Enough is enough….
Five years ago, in a remarkably prescient piece of video, Robin Sloan (who is now at Current.com) produced a video entitled Epic 2015. See it in full below. It is worth a look.
In the video, a psuedo history of the web as seen from what was then a dozen years into the future, Sloan predicted Google going public, merging with Amazon.com and creating a massive company called Googlezon which would control all media.
In the video, The New York Times takes a last stand for print and sues Googlezon for stealing its content and putting it online.
Now, it would seem, Rupert Murdoch is about to go in that very direction.
Declaring Google and Yahoo ‘thieves’, Murdoch yesterday decried their theft of intellectual content. What we would call ‘aggregation’.
The story is covered here, in Wired. (note how we steal aggregate Wired’s content).
Says Murdoch:
“The question is, should we be allowing Google to steal all our copyright …
The answer?
I don’t know, but he has a point.
Indeed, if The Wall Street Journal, or The New York Times, or anyone else for that matter, has to pay reporters to produce intellectual content, can then anyone else simply lift that content and use it on their own site.
Jeff Jarvis says “do what you do best and link to the rest”. But in the world of journalism, all they’ve got to sell is the content, and if it’s not exclusive why would anyone pay for it when they can get it for free with absolutely no effort.
The process has undercut income for papers, and now papers are closing. The New York Times today announced that unless the unions at The Boston Globe took a $20 million pay cut, they would close down the paper. The Times, on the ropes financially is, I am sure, not making idle threats.
When the papers close down, where does the content to aggregate come from? (Or rather, from where does the content come?)
It’s going to be an interesting process.
I hope Murdoch takes them to court. It’s an issue that has to be resolved before there are no more papers left to fold.
In the meantime, here’s Robin Sloan’s fascinating video, still current after so many years:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQDBhg60UNI[/youtube]
3 Comments
tdc April 05, 2009
i suppose mr. murdoch is unhappy with the dmca.
it, like EVERY other law in this land, is written BY the industry it most effects.
just because it didn’t work out how their lobby/lawyers wanted it to is not any ag’s fault.
i wish rupert would beat up on arianna instead… she’s on tough b’tch who’ll hold her own vs. just the faceless corp. giant that goog is.
Terry Heaton April 04, 2009
Newspapers don’t sell their content; they sell their reach. You can argue, if you wish, that it is their content that gives them their reach, but that is not a given. Reach is the problem for newspapers for two reasons. One, advertisers don’t need their reach anymore, and, two, an advertising infrastructure that’s limited to any portal — regardless of its size — is ultimately a losing proposition.
I’ve read a confidential memo from a newspaper publisher that calms his employees by noting that “we still reach 76% of the households in the DMA.” Sorry, newspapers don’t sell content.
Eric B April 05, 2009
The boy who cried wolf… had “reach.” He yelled, and everyone heard him. It was his content that people lost trust in. That too, is a lesson you must admit is true. Content does matter, certainly. Certainly.