Rupert Murdoch vs. Google

Are search engines stealing from Murdoch's newspapers?

The "battle between old media and the Web" is heating up, said Mark Trumbull in The Christian Science Monitor. Rupert Murdoch of News Corp. accused Google and other search engines of stealing his company's content by linking to it in search results without paying. Murdoch said the "content kleptomaniacs" would soon have to pay, and Associated Press CEO Tom Curley backed him up, saying content creators had waited too long to get tough.

Pay no attention to "Murdoch's macho outrage," said Weston Kosova in Newsweek. He could add simple code to his stories tomorrow, and, "poof," his content would be invisible to Google. But he won't, because Google isn't really stealing—it's providing a "free service" by posting short summaries and sending readers to newspapers and other content creators they desperately need.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up