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Sunday, May 23, 2010

Murdoch outlines plans to get 'parasites' such as Google

James Murdoch, poisonous son of his odious father who is doing all he can to distort journalism in favour of his neo-con agenda, has pronounced on pirates and other "parasites" such as Google who make it easier to 'steal' his content: 'Take the search business. It depends on an ability to index and search other people’s material, and present the results of those searches to its users surrounded by advertising. Search is a highly profitable business, because the raw material presented to customers can be indexed at essentially zero incremental cost. Therefore, information that might only be searched or indexed with a fair price paid to the producer undermines that model...Is it, moreover, unreasonable to suggest that companies that make a living out of indexing and sharing the creativity of others might make a fair contribution to those who create the material they need for their businesses?'
P.S. Amongst his targets are of course the BBC, British Library and others whose business models undermine his company's wonderful journalism 'public service' (sic), but it is interesting that he also chooses search engines (he is leading the anti-net neutrality brigade), as well as device manufacturers and 'other intermediaries - careful, Rupert Junior, you'll need some ISps on board with your Hollywood bandwaggon or you'll not get Three Strikes supported!
P.P.S. He was at UCL, home of the first UK Internet connection (not that he would know), and said this BS: 'The numbers continue to show that well over half of all internet traffic consists of illegal file sharing and other forms of piracy.' What numbers? His horoscope?
P.P.P.S. This was hilarious: 'I want also to try to put into context the prevailing consensus about the digital world and the way in which it works – the consensus that the free flow of information not only can, but must, literally, be free. I want to inquire – as dispassionately and factually as I can – into what drives that consensus … because I believe that the digital consensus is flawed.' Dispassionate? Factual? Murdoch?

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