even if some of the major "dead tree" media sites haven't figured out how to make money there are a lot of others that do, albeit on a smaller scale.

      But is that really a problem? I look at it like the OSS industry: there may never be the sort of revenues in the free software world that there was in the commercial software world, but plenty of open source projects/companies are profitable, and so long as the product is better, who cares?

      Google isn't the problem here, and they're just being used as a scapegoat because they make money and other people don't. But I don't hear Canonical griping to HP just because HP is making a profit on their hardware and people just download Ubuntu for free, one of the few things that makes an HP system remotely usable.

      The "old media" types have an outdated business model, but they also increasingly have a credibility problem. Most of their highest priced talent has gotten very sloppy in recent years, and a lot of them just pick their favorite politician or party and parrot the official line until told otherwise. Show me a well known newspaper columnist of the last ten years and I'll show you someone who has repeatedly claimed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

    5. Re:Murdoch is not a technophobe by cgenman · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I wouldn't be surprised if Murdoch's beef with Google is not that Google makes the money, but that Google retains the audience. People go to news aggy sites, rather than entering into a News Corp empire portal, going to a News Corp source, and ultimately staying within the News Corp family throughout their visit. The latter is far more valuable than sharing ad revenue for a single article impression.

      --
      The ______ Agenda
    6. Re:Murdoch is not a technophobe by khchung · · Score: 4, Insightful

      because we are FAR better served as a country by having professional journalists and bloggers, than by having bloggers alone.

      While I agree this statement on the basis that by "professional journalists" mean people who "reported fairly and factually on world events important to most people". However, I have to contend that most (but not all) "media" we see day to day, including Murdoch's, are NOT populated by "professional journalists".

      The only "professional" about most journalists we see in the media are only the sense that they get paid, i.e. it is their "profession" as a journalist.

      About "actually do research and write something", most media companies are only doing the "write something" part, and are seriously lacking in the "do research" part. Note that I said "most", I admit there are a few journalists out there that really "do research and write something".

      So, given that the current business model only give you a handful of real "professional journalists" mixed in sea of "journalists" not much better than bloggers, I am not sure what is the value of preserving this business model by having Google pay those media companies. It is the same argument for supporting RIAA because a few of their "artists" are really talented and deserved to be paid. Well, I suppose most people would think there should be a better business model to achieve that goal.

      Google is fairly high on contention for "most profitable site on the 'web." A big reason for why they are so profitable is that they have a trusted search engine & an only sliightly-less-trusted news aggrigator. Both of these two exist by pointing to work someone ELSE is doing.

      While this is somewhat off-topic regarding Murdoch, I think this statement downplayed the value Google is providing.

      Consider this, there are lots and lots of knowledge available in the world, both static like a cooking recipe, or dynamic like the news or a blog. But the fact is, for most of human history, these knowledge are not available cheaply and timely to most people. What Google did is making the knowledge that already exists on the web available to anyone, that alone is providing tremendous value to most people, and I congratulate them for thinking of a business model that can also make a profit doing it.

      --
      Oliver.
    7. Re:Murdoch is not a technophobe by the_womble · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Murdoch's News Corp, otoh, is on all fronts doing what everyone else in the "actually do research and write something" industry is doing -- losing money.

      Do you not mean the "rewrite stuff from press releases and news wires, distorting it to suit a political or business agenda" industry. People will pay for good content: It works for the FT and the New Scientist.

      professional journalists and bloggers, than by having bloggers alone

      Most of the blogs I read are better than anything the journalists produce. For example, I get news on the economy by reading blogs by economists, rather than a journalists summary of what he or she half understood after interviewing economists.

    8. Re:Murdoch is not a technophobe by thogard · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's not so much that he wants a bigger slice of the pie, its that he has to talk up every other newspaper in to going to a charge for content model before he turns off Google. If Google was smart, they would simply stop crawling his sites until he comes back begging. Murdoch owns most of the newspapers that aren't going to die in the next few years but he owns lots that will be dead in a less than a year and I think he is spooked by the numbers. For the last few decades the newspaper was paid for by ads from car dealers, real-estate and classified ads all of which are down significantly. Ever notice how Murdoch's news papers never mention Craig's list? The larger dealers have negotiated with many news papers to keep their ads the same size as they have been for years so it doesn't look like the paper is getting smaller.

    9. Re:Murdoch is not a technophobe by jesset77 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Consider this, there are lots and lots of knowledge available in the world, both static like a cooking recipe, or dynamic like the news or a blog. But the fact is, for most of human history, these knowledge are not available cheaply and timely to most people. What Google did is making the knowledge that already exists on the web available to anyone, that alone is providing tremendous value to most people, and I congratulate them for thinking of a business model that can also make a profit doing it.

      Oliver's point about the value of Google's service is a point lost on most armchair entrepreneurs these days.

      Too many of us get hung up on "creativity" being the only valuable service you can provide digitally, the product of which becomes some kind of "product" which should then be marketed to the masses by least efficient and most pocket-lining means possible.. be that Murdock, RIAA, PRS, whoever.

      We then disrespect any second tier services that may organize and present this information to you in a meaningful form. Of what value is data when it is uselessly separated from it's consumers, or lost amidst a sea of inscrutable noise?

      Take Google Books as another example. There are books languishing in libraries far from the hands of those who may benefit from reading them, out of print, orphaned and insulated from reproduction by our beloved copyright laws.. just waiting to be misplaced or accidentally damaged beyond repair. Google decides for good or ill to digitize all these tomes and make them available online. Suddenly everyone from authors to slashdotters, even the gutenburg project calls foul about data that was never otherwise practicably accessible to begin with. Apparently Google is "stealing" revenue from creators who have left their creations derelict in the first place. Unlike the water ways, textual information has no "salvage laws".

      Regarding Google Books, I am not claiming Google is beyond the ability of making shady business deals, what I am saying is that I never hear press about the bare concept of bringing this content into the digital domain. I get the impression that we would prefer the books rot and the knowledge be lost forever than that anyone makes half a dime as a consequence of bringing the data back into play.

      To me, IP has become such an ugly concept recently. One day someone will figure out cold fusion or cure cancer, present the proof on a napkin in order to win a $5 bar bet with their skeptical buddy and then throw the napkin away. Someone else will find the napkin and create the needed business infrastructure to bring this anonymous discovery to the world. The original creator will then shut them down (perhaps even instead of demanding royalties) and it seems like the public will dance around the flames of the demolished industry as we celebrate some kind of a victory for IP, all the while dying of cancer and killing one another over dwindling fossil fuels. Our cultural priorities seem truly and heinously misplaced whenever IP is involved.

      I contend that creating or discovering knowledge is not the single most important thing in the world. If the knowledge cannot be used to better human life, if the creator decides to hold out forever for monetary gains it is never reasonable for them to see, then what utility is IP law to anyone? I say all content is devalued when monopolized by it's creators. Having an idea does not automatically make you the best steward for the idea. Information does not spring forth from the mind of a journalist or artist as a shrink-wrapped product, instead it is created by molding from the raw materials of prior information and to be marketable must be molded further still by producers, organized by distributers and delivered to end users. All of these steps add value and everyone who contributes should have some kind of an opportunity to make profit from their contribution without having to cowtow to arbitrary "rights holders" who have normally fleeced the deed from the originator to begin by mere

      --
      People willing to trade their freedom of expression for temporary entertainment deserve neither and will lose both.
    10. Re:Murdoch is not a technophobe by dbIII · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I think you're giving the man too much credit. You're reasoning is that because he knew a technology back in the 80s he should be aware of how technology works 20 years later and in a completely different medium.

      He was certainly making expensive business decisions about internet companies in 2001, so unfortunately for us all that makes you the one that is out of touch while he has had his finger on the pulse for more than a decade.
      Murdoch understands it all right, the problem is he is quite happy to try to do what we would consider unthinkable to the the internet if there is money in it. He's been considering this for a long time, owns a lot of tech companies and has disproportionate amounts of political clout due to his media holdings. US Republicans love him due to Fox News and think he's one of theirs because they never think that he's just broadcasting that crap for the money. US Democrats love him because they know he's a million miles politically away from the Republicans and he has all that lovely money to donate. He's a crafty old bastard with people with all the technical knowlege that could be found on this forum happy to advise him and he listens - and he's not afraid to look like a stupid old bastard if that gets him closer to the money. He'd also be happy to bring an enormous copyright law shitstorm onto the internet and change it for the worse forever just to get people to see his banner advertisements instead of a google page. He doesn't care if there end up being weird laws that render search engines useless. I think this moaning about google stealing stuff is aimed firmly at those that pass laws, he doesn't care what techies think, we'll have no say in it.
      It's not that Rupert Murdoch doesn't understand the internet. The problem is that he doesn't care if portions of it break.

  24. http://www.foxnews.com/robots.txt by SpaceManNH · · Score: 3, Insightful

    User-agent: *
    Disallow: /printer_friendly_story
    Disallow: /projects/livestream
    #
    User-agent: gsa-crawler
    Allow: /printer_friendly_story
    Allow: /google_search_index.xml
    Allow: /google_news_index.xml
    Allow: /*.xml.gz
    #
    Sitemap: http://www.foxnews.com/google_search_index.xml
    Sitemap: http://www.foxnews.com/google_news_index.xml

  25. Oh wow. by numb3r5ev3n · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Reminds me of the time that someone threatened to sue me for a copyright violation after I linked to several pages in a site that had been archived on the wayback machine (it was a series of web articles that the author had decided to publish in book form.) I had lots of fun contemplating how their internet lawyers would have accomplished that, especially since the smarter thing to do would have been to request that the wayback machine stop archiving their site. Can someone please explain to Mr. Murdock how the Series Of Tubes actually works?

  26. Maybe Google should sue for slander? by rolfwind · · Score: 2

    Afterall, he is making some specific charges here. I'd like to see his ass handed to him in court although I know the fine or whatever it is probably will be insignificant.

  27. Re:google: another banker owned entity by canajin56 · · Score: 2, Informative

    One should also note that not only does Newscorp NOT turn away Google spiders with robots.txt, they actually redirect them to Google-specific pages to reduce bandwidth and make it easier to parse.

    --
    ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
  28. A better solution by jamesh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A better solution would be for robots.txt (or a more secure equivalent) to allow google to know that they need to pay when their results come up in your search results. Of course, google will require the searcher (eg you) to pay to see those results. A simple click through would work ("click here to see this pay-per-view result - your account will be debited $0.01c"). Add another link at the top (and bottom) of the results for "Never, ever, show me pay-per-view search results again. It's a stupid idea and I hate it.".

    The users are happy because they get to exclude search results from people who just don't get it.

    Media empires will be happy because they got what they wanted (and unhappy as they go broke as they become invisible to the internet without understanding why, but that's not google's problem).

    Google will be happy because all the companies that want this feature will finally stfu and go broke.

  29. Re:But we have economic luddites with internet acc by m.ducharme · · Score: 2, Insightful

    You might want to consider breaking your, er, writing up into paragraphs. If you want anyone to read your posts, anyway.

    --
    Rule of Slashdot #0: You and people like you are not representative of the larger population. - A.C.
  30. Why does Google put up with this? by Arancaytar · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "/Dear/ Mr. Murdoch,

    In wishing to completely and speedily address your worries, we have permanently removed all domains owned by your corporation from our search index. You will now no longer suffer from an onslaught of non-paying visitors to your sites. With the best wishes, Google."

    They should stop fucking around. Murdoch and the other paid-content-idiots know they can't do business without the search engines linking to them, and if they don't, it's high time they learned it. They need the search engines more than the search engines need them.

  31. Re:Fox is 2nd biggest MPAA member by Xtravar · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Because they're the ones who ultimately frame the debate to us voters.

    --
    Buckle your ROFL belt, we're in for some LOLs.
  32. Re:But we have economic luddites with internet acc by dbIII · · Score: 2, Informative

    After reading a bit of it I don't think that would help.
    It's not the paragraphs that are the problem, (Melvile got away with that) the content screams second language over an iPhone with the "ten random cliches" site open and a large bottle of Irish Whiskey.
    After seeing [sic] after one of the few correctly spelt words I was amused, not that spelling really matters much anyway on a forum like this.
    Sorry to be an annoying nitpicking bastard to new500 but the "freetard" insult is as annoying here as driving two herds of pigs into a synagogue and mosque at the same time while doing something unspeakable to a statue of the Virgin Mary.

  33. questions, questions by someone1234 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Why do i have to install and configure noscript and adblock when i go to a site, instead of they asking me politely at first visit, if i want to see their crappy ads?

    --
    Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
  34. What 21st century? by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 2, Interesting

    This is similar to authors who complain about their books getting listen in catalogs with excerpts (?) from their books, or horror of horrors, libraries.

    Murdoch ain't even smart enough to come up with new idiotic complaint.

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

  35. I think his viewpoint is just different by tkrotchko · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Murdoch might be looking at things differently

    First, he has come to the conclusion that people don't type in http://www.google.com/ to an address bar to visit Google, they're going to Google to eventually go somewhere else.

    Second, he probably feels that his newspapers get a lot of web traffic. I have no idea, I'll assume they do.

    Third, since he seems to own most of the major newspapers these days, he's probably convinced himself that he is an important part of the internet.

    Fourth, he realizes Google is making money from these searches. He's right, of course. Google isn't a charity, and they manage to make money off search.

    Fifth, if Google is making money connecting the average internet searcher with his content and making money from it, he probably wonders why he isn't seeing any of that money.

    Therefore, from his viewpoint, he's spending all the money building content, but Google is making money from it. And while I'm sure his lawyers have advised him that it's legal, he's trying to figure out get a piece of that revenue.

    Now I'm not agreeing with this thought process, but you can see how a businessman known for making $Billions would look at that revenue stream of Google's and try to figure out how to take it away. This is business 101 for him.

    I don't think he's alone; the entire net neutrality debate is pretty much wrapped up this these types of thought processes.

    --
    You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
  36. Re:good riddance to journalists by Eunuchswear · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If you compare the education of the top journalists and the top bloggers, the top bloggers are better educated. They probably also actually work in the fields that they are writing about

    [citation needed]

    --
    Watch this Heartland Institute video
  37. Re: Free from influence by Archtech · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I read a very apposite quotation about that just last night. Showing that some things never change, it is attributed to a journalist named Hannon Swaffer back in 1928.

    "Freedom of the press in Britain means freedom to print such of the proprietor's prejudices as the advertisers don't object to".

    Source: "Newspeak in the 21st Century, David Edwards and David Cromwell"
    http://www.amazon.com/NEWSPEAK-21st-Century-David-Edwards/dp/0745328938/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255263047&sr=1-1

    --
    I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
  38. On the ground by Strange+Attractor · · Score: 2, Informative

    I think Roger Cohen of the New York Times was there. The New Yorker also has printed a few unattributed pieces written in Iran recently.

  39. He wouldn't stand a chance in court by zogger · · Score: 3, Interesting

    If google just stopped indexing all his "intellectual property", he'd be laughed out of complaining about it because of his now quite public previous statements. He's already dicked himself and he doesn't even know that.

        And I think google should do this NOW and set a precedent by showing these online news content complainers exactly what they are asking for. And google has another ace in the hole, it isn't that much for them to just regurgitate the AP and other feeds either, they can afford it, and could easily just wipe out most online newspapers today if they felt like it. Then they could expand from there and start pushing the better of the world wide independent blog scene. There's just no absolute need anymore to have expensive "flown in" journalists to go cover this or that news event when there are millions of people already living there all over who can write well enough to pass, who are already carrying net enabled cellphones with cameras, and want to write, primarily for funzies, and have a big interest in seeing their local "hot breaking news" covered.

    Google's indexing is like getting put in the old dead trees yellow pages for free, if they went to the real yellow pages style of CHARGING for indexing for commercial sites like murdoch's news ventures, this would sort that out fast.

    I hope they call his bluff and just stop indexing anything he owns just to put that cretin in his place.

  40. Oh come on... by Estanislao+Mart�nez · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Consider the recent turmoil after the Iranian election; twitter contained almost as much information as the big news outlets (who were, in some cases, reporting what was on twitter).

    Yeah, and about 10x as much bullshit and false rumors. Your point being?

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    Are you adequate?