NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Murdoch's Folly: Block Google & Kill Fair Use -- Plus a Nasty Truth
Murdoch's Folly: Block Google & Kill Fair Use -- Plus a Nasty Truth
http://lauren.vortex.com/archive/000633.html
Greetings. With all of the pain and horror in the world these days,
sometimes it's tough to find something to really make you smile, to
laugh, to outright guffaw.
Luckily I was treated to such an experience today while viewing a new
interview with "Fair and Balanced" News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch,
where he blasts Google, free Web sites, amateur journalists, Google,
and ... did I mention Google? Yeah.
There isn't a lot spectacularly new in this ( http://bit.ly/H5Swu )
text and video interview at Sky News, since Rupert has clearly
expressed his disdain for Google and its ilk in the past, but a few of
his latest ramblings were of particular note.
As he has before, he's still talking of blocking his Web properties
from Google Search and Google News. Of course he could do this today
with robots.txt and meta tags, but it appears that he wants to wait
until after he has his "subscription walls" erected (that's called
"hedging your bets").
Perhaps even more interesting in the long run, Murdoch spoke of his
conviction that the "Fair Use Doctrine" could be successfully
eliminated through court challenges. And he spoke disdainfully of all
the dinky Web sites who can't bring in any "serious money" -- you
know, more than a million or two (is that in U.S. dollars, Ozzie
dollars, or pounds? -- never mind). He even manages to diss the
commercial news wire services.
The heady atmosphere in which Murdoch resides seems all too clear,
with his focus on the class separation between us and them, rich and
poor, quality and trash made all too clear. This is not a man who
believes in crowdsourcing -- to him there's the exalted tier of
professional movers and shakers -- and then there's all of the "little
people" that he expects to pay him for the privilege of being led by
the rings in their noses.
Of course, Rupert is free to run his empire however he chooses.
Google has noted multiple times that they feel Google brings value to
News Corp. sites, but if he wants to block Google, it's just a matter
of a few lines of text.
Murdoch says that all of this free Web content shouldn't have ever
been "free" in the first place. If people had been paying all along,
they wouldn't be bitching about plans to force them to pay for content
now, is the apparent reasoning.
Well, it's certainly true that the public Internet could have evolved
originally in more of the Big Telecom model of pay-per-byte,
pay-per-show, pay-pay-pay. Would the Net have blossomed as widely as
it has under such a regime (the model that some big ISPs seem to be
trying to move towards today)? It seems far more likely that the Net
would be tightly straitjacketed today under such conditions.
Rupert is right about one thing. Once people have had something for
free, getting them to start paying later is a problematic proposition
at best.
But here's a nasty truth. For most casual users of the Internet, the
vast bulk of content on the Internet isn't worth paying for directly
in the first place. This includes both reputable, high quality news
sites -- like the New York Times, and lower quality publications of
the sort that Murdoch is well familiar with.
This is not to say that most Web sites are trash, aren't worth your
time, or shouldn't exist at all. Rather, it simply means that while
they're good enough to be worth putting up with ads -- particularly of
the less intrusive sort -- they're not sufficiently worthwhile to any
given individual to be worth paying directly for access.
To regress back to Econ 101, most Web sites exhibit a highly "elastic"
demand characteristic. There isn't a great deal to bind any given
individual to any given site, vs. the various alternatives available,
or simply not engaging with such sites at all in many cases. This can
even be true for very large, high quality, and widely used sites such
as Google's array of services -- users can easily switch to
competitors at any time, and in fact Google is making this even
simpler through their user data export initiatives.
There are exceptions, naturally, when specific groups of people have
specialized needs. Rupert's own Wall Street Journal is an example of
how significant numbers of persons are willing to pay for content when
it brings them direct and tangible benefits. Another example of where
persons seem willing to pay for Web site content is porn -- but the
rise of amateur/free porn sites has taken a big bite out of that
industry's bottom line already. Movies and TV shows more generally
are another area where selected content will be considered worth
paying for by groups of individuals -- but whether that will be from
the Internet generally or via ISP "walled content gardens" of their
own is another story. Mobile apps, such as those on the iPhone or
Android, are another interesting category.
But imagine that every time you accessed a Web page, it cost you a
nickel. How would this affect your browsing habits? If you could get
much the same content -- by your own definition of value -- at a site
that didn't charge that nickel, which would you routinely visit? I
can't count the number of times I've had people make suggestions to me
along the lines of, "Hey Lauren, why don't you charge for the
materials that you put out on the Net! Then you could afford to fix
your clutch!" But charging for most Web content is the stuff of
fantasies, not reality.
Murdoch's own fantasy is the belief that his content is so superior to
all that of the "common riffraff" on the Net that his sites will
generally be worth paying for. He claims he'd rather have fewer
people paying more, rather than having many people paying nothing.
And he suggests that the rest of the world will ultimately see the
genius of his model and come rushing to emulate it.
The foundation of his reasoning is as shaky as quicksand. He fails to
account for basic human nature, and for the highly fungible nature of
most Web content -- that is, six of one, half a dozen of the other.
Actually, it would be most fascinating if Murdoch proceeded with his
plans. Let him erect pay walls around his Web properties, ban Google
and other search engines from most of his content, and let the money
start rolling in from all of those subscribers that he's expecting to
be lining up, wallets in hand.
Then we can return in a year or two or five and see how Rupert's
philosophy played out in practice.
But if you had to place a bet on the outcome, which organization would
you expect to be the stronger in the end? News Corp. a la Murdoch?
Or Google?
Your mileage may vary, but for myself, I'd be betting on a bunch of
brightly colored balls.
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
- People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, NNSquad
- Network Neutrality Squad - http://www.nnsquad.org
Founder, GCTIP - Global Coalition
for Transparent Internet Performance - http://www.gctip.org
Founder, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren's Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/laurenweinstein