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Rupert Murdoch Says Google Is Stealing His Content
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.'"
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?
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.
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
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.
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.
I bet he thinks the dewey decimal system "steals" content from libraries by classifying and categorizing books.
FLR
'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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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?!
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.
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.
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.