Fight ‘free’ at all costs
2009/12/21
For the better part of a decade now, we have been spectators to the death agony of the music industry. We have watched how they, in every thinkable way, have tried (and failed) to control their content – music.
Now it seems like history is repeating itself – just on a different platform and with a different type of content – news.
The media mogul Rupert Murdoch (picture below) is leading the crusade against ‘free’ and earlier this year, he announced that users should start paying for content on his 30 media sites starting from Summer 2010. Following this line of rhetoric and mentality his latest conquest is now Google News.
To put it briefly; Google News is the worlds largest News service measured in users. Quite impressive considering the fact that they do not create any news themselves. Google News collects headings and contents bill from established newspapers websites and thereby makes it easy for a user to navigate through the daily news. If a user wants to read the full story, Google News provide a deep link to the specific article on the newspaper’s own website.
This way Google News secures newspapers 4 billion clicks a month. 4 billion.
“They are stealing our stories” Rupert Murdoch said during an interview in November 09.
As owner of The Times, The Sun, New York Post and Wall Street Journal he wants to prohibit Google News in collecting and showing news from these newspapers.
Why?
Due to the general downturn in the newspaper business, owners like Rupert Murdoch are blaming Google and trying in every thinkable way to control their content – news.
They do this by cutting off Google News, by adding pay-to-read solutions and generally by building fortified walls around their business.
I am not sure what the logic behind this is. It sure did not work in the music industry and it will not work in the newspaper industry.
Why not try to use the 4 billion clicks constructive instead of shielding them?
Newspapers needs to stop fighting ‘free’, embrace content sharing and rethink their business model in order to survive.
Times has changed. The music industry already proved that.