Entertainmnent Industry: Yes, Please Keep Negotiating Secret Copyright Treaty To Save Our Asses

from the yeah,-that's-convincing dept

Sherwin Siy (one of the few people who actually was allowed to glance briefly at parts of the proposed ACTA treaty, though under strict NDA) has written about yet another letter sent by the entertainment industry to the government in support of ACTA. This letter includes pretty much everyone who benefits from abusing copyright laws and is afraid of the internet:

Advertising Photographers of America
American Association of Independent Music (A2IM)
American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA)
American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP)
American Society of Media Photographers, Inc. (ASMP)
Association of American Publishers (AAP)
Broadcast Music, Inc (BMI)
Commercial Photographers International
Directors Guild of America (DGA)
Evidence Photographers International Council
Independent Film and Television Alliance (IFTA)
International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE)
Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA)
National Music Publishers Association (NMPA)
NBC Universal
News Corporation
Picture Archive Council of America (PACA)
Professional Photographers of America (PPA)
Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)
Reed Elsevier Inc.
Society of Sport & Event Photographers
Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA)
Stock Artists Alliance
Student Photographic Society
The Advertising Photographers of America
The Walt Disney Company
Time Warner, Inc.
Universal Music Group
Viacom Inc.
Warner Music Group

Funny... isn't it, that all these companies and industry groups are supporting a deal that no one's seen yet? Oh wait... that's because many of them have seen it and actually have had a hand in creating it. But what's really damning is that no where in the letter do they explain why this is actually needed or how it will do anything valuable. Instead, it's a pure faith-based letter saying "if you pass this secret treaty, good things will happen." I don't know about you, but generally, I prefer there to be actual proof and evidence that restricting consumer rights around the world actually leads to some sort of real benefit.

Tellingly, they don't respond to any of the points we raised earlier. This is not a treaty to help people or the economy. It's a deal to try to sneak through a system for propping up an obsolete business model by companies who don't want to adapt.

36 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Murdoch's The Times Accused Of Blatant Copying, Just As It Tells The World You Should Pay For News

from the oooops dept

Just this week, James Harding, the editor of The Times (of London), a paper owned by Rupert Murdoch, tried to explain why the news is worth paying for, as the paper starts to put up a new business model to get consumers to pay for news. Unfortunately, Harding apparently didn't get the message himself. As pointed out by Mathew Ingram, just days after making the case for paying for news, The Times has been accused of publishing an article that it copied without permission from a blog.

You can't make this stuff up.

Yes, just as Rupert Murdoch is calling aggregators (sites that simply summarize and link to stories) parasites (even as he owns a bunch of aggregators himself), one of his papers didn't aggregate, it flat out copied, without permission, a blog post that was written by Edgar Wright as a tribute to Edward Woodward, who recently passed away. The Times eventually put up a "clarification" online that had a link to the original site, but that hardly explains the original copying -- especially during the very week that they're trying to convince the world that news should be paid for....

26 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Fox News Tries Selective DMCA Takedowns: If Liberal Bloggers Use It, Take It Down

from the the-dmca-is-only-for-the-embarassing-stuff dept

An anonymous reader alerts us to the story that Fox News has sent a series of DMCA takedown notices to YouTube for a guy who's been putting up clips that have been popular among the "liberal" blogworld. Now, there's an open question as to whether or not these clips are fair use -- but even if we assume that they are infringing, there's an interesting element to this. They only targeted the guy who posts clips that liberal blogs are using. There are tons of other clips that conservative blogs use -- and those remained up.

In many ways, that shows how the DMCA is really being abused. It is not being used because of any loss in revenue from these clips being online. It's really being used solely to stifle opposition speech. I don't care which side of the political spectrum you fall on, this is an example of an attempt to stifle speech, not protect some sort of business model. It's using the DMCA to take down clips that are being used by people that disagree with the copyright holder, even while they leave up tons of other clips used by people who agree. I can understand why Fox News is doing this, but it goes way beyond the intended purpose of the DMCA (while also suggesting that Fox News apparently is way too sensitive about its critics). Update: Amusing. After all this started getting attention, Fox News decided to send takedowns for other content as well. Looks like once it was clear how bad this look, it realized it needed to take down the others as well.

62 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Will Murdoch Kill The One Smart Part Of The WSJ's Paywall?

from the sounds-like-it dept

With Rupert Murdoch's recent talk about removing his sites from Google, some said that if you understood his comments in context, he was really talking more about copying the WSJ's "leaky" paywall strategy -- which lets users see full articles if they visit via Google. Of course, in that very interview, he appeared to not know how that leaky paywall works, claiming that it took people to a landing page with a couple of paragraphs rather than the full story. That's not true. It does that if you're linked from most other sites. But people who come via Google (or, I believe, Digg) get the full story automatically. The idea, from SEO experts, was to actually help Google drive more traffic.

Of course, that was before Murdoch suddenly decided that all this free promotion was "parasiting" his works (despite the fact that many of his own properties do the same thing. However, it looks like News Corp. may actually be considering ending the "leaky" part of its paywall, with the company's COO, Chase Carey, saying that the idea makes no sense:

"I don't think it makes sense... We don't want people going though a backdoor, or other channels..."

And now we learn how little the folks at News Corp. seem to understand the internet and the fundamental way that people want to interact with news these days. It's not just about sitting and receiving the end product. It's about being a part of the process -- and that includes sharing and spreading the news -- for free -- to others. Mark Cuban thinks (incorrectly, in my opinion) that Murdoch understands the value of people passing around links, which is why he says he wants to opt-out of Google (because search traffic isn't as valuable as traffic from Twitter or Facebook). But locking up all that content actually harms that viral-link value. People aren't going to share or spread a link if they know others can't use it. For years, for example, we've used those "backdoors" (i.e., Google News) which Carey bemoans to read stories in the WSJ that we post here. If they stop allowing that, then I won't read the WSJ any more, and the community of readers and commenters here will never hear from the WSJ again. It's difficult to see how that's a better option.

Amusingly, the first time that we ever wrote about this growing concept that people today want to "spread the news" and "share the news" more than they just want to receive the news was about five years ago -- before the WSJ had put up its leaky paywall. The point of that post was to note just how far the WSJ had fallen out of the conversation on news media -- since no one could send around a link to discuss things. Putting those "backdoors" into the paywall, at the very least, brought the WSJ somewhat back into the conversation. Blocking it now would make the Journal irrelevant again. It's difficult to see how that's a smart strategy at all.

14 Comments | Leave a Comment..

A Look At All The Sites Owned By Rupert Murdoch That 'Steal' Content

from the who-ya-gonna-block-now,-rupert? dept

As Rupert Murdoch talks about how he wants to cut off Google, while claiming that aggregator sites are "parasites" and "stealing" from him -- and that fair use would likely be barred by the courts, it seemed like a good time to examine at least some of the sites that are owned by Rupert Murdoch that appear to aggregate content from other sites and which rely on the very same fair use argument. We've mentioned a few in the past, but figured it wouldn't hurt to explore them more thoroughly.

Well, let's start with the flagship Wall Street Journal itself. It integrates its own "aggregator" with headlines and links to other stories. For example, on the WSJ's tech news page if you scroll down, you'll find a bunch of headlines and links to other sources -- without permission:

Oops. Looks like the WSJ is "parasiting" and "stealing" according to Murdoch. Perhaps he should cut them of too.

Okay, how about Fox News itself? Yup. It's got an aggregator as well. Here's its Politics Buzztracker that aggregates and links to stories from a variety of different publications, including the NY Times, the Washington Post, MSNBC and others: Murdoch can't be too happy about all that thieving.

Then we've got the folks over at AllThingsD, who I actually think do excellent work, and who have built up a nice part of their site called "Voices." I actually quite like this and find it useful (and yes, every so often, they are kind enough to "parasite" one of my posts). In fact, it helps keep AllThingsD in my RSS reader because it's so useful. But, damn, if that doesn't look just like what Murdoch is complaining about. Not only does it have headlines, but also a fair bit of intro text (no summary, no commentary) and even the links are hidden at the bottom, rather than using the headlines as links: Of course, it's not just with news either. The folks at AlarmClock remind us that Murdoch's News Corp. owns IGN, which has a variety of properties, including the ever popular RottenTomatoes movie review aggregation site. Yes, the entire site is based on "parasiting" (according to Murdoch) movie reviews off of every other site, and pulling them all together: Good thing Murdoch is planning on working on ways to get the court to ban that sort of "fair use."

Some other IGN sites don't quite have aggregators, but I do find it interesting that they've integrated in Google search, such that you could do searches for things across the web and have them remain in a totally News Corp./IGN-branded experience. Effectively, on these pages, Murdoch's own properties are able to "parasite" back Google's own "parasite" engine. Here are two examples:

I'm sure there are probably more examples of various News Corp. properties regularly doing exactly what Murdoch and other News Corp. execs are now decrying as illegal and which must be stopped. So, it has to be asked, Mr. Murdoch, will you pull down all of these sites?

61 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Is Murdoch's Move Against Google Really About Twitter And Facebook?

from the no,-not-even-close dept

I'm a big believer in the idea that "earned media" or "earned links" are increasingly important online. That's the idea that growing numbers of people are relying on news links that are being passed to them via friends on social networks like Twitter and Facebook. It's about recognizing that more and more often news stories "find people" rather than the other way around. That is, people are increasingly getting links from friends, acquaintances and colleagues, rather than going searching for the news. And those "earned" links or "passed links" are quite valuable because friends are more likely to trust and pay attention to what is personally sent to them, rather than what's just on the front page of a news site.

However, even given all of that, I'm not sure I buy Mark Cuban's explanation for Rupert Murdoch and his plan to stop Google from indexing his sites. Cuban says that it's all about this recognition that such earned links are becoming so important these days, and Murdoch realizes that links from Twitter and Facebook are growing in value, whereas links from Google have little value. To be honest, I'd be surprised if Murdoch had thought through it that carefully, but more to the point, I'm not sure I believe the full premise. Yes, those links are valuable, but they need to start somewhere, and one of the ways they start is from news junkies using aggregators like Google News to find the news and start passing them around. Blocking that starting process makes little sense. On top of that, even when I'm passed a link, I'll often use Google News or other sites to dig deeper. Taking News Corp. sites out of the picture doesn't help at all. And, finally, while I keep hearing about sites getting so much more traffic from such passed links these days, I can say with authority that on Techdirt, they're still a tiny fraction of the traffic we get from Google.

So, yes, directly passed links from friends or colleagues are valuable and important, but it's a part of a wider ecosystem of news sharing that Google News and other aggregators are most certainly a large part of. Saying that blocking Google News makes sense because of things like Twitter and Facebook ignores how Google News plays into those links even being on Twitter and Facebook.

41 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Murdoch Says Fair Use Can Be Barred By Courts; Will Probably Remove Sites From Google

from the suicide-squeeze dept

And we thought that perhaps -- just perhaps -- Rupert Murdoch was coming to his senses with the plan to delay putting up a paywall. Turns out that may have been wishful thinking. Mathew Ingram alerts us to the news that Murodch has suggested that News Corp. might actually remove its sites from Google. Of course, I won't actually believe it until it happens, but he has had his minions going around slamming Google even as News Corp. offers its own aggregators. But actually following through and removing News Corp's sites from Google would be a huge step to take -- though one right off the side of a big cliff. Still, I'm sure it would make for a fun case study.

In the meantime, his explanation is really quite stunning. He claims that he believes fair use is a concept that the courts will reject:

"There's a doctrine called fair use, which we believe to be challenged in the courts and would bar it altogether..."

Wow. Of course, if that's true, then (again) we need to point out that News Corp. has been making use of fair use for years with its own aggregators. In fact, most news organizations regularly make use of fair use. Perhaps News Corps' lawyers who work in their news divisions might want to sit Murdoch down and explain the importance of fair use from a reporting perspective. They might also want to point him to the history of fair use within copyright law, in case he thinks it's something that was just made up yesterday.

74 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Murdoch Reconsidering Paywalls? Delaying Implementation

from the so-much-for-that-plan dept

Is Rupert Murdoch flip-flopping on paywalls again? Way back when (i.e., two years ago) Murdoch was a big believer in the idea that news should be free online, and that he could more than make it up with other business models. But, then, earlier this year, he did a complete flip-flop, declaring that all his publications would put up paywalls, saying that free content is bad, and accusing aggregators and search engines of "stealing" content. Some speculated that it was all a ploy to get others to put up paywalls. Though, others just think Murdoch's getting a little senile. Either way, it looks like he's stalling a bit. Jay Rosen points us to the news that Murdoch is "postponing" the date for when he wants his papers to have paywalls. It's not clear if the delay is due to technical difficulties in implementing a paywall, or if he's actually reconsidering. Either way, it doesn't look like the great big paywall is going up any time soon.

12 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Stop Overreacting: Hulu Not Ditching Free Yet

from the hold-your-horses dept

A ton of readers here have been submitting various versions of stories claiming that Hulu is getting rid of free content. I'd been ignoring the story, because it's a non-story at this point. But people keep submitting it, so let's go through the details. Basically, at a Broadcasting & Cable event, News Corp. Deputy Chairman Chase Carey basically said that free content isn't the best way to monetize and that Hulu "concurs." Here's specifically how B&C reported it:

"It's time to start getting paid for broadcast content online," he said. Carey said that while everyone cites the infamous Jeff Zucker quip that "We'e exchanging analogue dollars for digital dimes," the industry continues to do exactly that. The strategy needs to be more than just fighting piracy and Google, he says.

"I think a free model is a very difficult way to capture the value of our content. I think what we need to do is deliver that content to consumers in a way where they will appreciate the value," Carey said. "Hulu concurs with that, it needs to evolve to have a meaningful subscription model as part of its business."

AdVerse had a quick chat with Carey too and posed the question, when exactly does Hulu start charging then? Carey, who says he's only been to one Hulu board meeting since arriving at News Corp., suggests there is still no timeline but supposes it's at least in 2010. Carey says that while throwing up a pay-wall around all content is not the answer, it doesn't mean there wont be fees for some specially-created content and TV previews

So... this is really no different than what was said a few months back, when News Corp's Jon Miller started saying that Hulu should add subscription offerings. It's the official News Corp. position, ever since Rupert Murdoch suddenly flip flopped and decided free content online is evil. All News Corp. execs have now been making noise about trying to charge for content.

But... Carey is just one board member, not Hulu management, and has only been to one board meeting -- this is hardly an official announcement. He even admits that a paywall is not the answer. This isn't anything official from Hulu. So, before we freak out about how dumb this is, let's wait and see what Hulu actually does. As we've been seeing the ad rates on Hulu can be quite impressive, and the site itself is still somewhat new. So, yes, giving up on free content would be dumb, and would just drive people back to file sharing for TV shows. But until we see what Hulu is actually planning, the claim that Hulu is giving up on free content simply isn't supported by what's been said.

36 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Australian ABC Promises To Stay Free; Mocks Murdoch And Paywalls As 'Old Empire' Thinking

from the take-that,-rupert dept

One of the key points we've raised in the past about the futility of newspapers putting up paywalls is that doing so would only open up a huge opportunity for other, smarter journalism organizations to take their market share by remaining free. And, indeed, more and more organizations are starting to point out that's exactly what they would do. Reader Jamie writes in to let us know about a speech by the managing director of ABC in Australia (not the Disney owned ABC in America), Mark Scott, taking on the "old media" thinking around such things as paywalls:

Scott's most virulent words were saved for News Corporation (owner of The Australian) chairman Rupert Murdoch and CEO Europe and Asia, James Murdoch.

He called Rupert Murdoch's recent call for content providers to charge online distributors for content as "a classic play of old empire, of empire in decline. Believing that because you once controlled the world you can continue to do so."

"When you have been so powerful and dominant for so long, it is hard to believe that empire is slipping away," he said.

Scott argued traditional media companies had been out-thought by technology companies in strategy.

And... oh yeah, if Murdoch goes paywall, Scott promises to do the opposite:

He reiterated the ABC would continue to provide free online news content and said the ABC must remain audience-focused

Not just that, but he seems to be recognizing that the way people interact with news has changed, and they want to be much more involved:

... he noted the only media organisations to survive will be those that: know and accept that all the rules have changed; are endlessly inquisitive about the new; empower their audiences to contribute, to create and share media....

Nice to see some news business execs who seem to recognize what's happening.

13 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Appropriation Artist Makes Paintings Out Of WSJ Stipple Images... Pisses Off Stipple Artist

from the brewing-legal-battle? dept

If you're sitting around waiting for the Shepard Fairey lawsuit to move forward, here's another brewing situation to follow. As you probably know, the Wall Street Journal is famous for its "stipple" illustrations of various newsmakers -- in fact, some people consider it to be quite an accomplishment in life to be memorialized in a WSJ stipple image. Appropriation artist Jose Maria Cano obviously recognizes this and has created a series of paintings called the Wall Street 100 -- made up of large painted versions of the WSJ's stipple images. There's no effort, whatsoever, to disguise this. In fact, the painting even include snippets of text around the images:

The fact that the collection of images is called the Wall Street 100 might be another tipoff. And yet... the WSJ stipple artist who created the original Obama stipple that was used for the image above is pretty upset about all of this, and says that the Wall Street Journal legal team "is on top of this case." If this actually turns into a lawsuit, there's probably a much stronger copyright claim here than in the Shepard Fairey case, but again, I'm left wondering what good this would do. The complaint from the original artist, Noli Novak, isn't about money (she doesn't even own the rights to the images), but about Cano getting credit for her artwork -- even though it's pretty clear that Cano's work was simply making paintings out of the WSJ images. Cano seems to be doing standard appropriation art, taking something from elsewhere and turning it into "artwork." While you can understand why Novak might be offended, it's difficult to see what sort of "loss" there is here that's worth being concerned about. Why not just be happy that someone decided the little stipple drawings were worthy of being ripped from the newsprint and turned into serious art?

71 Comments | Leave a Comment..

The AP and News Corp DEMAND To Be Paid For Their Content

from the taking-aim-at-your-own-foot dept

At a media summit in Beijing this week, Associated Press CEO Tom Curley and News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch declared that "It's time to demand payment for online use of content." This combative language rings ironic, considering the fact that without its content being published on "kleptomaniac" sites like Google News, not many people would even hear about this very article. As Weston Kosova at Newsweek astutely points out, if Rupert Murdoch truly wanted Google to stop "stealing" content, they could very easily stop that today with a simple robots.txt exclusion.

News organizations that are contemplating charging for access to their content might also want to stop calling their potential customers criminals -- that's really not great customer service. And after all, many sites, including Google, are already paying to license some of their content. So, instead of accusing customers of not paying enough, offering better reasons to buy would probably get more sites to pay up. But, that's hard, so jumping up and down and demanding payment in a juvenile manner is much easier.

However, perhaps this is all merely negotiation brinksmanship -- threatening to charge for access to their free content to see if anyone cares enough to pay. The problem is, if the search engines call their bluff and remove their content from their services, then the news organizations actually risk losing much more. As we've pointed out time and time again, news organizations like the AP have been continuing down this road of implosion, where they clearly don't seem to understand the nature of their own business. For example, the AP's obsession with creating a "news registry" that would enable the AP to track down "unlicensed" uses of its content hints at this fundamental misunderstanding. In his speech to the summit, Tom Curley said:

"Crowd-sourcing web services such as Wikipedia, YouTube and Facebook have become preferred consumer destinations for breaking news, displacing Web sites of traditional news publishers.

To turn the tide, AP is creating a News Registry -- a rights management and tracking system."

Really? The AP's response to people linking to and discussing AP articles is to go after sites for money? I am waiting to see which news organization will be the first to go after Twitter for payment for news tweets. Instead of focusing on how to demand payment for the distribution of an infinite good, news organizations should recognize the new opportunities afforded by the free distribution of their content and focus on how to build a business off their scarce goods.

49 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Rupert Murdoch's Latest Foray Into Online News Business Models... Not So Ridiculous

from the hold-on-here... dept

We've chronicled Rupert Murdoch's flip-flopping on charging for news online (he originally claimed that free news made sense, and he wanted to free up the WSJ, but now says all of his news sites should have paywalls). And a bunch of folks have sent in Michael Wolff's Vanity Fair profile of Murdoch as a clueless luddite on the internet, and someone who doesn't seem to care about the important nuances of why or how charging for news might not make much sense. Wolff paints Murdoch as the type of guy who just thinks he can bully the entire market into agreeing that people should pay for news online. In that article, Wolff discusses the tension between the Times of London and The Sunday Times, which are separate operations owned by Murdoch, but share a web site. However, apparently that's changing, and Wolff presents it as an opportunity to start charging for The Sunday Times online, since it won't be "losing" anyone via putting up a paywall (the question remains if it would gain anyone).

And yet... the recent revelation of a new business model experiment by the two papers suggests an approach that is a bit more nuanced -- even if the (competing) Guardian's explanation of it isn't particularly enlightening. The plan appears to be not to charge for news but to charge for some kind of membership club which provides additional benefits, along with the paper. So, becoming a member gives you the ability to add certain "packs" of information to your paper. I'm not sure how compelling that is. However, it's also going to involve access to events and discounts on other goods and services (including Murdoch-owned satellite TV service, Sky+).

While it may depend on what's really included in this offer, initially it makes quite a bit of sense. It's not based on locking up the web content or limiting how it can be used, but in providing additional scarce value that people will buy. Who knows if this is an indicator of what Murdoch is planning -- but it's significantly different than a paywall, and a lot more reasonable, economically speaking.

14 Comments | Leave a Comment..

NY Post Reporter Admits That It's Company Policy Not To Credit Blogs Or Other Sources

from the parasites? dept

Remember that Washington Post reporter last month who got all sorts of attention for claiming that a Gawker writer "ripped off" his story, despite linking to it multiple times? Many mainstream press folks sided with Shapira, in using this as an example of how blogs "parasite" newspapers. Yet, as the actual numbers show, the real relationship is quite symbiotic, with stories moving back and forth across alternative media and traditional media. And... it seems pretty clear that alternative media is a lot more likely to give credit and/or link to an original story. We've highlighted a few different cases of those traditional newspapers taking stories from bloggers without credit.

Charles Vestal points us to another such case, but in this one, the reporter confessed and noted that it was company policy not to credit bloggers. In this case, it involved a local New York City blog that goes by the charming name NewYorkShitty.com. Last month, it reported on an illegal gym in the neighborhood. A little over a week later, the big News Corp/Rubert Murdoch-owned NY Post wrote an article covering just that story that seemed pretty obviously taken straight from the original.

So, the author of the blog post, one "Miss Heather" contacted one of the NY Post reporters, who quite openly admitted to using the blog post for his story, and then said it's against corporate policy to credit bloggers with scoops. Apparently, the same applies at the NY Daily News as well:

Post policy prevented me from crediting you in print. Allow me to do so now. You did a fantastic reporting job. All I had to do was follow your steps (and make a few extra phone calls).

I won't discuss at length the policy of not crediting blogs (or anyone else). I'll just briefly explain that as long as we can independently verify every bit of info, we don't credit.

Now, this isn't a surprise, but how come that Washington Post reporter's claims of blogs being "parasites" got so much attention a few weeks ago, when it involved a clear case where the blog quite deliberately cited and linked to the original -- but a situation like this, where the NY Post blatantly got the story from a blog and admits it, doesn't get any attention at all?

19 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Murdoch Now Demanding Names Of Kindle Subscribers

from the this-will-end-poorly dept

Fresh off vague and undefined plans to put up a paywall on various news sites, it seems that Murdoch's latest misguided target for digital angst is Amazon. ikonoclasm alerts us to the news that Murdoch is angry and threatening to remove all News Corp. material from the kindle unless Amazon is willing to hand over subscriber names and info to News Corp., despite having just negotiated a larger share of revenue. Of course, the subscribers themselves might actually like the fact that Amazon isn't handing out their user info. Either way, it seems like Murdoch is suddenly hellbent on making it more difficult to read any of his content digitally.

28 Comments | Leave a Comment..

Rupert Murdoch vs. Rupert Murdoch On Free vs. Paid News Websites

from the which-rupert-is-rupert dept

Rupert Murdoch continues to shift his position on the value of "free content" but he seems to be going in the wrong direction, and not giving anyone much confidence that he knows what he's doing. You may recall that right before he completed buying the Wall Street Journal, he claimed that the WSJ would be better off going entirely free:

"We are studying it and we expect to make that free, and instead of having 1 million [subscribers], having at least 10 million to 15 million in every corner of the earth.... Will you lose $50 million to $100 million in revenue? I don't think so. If the site is good, you'll get much more."

That was just under two years ago, and his reasoning is actually quite sensible. However, after he took it over, there was apparently some back-and-forth and the Journal convinced Rupert to keep it behind a (somewhat porous) paywall. Of course, as many note, the WSJ is able to charge because of the reputation of its content (far above most other publications) and the fact that it's reporting financial info, where the direct value can be quite high to many readers.

Still, it was a bit of a surprise earlier this year when he started complaining about free content, saying:

"People reading news for free on the web, that's got to change."

And then he complained about Yahoo/Google "stealing" (he later changed it to "taking") content. Of course, that's not true. Both Yahoo and Google either link to content or have license deals. There is no "taking" of anything.

Either way, given those statements, perhaps it's no surprise at all that Murdoch is now planning to put paywalls across all his online news properties in the relatively near future. Apparently the plan will be based on the WSJ model, meaning that some stories were be available for free, but there will be severe limits. Given how many old school newspaper guys have talked about putting up a paywall, this isn't much of a surprise (though, it is still odd given his comments from two years ago).

That said, if newspapers are going to charge for online content, then let's see them go and charge. I think it will fail (miserably), but let's see him try to prove us wrong. Here's why I think it will fail:

1. Those other sites don't have the qualities that make some people willing to pay for the WSJ. The quality isn't as good and the direct monetary benefit is not nearly as clear.
2. Most of those other sites have much clearer (free) competition.
3. Nowhere at all does Murdoch talk about actually giving people a reason to buy. All he's saying is that if they put up a paywall, people will pay. Sure, a few might, but it's a small number, and doing so will stagnate any sort of growth, piss off advertisers, and allow competitors to take a giant leap forward -- all in one shot.

But... if he wants to charge and thinks that these points are incorrect, we're eager to see how Murdoch gets around these issues. In the meantime, if you work for a publication that competes with a Murdoch news site, start revving up a marketing/promotional campaign about how you don't charge, and see how much market share you can build. Unless, of course, Rafat Ali is correct in his thinking, suggesting that this is all a big bluff to get others to put up a paywall. I don't believe it though... because if I'm a competitor the fact that Murdoch is going paywall, gives me even more reasons not to do so.

39 Comments | Leave a Comment..

This Is Investigative Reporting? News Corp. Allegedly Hacked Into Phones, Paid Off People To Silence Them

from the hmm... dept

We keep being told that only newspapers can do "real" investigative reporting, even though we've seen plenty of evidence of others doing quite impressive investigative reporting without having a background in journalism. And, now, we find out that some investigative reporting by those "real" journalists apparently involved breaking the law, violating individuals' privacy... and then paying people off to keep quiet about it. At least that's the charge from The Guardian against Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. According to the Guardian's report (and, yes, the Guardian is a real newspaper and appears to have done a nice investigative job here -- we're not saying newspapers can't do good investigative reporting), there's growing evidence that a lot of folks involved in Murdoch's News Group Newspapers were involved in hiring people to hack into thousands of mobile phones to record and transcribe phone calls between various politicians and celebrities, and also involved tricking "government agencies, banks, phone companies and others... into handing over confidential information." And? When that evidence started to come out, they apparently paid up a bunch of hush money and convinced a court to seal the files. Again, this isn't to implicate all newspapers (the fact that another newspaper figured this out is great). But the idea that newspaper investigative reporting is somehow "pure" once again seems to be in question.

33 Comments | Leave a Comment..

News Corps.' Jon Miller Continues His War Against Free; Wants Hulu To Charge

from the that-will-go-over-poorly dept

Just last week we were talking about how News Corps' "chief digital officer" was claiming that free doesn't work, though his reasoning was incredibly weak. It was also incredibly ironic, because Miller's previous work included convincing Time Warner to turn AOL's walled garden into an open and free platform... which was the right move, but got him fired. Perhaps because of that, he now has an aversion to free and is trying to put up garden walls wherever he can, not realizing that the animals won't go back into a walled garden very easily. His latest suggestion, as sent in by robert, is that Hulu should start making shows available by paid subscription only. In other words, take all the good that Hulu did to get people to watch TV online with ads, rather than downloading unauthorized versions... and put it behind a paywall, to drive people right back to unauthorized downloads where there is no ad revenue.

34 Comments | Leave a Comment..

News Corp. Digital Boss Says Free Doesn't Work, Doesn't Bother To Explain How Pay Will Work

from the good-luck dept

A bunch of folks have been sending in various versions of the fact that News Corps. digital media boss Jon Miller apparently said that "free doesn't work," though that isn't quite what he actually said. He said that ad-supported content doesn't work. Now, it may be true that he's making the (false) assumption that the only way to make money off of free content is advertising, but that's not the same as saying "free" doesn't work. Either way, I'd argue he's wrong. Ad supported free content has been shown for ages to work in various different ways if you do it right. Perhaps the problem is that he's not doing it right. Either way, his suggestions for where News Corp. is heading don't sound very promising:

"It's pretty clear that there has to be some recognition of value," said Jon Miller.... Miller noted that Web companies will have to figure out a way to charge consumers for content they have grown accustomed to getting for free, noting that cable television service providers learned how to charge for television shows. Miller also said he expected to see the rise of Internet micro-payments.

If there's one nearly universal truth out there, it's that you can never go back to charging for content people were used to getting for free. You may be able to charge for new content or services, but never what they're already used to getting for free.

But the real root of the problem is Miller's opening statement. That there needs "to be some recognition of value." There is a recognition of value. Otherwise people wouldn't consume your content. But that doesn't mean they'll pay for it. Notice what he doesn't say. He never says that they need to give people a reason to buy. He's talking about putting up a paywall, not providing a reason to buy. That's destined to fail.

The reason that cable providers learned to charge for television shows was because there was a scarcity there... and even then there's a big push to break out of that and move to free television shows online as well. Trying to cram the internet into that dying model sounds like a terrible idea.

The most ironic thing about all of this is that, if anyone should understand all of this, it's Jon Miller. After all, he was the one who realized that AOL's walled gardens were killing the company, and put in place its strategy of opening up and going free. So now he wants to do the opposite for Fox Interactive? Good luck!

41 Comments | Leave a Comment..

WSJ To Try Micropayments: What A Bad Idea

from the watch-this-fail dept

There are all sorts of bad ideas around trying to get people to pay for news, but perhaps the worst is the idea of micropayments. Micropayments are trotted out every other year or so as the "savior" to paid content by people with little understanding of economics. The problem is that micropayments never work in a competitive market. First, the "cost" is much bigger than the nominal sum, because of the mental transaction costs ("is this worth buying?") that add friction to the process. Second, and more importantly, it's a self-defeating move. In adding micropayments, you automatically decrease the value of the content. This may sound paradoxical, but what matter is why and how people value content. These days, many people value content for the ability to engage with it, comment on it and share it with others. Micropayments take away that ability, and thus decrease the value of the content. In some sense, adding a micropayment option gives people fewer reasons to pay! Micropayments have been tried over the years, and every time someone announces them the press goes all nuts about how they're the business model of the future for content. And then the projects go nowhere for a few years, whither and die. And the press never seems to notice.

So, it should probably come as little surprise that it's the press itself that's going to try such a plan. The Wall Street Journals' managing editor, Robert Thomson says that the WSJ is going to start offering a micropayment offering for individual articles. Of course, it sounds like it's not always micropyaments either:

"It's a payments system -- once we have your details we will be able to charge you according to what you read, in particular, a high price for specialist material."

A "high price," by definition, isn't a micropayment of course. And it's just as likely to fail miserably. Putting a paywall in the way of people, and they'll find the content elsewhere. Put a paywall in front of good content, and it just opens up the opportunity for other, smarter, publications, to provide the news for free and run away with all the advertising money.

45 Comments | Leave a Comment..