In another move sure to continue the certain doom looming over classic publications, Rupert Murdoch has elaborated on the direction he would take in an effort to monetize the content that his websites deliver by attempting to block much of Google's ability to scan and index his news sites. "Murdoch believes that search engines cannot legally use headlines and paragraphs of news stories as search results. 'There's a doctrine called "fair use," which we believe to be challenged in the courts and would bar it altogether,' Mr Murdoch told the TV channel. 'But we'll take that slowly.'"
I doubt if Murdoch wants to block Google's access at all (he'd need a morons.txt file instead). He wants them to pay: this would give the hit-count of a free-access google-indexed site (preserving advertising rates), but the direct revenue per view of a paywalled site.
His web admins and business managers probably understand robots.txt quite well, and have made it consistent with their business intentions. Just for giggles, here is the robots.txt from Fox News:
Note that there are entries explicitly allowing the Google indexers...
FWIW, that's the first time in years that I've looked at anything at a fox site.
> I wonder if Google could argue that by not using robots.txt, Murdoch had > essentially given permission to have his sites searched and indexed.
I believe that in the US case law has established that Murdoch has given permission to have his sites searched and indexed by making them public. Obeying robots.txt is just a courtesy, but the fact that he has not used it to block Google totally destroys any feeble case he might have had.
"I don't think Google should even bother waiting for him to do something; just remove him from Google and Google News completely."
"Hello, Rupert? Sergey here. I just wanted to let you know that we've decided to stop listing all of your web sites in our search results. Yeah, it turns out it was pretty easy to do. Say, can you do me a favor Rupert? Can you get back to me next month and let me know how your advertisers feel about this? No, no... nothing important. I just have a bet with Larry about that. You have a good one, okay Rupert. Talk to ya later." [click]
What else do you expect from a man in charge of a company that nearly sued itself [guardian.co.uk] over the one show that singlehandedly kept the network from dying an early death?
I think they are trying to separate themselves to state that if you want the news, come to us and do it properly.
Have you ever searched for some information, and Google gave a hit where the surrounding text of the query already answers your question? And then not clicked the website?
If it was such an easy answer in the first place that it could occur just in the description of the link, of course!
This is like the cheap way local news stations get you to watch the whole 11pm news.
7pm: There's a food that might kill you already sitting in your fridge. Find out tonight at 11! 8pm: There's a food that might kill you already sitting in your fridge. Find out tonight at 11! 9pm: There's a food that might kill you already sitting in your fridge. Find out tonight at 11! 10pm: There's a food that might kill you already sitting in your fridge. Find out tonight at 11! 11pm: There's a food that might kill you already sitting in your fridge. Find out on this show! 11:08pm: And coming up soon, There's a food that might kill you already sitting in your fridge. But first weather. 11:30pm: Coming up after the break, 8pm: There's a food that might kill you already sitting in your fridge. Stick around. 11:59pm: And, if you eat spoiled food at the same time your murdered, you might die! Roll Credits
You better believe if i can find the information before news outlets decided when I am allowed by all means I will. Even on a page of search results, the answer to a question found in a link preview STILL is more readable that some of the junk clogged websites many news organizations have.
I don't see why google just doesn't stop indexing their stuff for a while, and waiting for them to scream about how they're no longer in the serch results.
Then tell Murdoch "How much are you going to pay to be back in?"
Then, no matter how much he offers, say, "Not enough."
When he says "Well, how much would it cost?" reply "In your dreams, fatboy!"
It has to be political.. there has to be something going on behind the scenes here.
He's not that stupid a person.. and there's no way that someone hasn't explained to him what a robots.txt file is by now..
How has this not happened? Even mainstream media tends to at least try to get a statement from both sides.
I'm sure if the BBC had contacted google.. they would have gotten lots of information on the subject. Or at least a quote they could include.. something along the lines of "google engineer x would like to remind Newscorp that they can _completely_ "block" us (and many others) from "stealing" their content by putting a simple text file on their site.
From the Summary: "'There's a doctrine called "fair use," which we believe to be challenged in the courts and would bar it altogether,' Mr Murdoch told the TV channel. 'But we'll take that slowly.'"
Fair use is the target here. They don't want anyone to ever be able to use any current culture without payment and approval.
Unfortunately for Fox News, that would mean that they could not quote anyone or use excerpts from books or speeches without prior approval. He'll find that he can't have it both ways.
Google have mentioned "robots.txt" pretty much every time Murdoch has spoken about this idea or anyone has cared to ask them for a comment. They've done so that many times in fact that I expect they've resorted to sending sample "robots.txt" files over to News Corp. just to get them to shut up and leave them alone and have possibly even considered proactively bypassing News Corp's sites. Personally, I think the endless rhetoric from Murdoch and complete lack of action on behalf of News Corp. is because either this boils down to a serious difference of opinion between Murdoch and a good chunk of his senior staff or they have their doubts and don't want to go it alone just in case.
1. Block any and all direct links to Newscorp owned sites in the search results.
2. Downrank any sites that link to Newscorp owned sites as irrelevant linking. (They have this for counteracting googlebombing.)
3. Systematically provide alternative sources for any search results that would have linked to Newscorp owned sites. .
So eventually even a search for "Newscorp" brings up every one of their competitors websites bashing them for being stupid, old, ignorant and irrelevant.
And Fox would sue because they are being singled out because they are "conservative"
It'd never make it. It'd be dismissed pretty much instantly. There's no protected class of "conservative", and being listed on Google isn't a protected right.
He wants the money that google is getting, that is what this is about. I suspect he heard about "robots.txt" before slashdot existed but quietly blocking things doesn't help him - he wants to make a lot of noise and then get governments to pass laws to restrict the internet so he can make more money from it. It's not a lack of action. The action in progress is to make a lot of noise and blow this thing out of proportion. I suspect it will get to the major headline stage for a while before this goes away.
It has to be political.. there has to be something going on behind the scenes here.
He's not that stupid a person.. and there's no way that someone hasn't explained to him what a robots.txt file is by now..
Of course. Merdoch (or his minons) know this. There are probably two things going on: A lame attempt to convince the public that he is being ripped off, and also he is almost certainly in discussions with Google about having Google pay for the content that Google clearly profits from. Neither will work out. And until web content of these "publications" provide a lot more value to the consumer, pay-for-access is a dead idea as well.
Of course there are certain publications, like the WSJ that can pull it off, but most can not, and certainly not local newspapers.
by Anonymous Coward
on Monday November 09, @06:23PM (#30039938)
Apparently you're unfamiliar with Mr. Murdoch's favored style of "journalism". You simply state what you think *should* be true, and then cite it repeatedly as "some say X", possibly with a side of tits. USians are most familiar with this from Faux News, but it's apparently practiced throughout the media empire.
He has to eliminate search engines because he wants to move news to a subscription basis. But he knows he can never be successful at that as long as anyone else provides advertiser supported free access.
So its all talk. He knows it would be suicidal to make this move alone, and is trying to drum up support among all the big news providers.
But even THAT would not work when local newspapers and TV stations put news on line, because Google would simply index those remaining free providers, which often provide a more complete story anyway.
The world has changed, and Rupert still thinks he's selling newspapers on the corner.
I just looked at the Fox News site main page and visited all their top news stories accessable from the front page.
#1, "Iran Accuses 3 Detained American Hikers of Spying"
Footnote: "The Associated Press contributed to this report".
#2 "China Executes 9 Uighurs Over Ethnic Riots"
"Associated Press" logo at the top of the article, based on a Chinese state news report, with additional info presumably added by AP.
#3 , Chavez... AP article, photo credited to AP/Miraflores Press Office
#4 Obama/Netanyahu... AP. Photo credited to AP
#5 Abortion doctor story. Associated Press logo, AP credit on photograph.
#6 PC virus story. AP logo, AP photo credit
#7 Gov Rell. short factual account, AP on story header (but as text this time, not as a logo).
#8 Legendary lost Persian army found in Sahara. Short version of an original Discovery News story (linked). According to Wikipedia, DN don't seem to be a Murdoch company.
#9 Hurricane Ida. AP logo on story header, but graphic credited to MyFoxHurricane.com . Finally, some original Murdoch organisation content! Hooray!
#10 Woman shot to death. Associated Press.
So out of their top ten stories, nine are either pure AP stories or edited from AP stories, and one comes from the Discovery News website.
Total identifiable original Murdoch content: one hurricane graphic from a Fox organisation hurricane-tracking site (which Fox News forgot to link to).
No identifiable "Murdoch press" journalistic content.
Completing the list:
#11 was AP, #12 was credited to FoxBusiness.com (a Murdoch journalism hit! Wahey!), #13 was AP, #14 was AP, #15, finally, was a Fox News piece on the Mclaren buggy recall, with a bold FOXNEWS logo and a photo provided by Mclaren.
#16 was AP.
So from their "most read" list, Fox News only have one story out of the sixteen that they actually wrote themselves.
Associated Press are a news syndication company (like Reuters), who supply news content to media outlets. This lets news companies supplement the content produced by their own journalists with ready-made stories that they can just slot into place as padding.
Given that the clear majority of FoxNews' top stories on this page (nearly 90%) were actually bought in from AP, and that Google News also subscribe to AP as a content provider to buy stories, it's not surprising that when both sites rank their content by popularity, if Murdoch looks at the Sky News page and compares it to the Google News page, he's going to see a lot of the same top-ranking stories on both sites.
But this doesn't necessarily mean that Google News are stealing stories from Fox News Journalists, or stealing the selection. Both sites are buying content from AP, and the site viewers are dictating the popularities, not the editors.
I don't know whether this means that FoxNews.com don't actually do much journalism themselves, and mainly act as aggregators (like Google News)... or whether it means that they/do/ do a fair bit of journalism, but that their readership simply prefers the AP material that can be gotten from Google News anyway.
Either way, I can see why RM is concerned. Shouting that Google is stealing their stories kinda stops people noticing that, for Fox News, their own site statistics say that most of their most popular stories aren't actually theirs anyway. One out of sixteen?
as funny as that would be, i don't want to see google getting into the habit of cutting off *anyone*. as long as the information is indexable, they should display it. let murdoch be a baby and block it from his own end with robots.txt if he wants, but don't play childish games with children. they should just ignore him.
Yes, I am sure that barring searching engines from listing your headlines will do wonders for your revenue. It's not like your competitors are allowing those results or anything like that! Everyone knows that your customers will go to your websites without any help from search engines!
As for fair use? Yeah, it's not like news websites ever make use of that doctrine.
Everyone knows that your customers will go to your websites without any help from search engines!
Considering who actually consumes Murdoch's media, it wouldn't surprise me if they instinctively seek out his biased media by name. Kind of like how most Slashdotters probably don't google stories from Slashdot; they just click the bookmark and read the site.
There's a department store. It probably carries a lot of merchandise. But the store owner wants everybody to pay him a fee to walk through the front door. And he wants the local papers to not say what he carries, or what he's got on sale this week. He feels that he should be the only one getting paid for anything that mentions his merchandise.
Would you bother going to his store? Or would you go to the Target or Wal-Mart that's happy to have a flyer in the paper listing everything they've got on sale this week.
Yeah, thought so.
It's your right to be stupid and wrong-headed, Mr. Murdoch. Everyone has that gods-given right. But don't come whining to us when your plan fails to go the way you want it to go. We, after all, never signed any agreement saying we'd only behave the way you want.
Murdoch does not "create" anything (propaganda aside). He's only "reporting" things that happen. Guess what... other people can do that too. "News" reporting is a dying art and rightly so. Back in the day, no one knew what was happening in Zimbabwe. You had to pay a professional team to fly there (or take a boat, a couple centuries ago). They would "report" the current events and either mail, telegraph, telex or eventually send the "story" in through radio or a satellite TV link. All of this cost money, and news companies had to sell a lot of advertising to cover costs.
But guess what? Times have changed. Now anyone with a cell phone and internet access can provide "breaking news". How often do I see CNN or other "news" channels showing the EXACT same video that was on LiveLeak. Except of course they "blur out" the LiveLeak logo (yeah, you try and do that to THEIR content and see how many lawyers you get on your ass). Frankly there's no value in "syndicated" news anymore. Firstly, they're almost always behind the internet, secondly, their reporting is always biased, and thirdly - I really don't want to watch the damned ads.
1) They're stealing his headlines 2) Google may or may not have the right to search 3) We'll attack their right to search 4) So if they know what's good for them, pay us to be included in google searches
In an exclusive interview with one of his employees, Rupert Murdoch announced that it was time to draw a line in the sand in his constant battle to frustrate freeloading consumers by scheduling extensive rhinoplasty [today.com].
As the logical extension of his intent to improve monetization of his global media empire, an aggressive research team, led by his own grubby, questing index finger (itself a semi-autonomous publicly traded subsidiary of ArmCorp) had discovered a hitherto unprofitable branch of Mr Murdoch's own face and immediately set to analysing the potential in the "streaming content" market.
"Thanks to the pervasive and anarchic medium of light and an endemic, unscrupulous approach to photon-consumption," said Mr Murdoch to a camera he owned, "the public have been stealing — we believe it is theft — visible spectra which carry a representation of my nose. When I consent to an interview, a TV appearance or a personal meeting with an individual, we are entering into a contract in which I am licensing access to me, Rupert Murdoch, a highly lucrative and profitable range of properties and services.
"For too long, people have been content to pay only for access to my thoughts, speech or round-the-clock footage of the contents of my bowels — via the Times, Sky and Fox News respectively — while stealing valuable images of my nose, its nostrils and their contents, then rebroadcasting and shamelessly profiteering.
"When a reporter negotiates an interview with me, as well as broadcasting the material he has licensed legitimately, he frequently steals additional content without permission. Telling another reporter down the pub 'I just interviewed that arsehole Murdoch, what a leathery-faced, jowly, big-nosed, offensive wanker he is' is time-shifting and re-disseminating unlicensed intellectual property. Commentary based upon my opinions is legitimate as paid output from the premium outlet of my mouth. Any entertainment derived from the rest of my face is theft, pure and simple. There is no such thing as fair use."
The interview itself took place on Sky Channel 149, a pioneering venture to broadcast 24-hour footage of the view from Mr Murdoch's bathroom cabinet. In line with Mr Murdoch's policy of preferring fewer paying customers and no freeloaders, Sky 149 has precisely one subcriber, with Mr Murdoch himself paying himself hundreds of thousands of dollars each month for access, for the purpose of shaving.
Having successfully franchised out his forehead, jowls and cheeks to a conglomerate representing elephants born without ball-bags, and following a failed attempt to charge a subscription fee to customers prepared to pay to punch Murdoch square in the nose, the decision was eventually made to excise the entire section of the business, rather than allow further illicit exploitation, piracy and copyright terrorism.
When questioned as to what purpose the resulting gap in his cranial portfolio might be turned, Murdoch suggested that he was tentatively considering offers from the adult entertainment market to employ his skull cavity as a giant fucking cunt.
Here is another article [sky.com] that goes into a little more detail.
The crux of the matter seems to be the fact "readers who randomly reach a page via an internet search hold little value to advertisers." Apparently advertisers want to know some demographic details about the people who read the articles, details that are available with paying subscribers. "Who knows who they are or where they are. They don't suddenly become loyal readers of our content." states Mr. Murdoch of Google news click-throughs.
Mr. Murdoch also claims that there is simply not enough advertising money in the world to make all news websites profitable. He realises that the number of visitors will decrease, but states that he would prefer to have fewer readers who pay to many readers who don't.
The problem with using robots.txt, from his POV, is that it's purely advisory, and requires the cooperation of the spider in question. Yes, I'm sure that Google's spider is configured to honor it, but as long as it can be ignored, people like Murdoch are sure that it will be because that's what they'd do.
Fair use is a defense when you are guilty of copyright infringement. It's an extenuating circumstance.
Wrong. Fair use is a defense to use when you are accused of copyright infringement. If you prove that what you did is covered by fair use, you are not guilty of infringing because Fair Use is an exception to copyright. An extenuating circumstance is something you invoke either after you are found guilty (in a criminal case) or as part of your defense in a civil case in an attempt to lower or avoid any fines, judgments or other penalties. Your basic idea is right, that Google isn't infringing, but your explanation of Fair Use was wrong and misleading. N.B.: IANAL, but I am a writer, and have had reason to familiarize myself with the concept.
Robots.txt (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Robots.txt (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe the answer is robots.txt; but that is not what you tell a billionaire if he asks you.
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Re:Robots.txt (Score:4, Insightful)
http://www.experts-exchange.com/ [experts-exchange.com]
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Re:Robots.txt (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Robots.txt (Score:5, Funny)
Indeed. Information hates being anthropomorphized.
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Re:Robots.txt (Score:5, Interesting)
Really. Of course he knows. He just wants a cut of Google's pie.
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Re:Robots.txt (Score:5, Interesting)
Just for grins, I took a look at http://www.foxnews.com/robots.txt [foxnews.com], and guess what? It specifically allows google.
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Re:Robots.txt (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't become a billionaire by sharing anything with anyone
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Re:Robots.txt (Score:5, Funny)
You don't get an insightful rating without authoritatively spouting some piece of nonsensical claptrap.
[/irony]
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Robots.txt != Morons.txt (Score:5, Informative)
His web admins and business managers probably understand robots.txt quite well, and have made it consistent with their business intentions. Just for giggles, here is the robots.txt from Fox News:
User-agent: *
Disallow:
Disallow:
#
User-agent: gsa-crawler
Allow:
Allow:
Allow:
Allow:
#
Sitemap: http://www.foxnews.com/google_search_index.xml [foxnews.com]
Sitemap: http://www.foxnews.com/google_news_index.xml [foxnews.com]
Note that there are entries explicitly allowing the Google indexers...
FWIW, that's the first time in years that I've looked at anything at a fox site.
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Re:Robots.txt (Score:5, Informative)
From fox.com/robots.txt:
User-agent: * /*?exid=
Allow: /
Disallow:
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Re:Robots.txt (Score:5, Interesting)
User-agent: *
Disallow:
Disallow:
Disallow:
Disallow:
Disallow:
Disallow:
Disallow: */404*
Sitemap: http://www.news.com.au/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow-sitemap.xml
Sitemap: http://www.news.com.au/couriermail-sitemap.xml
Sitemap: http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph-sitemap.xml
Sitemap: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun-sitemap.xml
Sitemap: http://www.news.com.au/perthnow-sitemap.xml
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Re:Robots.txt (Score:5, Interesting)
> I wonder if Google could argue that by not using robots.txt, Murdoch had
> essentially given permission to have his sites searched and indexed.
I believe that in the US case law has established that Murdoch has given permission to have his sites searched and indexed by making them public. Obeying robots.txt is just a courtesy, but the fact that he has not used it to block Google totally destroys any feeble case he might have had.
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Re: Re:Robots.txt (Score:5, Funny)
"Hello, Rupert? Sergey here. I just wanted to let you know that we've decided to stop listing all of your web sites in our search results. Yeah, it turns out it was pretty easy to do. Say, can you do me a favor Rupert? Can you get back to me next month and let me know how your advertisers feel about this? No, no... nothing important. I just have a bet with Larry about that. You have a good one, okay Rupert. Talk to ya later." [click]
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Good. (Score:5, Insightful)
The faster Rupert puts himself out of business, the better off everyone will be.
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It's bound to happen sooner or later (Score:5, Informative)
What else do you expect from a man in charge of a company that nearly sued itself [guardian.co.uk] over the one show that singlehandedly kept the network from dying an early death?
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Re:Good. (Score:5, Funny)
even internally if a reporter wants something old he usually has to go to the archive (read basement) and digg for hours.
Someone's been spending too much time online.
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I don't think I get it... (Score:5, Insightful)
He wants to make more money by making his headlines not available to the top search engine?
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Re:I don't think I get it... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:I don't think I get it... (Score:5, Funny)
In other news:
Rupert Murdoch has purchased a sig sauer 9mm handgun for personal protection.
"If I ever get attacked, all I have to do is hold this end to my forehead and pull the trigger!" exclaimed an exited Rupert. "That'll show them!"
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Re:I don't think I get it... (Score:5, Insightful)
I think they are trying to separate themselves to state that if you want the news, come to us and do it properly.
Have you ever searched for some information, and Google gave a hit where the surrounding text of the query already answers your question? And then not clicked the website?
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Re:I don't think I get it... (Score:5, Funny)
If it was such an easy answer in the first place that it could occur just in the description of the link, of course!
This is like the cheap way local news stations get you to watch the whole 11pm news.
7pm: There's a food that might kill you already sitting in your fridge. Find out tonight at 11!
8pm: There's a food that might kill you already sitting in your fridge. Find out tonight at 11!
9pm: There's a food that might kill you already sitting in your fridge. Find out tonight at 11!
10pm: There's a food that might kill you already sitting in your fridge. Find out tonight at 11!
11pm: There's a food that might kill you already sitting in your fridge. Find out on this show!
11:08pm: And coming up soon, There's a food that might kill you already sitting in your fridge. But first weather.
11:30pm: Coming up after the break, 8pm: There's a food that might kill you already sitting in your fridge. Stick around.
11:59pm: And, if you eat spoiled food at the same time your murdered, you might die!
Roll Credits
You better believe if i can find the information before news outlets decided when I am allowed by all means I will.
Even on a page of search results, the answer to a question found in a link preview STILL is more readable that some of the junk clogged websites many news organizations have.
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Re:I don't think I get it... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see why google just doesn't stop indexing their stuff for a while, and waiting for them to scream about how they're no longer in the serch results.
Then tell Murdoch "How much are you going to pay to be back in?"
Then, no matter how much he offers, say, "Not enough."
When he says "Well, how much would it cost?" reply "In your dreams, fatboy!"
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This is just baffling! (Score:5, Informative)
It has to be political.. there has to be something going on behind the scenes here.
He's not that stupid a person.. and there's no way that someone hasn't explained to him what a robots.txt file is by now..
How has this not happened? Even mainstream media tends to at least try to get a statement from both sides.
I'm sure if the BBC had contacted google.. they would have gotten lots of information on the subject. Or at least a quote they could include.. something along the lines of "google engineer x would like to remind Newscorp that they can _completely_ "block" us (and many others) from "stealing" their content by putting a simple text file on their site.
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This is NOT baffling! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:This is NOT baffling! (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately for Fox News, that would mean that they could not quote anyone or use excerpts from books or speeches without prior approval. He'll find that he can't have it both ways.
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Re:This is NOT baffling! (Score:5, Funny)
Unfortunately for Fox News, that would mean that they could not quote anyone or use excerpts from books or speeches without prior approval.
Yeah, that would be a serious hindrance if Fox News were in the business of reporting facts.
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Re:This is just baffling! (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:This is just baffling! (Score:4, Interesting)
Easy solution for Google.
1. Block any and all direct links to Newscorp owned sites in the search results.
2. Downrank any sites that link to Newscorp owned sites as irrelevant linking. (They have this for counteracting googlebombing.)
3. Systematically provide alternative sources for any search results that would have linked to Newscorp owned sites.
.
So eventually even a search for "Newscorp" brings up every one of their competitors websites bashing them for being stupid, old, ignorant and irrelevant.
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Re:This is just baffling! (Score:5, Informative)
And Fox would sue because they are being singled out because they are "conservative"
It'd never make it. It'd be dismissed pretty much instantly. There's no protected class of "conservative", and being listed on Google isn't a protected right.
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Re:This is just baffling! (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a lack of action. The action in progress is to make a lot of noise and blow this thing out of proportion. I suspect it will get to the major headline stage for a while before this goes away.
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Re:This is just baffling! (Score:5, Insightful)
It has to be political.. there has to be something going on behind the scenes here. He's not that stupid a person.. and there's no way that someone hasn't explained to him what a robots.txt file is by now..
Of course. Merdoch (or his minons) know this. There are probably two things going on: A lame attempt to convince the public that he is being ripped off, and also he is almost certainly in discussions with Google about having Google pay for the content that Google clearly profits from. Neither will work out. And until web content of these "publications" provide a lot more value to the consumer, pay-for-access is a dead idea as well.
Of course there are certain publications, like the WSJ that can pull it off, but most can not, and certainly not local newspapers.
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Re:This is just baffling! (Score:5, Funny)
Apparently you're unfamiliar with Mr. Murdoch's favored style of "journalism". You simply state what you think *should* be true, and then cite it repeatedly as "some say X", possibly with a side of tits. USians are most familiar with this from Faux News, but it's apparently practiced throughout the media empire.
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Re:This is just baffling! (Score:4, Insightful)
He knows about robots.txt.
See this story (On one of his own sites): http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,573329,00.html [foxnews.com] where it is mentioned.
Paid subscriptions is his plan.
He has to eliminate search engines because he wants to move news to a subscription basis. But he knows he can never be successful at that as long as anyone else provides advertiser supported free access.
So its all talk. He knows it would be suicidal to make this move alone, and is trying to drum up support among all the big news providers.
But even THAT would not work when local newspapers and TV stations put news on line, because Google would simply index those remaining free providers, which often provide a more complete story anyway.
The world has changed, and Rupert still thinks he's selling newspapers on the corner.
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Re:This is just baffling! (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.foxnews.com/google_news_index.xml [foxnews.com]
Murdoch is so intent on blocking Google News that his site automatically generates the feed necessary for the import.
Wait.. I think I missed something.
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Re:This is just baffling! (Score:5, Interesting)
I just looked at the Fox News site main page and visited all their top news stories accessable from the front page.
So out of their top ten stories, nine are either pure AP stories or edited from AP stories, and one comes from the Discovery News website.
Total identifiable original Murdoch content: one hurricane graphic from a Fox organisation hurricane-tracking site (which Fox News forgot to link to).
No identifiable "Murdoch press" journalistic content.
Completing the list:
#11 was AP, #12 was credited to FoxBusiness.com (a Murdoch journalism hit! Wahey!), #13 was AP, #14 was AP, #15, finally, was a Fox News piece on the Mclaren buggy recall, with a bold FOXNEWS logo and a photo provided by Mclaren. #16 was AP.
So from their "most read" list, Fox News only have one story out of the sixteen that they actually wrote themselves.
Associated Press are a news syndication company (like Reuters), who supply news content to media outlets. This lets news companies supplement the content produced by their own journalists with ready-made stories that they can just slot into place as padding.
Given that the clear majority of FoxNews' top stories on this page (nearly 90%) were actually bought in from AP, and that Google News also subscribe to AP as a content provider to buy stories, it's not surprising that when both sites rank their content by popularity, if Murdoch looks at the Sky News page and compares it to the Google News page, he's going to see a lot of the same top-ranking stories on both sites.
But this doesn't necessarily mean that Google News are stealing stories from Fox News Journalists, or stealing the selection. Both sites are buying content from AP, and the site viewers are dictating the popularities, not the editors.
I don't know whether this means that FoxNews.com don't actually do much journalism themselves, and mainly act as aggregators (like Google News) ... or whether it means that they /do/ do a fair bit of journalism, but that their readership simply prefers the AP material that can be gotten from Google News anyway.
Either way, I can see why RM is concerned. Shouting that Google is stealing their stories kinda stops people noticing that, for Fox News, their own site statistics say that most of their most popular stories aren't actually theirs anyway. One out of sixteen?
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Freeze him out (Score:5, Insightful)
If I were Google, I'd just cut all his sites off for a month and let them see how far their click-revenue falls off.
No google news, No search results, nothing.
The guy asked for it, so give it to him.
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Re:Freeze him out (Score:4, Funny)
It would be even more effective to block known IP blocks of his businesses from any inbound or outbound access to Google services for a month.
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Re:Freeze him out (Score:5, Insightful)
as funny as that would be, i don't want to see google getting into the habit of cutting off *anyone*. as long as the information is indexable, they should display it. let murdoch be a baby and block it from his own end with robots.txt if he wants, but don't play childish games with children. they should just ignore him.
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Re:Freeze him out (Score:5, Funny)
Google aren't deciding. The senile old cunt with the chameleon nationality is just getting what he asked for.
And I'll tell you another thing, his son is twice the asshole he is - minimum.
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Good luck, Murdoch (Score:4, Insightful)
As for fair use? Yeah, it's not like news websites ever make use of that doctrine.
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Re:Good luck, Murdoch (Score:5, Insightful)
Considering who actually consumes Murdoch's media, it wouldn't surprise me if they instinctively seek out his biased media by name. Kind of like how most Slashdotters probably don't google stories from Slashdot; they just click the bookmark and read the site.
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Rephrase what he wants (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a department store. It probably carries a lot of merchandise. But the store owner wants everybody to pay him a fee to walk through the front door. And he wants the local papers to not say what he carries, or what he's got on sale this week. He feels that he should be the only one getting paid for anything that mentions his merchandise.
Would you bother going to his store? Or would you go to the Target or Wal-Mart that's happy to have a flyer in the paper listing everything they've got on sale this week.
Yeah, thought so.
It's your right to be stupid and wrong-headed, Mr. Murdoch. Everyone has that gods-given right. But don't come whining to us when your plan fails to go the way you want it to go. We, after all, never signed any agreement saying we'd only behave the way you want.
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Re:Rephrase what he wants (Score:5, Informative)
Cute analogy - except, it's not even his stuff.
Murdoch does not "create" anything (propaganda aside). He's only "reporting" things that happen. Guess what... other people can do that too. "News" reporting is a dying art and rightly so. Back in the day, no one knew what was happening in Zimbabwe. You had to pay a professional team to fly there (or take a boat, a couple centuries ago). They would "report" the current events and either mail, telegraph, telex or eventually send the "story" in through radio or a satellite TV link. All of this cost money, and news companies had to sell a lot of advertising to cover costs.
But guess what? Times have changed. Now anyone with a cell phone and internet access can provide "breaking news". How often do I see CNN or other "news" channels showing the EXACT same video that was on LiveLeak. Except of course they "blur out" the LiveLeak logo (yeah, you try and do that to THEIR content and see how many lawyers you get on your ass). Frankly there's no value in "syndicated" news anymore. Firstly, they're almost always behind the internet, secondly, their reporting is always biased, and thirdly - I really don't want to watch the damned ads.
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You guys are smarter than this (Score:4, Funny)
He's asking Google to pay him to index his site.
Parse it out...
1) They're stealing his headlines
2) Google may or may not have the right to search
3) We'll attack their right to search
4) So if they know what's good for them, pay us to be included in google searches
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challenged (Score:4, Insightful)
"Murdoch believes that search engines cannot legally use headlines and paragraphs of news stories as search results.
Indeed, they can't, without Murdoch's permission. Lucky for Google that Murdoch grants them permission in their robots.txt.
'There's a doctrine called "fair use," which we believe to be challenged in the courts and would bar it altogether,'
"We"? As in the "royal we"? Challenged by who? On what grounds?
The only thing that seems to be "challenged" here is Murdoch's intellect and ethics. Well, actually, it's beyond "challenged", it's just rotten.
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Murdoch announces plan to cut off nose (Score:5, Funny)
In an exclusive interview with one of his employees, Rupert Murdoch announced that it was time to draw a line in the sand in his constant battle to frustrate freeloading consumers by scheduling extensive rhinoplasty [today.com].
As the logical extension of his intent to improve monetization of his global media empire, an aggressive research team, led by his own grubby, questing index finger (itself a semi-autonomous publicly traded subsidiary of ArmCorp) had discovered a hitherto unprofitable branch of Mr Murdoch's own face and immediately set to analysing the potential in the "streaming content" market.
"Thanks to the pervasive and anarchic medium of light and an endemic, unscrupulous approach to photon-consumption," said Mr Murdoch to a camera he owned, "the public have been stealing — we believe it is theft — visible spectra which carry a representation of my nose. When I consent to an interview, a TV appearance or a personal meeting with an individual, we are entering into a contract in which I am licensing access to me, Rupert Murdoch, a highly lucrative and profitable range of properties and services.
"For too long, people have been content to pay only for access to my thoughts, speech or round-the-clock footage of the contents of my bowels — via the Times, Sky and Fox News respectively — while stealing valuable images of my nose, its nostrils and their contents, then rebroadcasting and shamelessly profiteering.
"When a reporter negotiates an interview with me, as well as broadcasting the material he has licensed legitimately, he frequently steals additional content without permission. Telling another reporter down the pub 'I just interviewed that arsehole Murdoch, what a leathery-faced, jowly, big-nosed, offensive wanker he is' is time-shifting and re-disseminating unlicensed intellectual property. Commentary based upon my opinions is legitimate as paid output from the premium outlet of my mouth. Any entertainment derived from the rest of my face is theft, pure and simple. There is no such thing as fair use."
The interview itself took place on Sky Channel 149, a pioneering venture to broadcast 24-hour footage of the view from Mr Murdoch's bathroom cabinet. In line with Mr Murdoch's policy of preferring fewer paying customers and no freeloaders, Sky 149 has precisely one subcriber, with Mr Murdoch himself paying himself hundreds of thousands of dollars each month for access, for the purpose of shaving.
Having successfully franchised out his forehead, jowls and cheeks to a conglomerate representing elephants born without ball-bags, and following a failed attempt to charge a subscription fee to customers prepared to pay to punch Murdoch square in the nose, the decision was eventually made to excise the entire section of the business, rather than allow further illicit exploitation, piracy and copyright terrorism.
When questioned as to what purpose the resulting gap in his cranial portfolio might be turned, Murdoch suggested that he was tentatively considering offers from the adult entertainment market to employ his skull cavity as a giant fucking cunt.
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The reason he wants to do this (Score:5, Informative)
The crux of the matter seems to be the fact "readers who randomly reach a page via an internet search hold little value to advertisers." Apparently advertisers want to know some demographic details about the people who read the articles, details that are available with paying subscribers. "Who knows who they are or where they are. They don't suddenly become loyal readers of our content." states Mr. Murdoch of Google news click-throughs.
Mr. Murdoch also claims that there is simply not enough advertising money in the world to make all news websites profitable. He realises that the number of visitors will decrease, but states that he would prefer to have fewer readers who pay to many readers who don't.
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Re:robots.txt (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:This has nothing to do with Fair Use (Score:5, Informative)
Wrong. Fair use is a defense to use when you are accused of copyright infringement. If you prove that what you did is covered by fair use, you are not guilty of infringing because Fair Use is an exception to copyright. An extenuating circumstance is something you invoke either after you are found guilty (in a criminal case) or as part of your defense in a civil case in an attempt to lower or avoid any fines, judgments or other penalties. Your basic idea is right, that Google isn't infringing, but your explanation of Fair Use was wrong and misleading. N.B.: IANAL, but I am a writer, and have had reason to familiarize myself with the concept.
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