I think the real debate here is that value in the internet is moving relentlessly away from content producers towards content aggregators. Even a big newspaper site doesn't have the diversity that you find in an aggregator like Google News; likewise, no tech blog can compete with the diversity of news in Hacker News. I visit TechMeme and Hacker News far more than I visit any single blog, for example. TechMeme makes far more money than any professional tech blogger too.
Aggregators tend to build much more value to themselves quickly by riding on other people's content. Yet, aggregators are worth nothing without the underlying content. This irks many content producers, particularly the professional ones whose output accounts of the bulk of the traffic that aggregators end up sending. This trend of professionally produced content accounting for the bulk of the links is evident even in Hacker News.
If these trends continue, giant aggregators could end up controlling much of the content. Yahoo already produces a lot of content, and licenses content for Yahoo News (which is fitting considering Yahoo News has more traffic than any news site in the world). Google News, Digg etc. could follow.
This is the future I suspect Murdoch does not like, because it appears from his perspective to be third parties building value out of his content, without compensating him. Legally, I am not sure he has a claim - if there is a lawsuit on this, it will reach the Supreme Court, that's for sure.
Aggregators tend to build much more value to themselves quickly by riding on other people's content. Yet, aggregators are worth nothing without the underlying content. This irks many content producers, particularly the professional ones whose output accounts of the bulk of the traffic that aggregators end up sending. This trend of professionally produced content accounting for the bulk of the links is evident even in Hacker News.
If these trends continue, giant aggregators could end up controlling much of the content. Yahoo already produces a lot of content, and licenses content for Yahoo News (which is fitting considering Yahoo News has more traffic than any news site in the world). Google News, Digg etc. could follow.
This is the future I suspect Murdoch does not like, because it appears from his perspective to be third parties building value out of his content, without compensating him. Legally, I am not sure he has a claim - if there is a lawsuit on this, it will reach the Supreme Court, that's for sure.