Copyright philosophy still relevant

Murdoch referred continually to the Statute of St Anne, a landmark introduction of literary copyright in to British law in 1710: “We should surely applaud the wisdom and foresight of the legislators of three hundred years ago.”

He sought to drape this struggle not just in the interests of big conglomerates but of the economic livelihoods of 1.2 million ordinary European media workers he said could lose their jobs to piracy by 2015, citing Tera research.

“It’s not just people in advertising agencies in SoHo,” he later told paidContent:UK. “It’s people who are driving trucks, who are craftsman, who are doing technical support work - it’s real jobs and it’s lots of them” ... “I’m not just talking about big global media companies - this is writers ... these are real jobs, they’re good jobs.”

Surprised by Schmidt

Comments (via FT) from Google (NSDQ: GOOG) CEO Eric Schmidt that Google is talking over news monetisation with News Corp seemed innocuous enough at the time, even a repetition of previous remarks.

But Murdoch, speaking with reporters, seemed taken aback. “I was surprised that was put in the public realm, but he went and did that,” he said. “There have been discussions - there are discussions around that.

“What was encouraging, from our perspective, is that there’s a recognition that ... not making a contribution at all is not really enough; that there is another set of answers required. It’s up to them whether we’re going to be a part of that. (It was) a real recognition that the approach until today doesn’t work.”

Search engines should pay up

“Search companies and aggregators skim content from a thousand sources, sell it to clients, scoop up advertising revenues and put little or nothing back into professional newsgathering,” Murdoch’s speech said.

The situation has “moved against the creators in favour of distributors”. “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? “

‘Free’ is not pre-destined

“We should recognise the fundamental role that property rights play in the making of cultural things. Compared to the exciting rhetoric of the need for everything to be free, that might seem unglamorous, unromantic, and indeed hard‐hearted. But it may be all of those things and yet still be a better road for our society to take.

“Do not be misled by claims of high principle in this debate. When someone tells you content wants to be free, what you should hear is ‘I want your content for free ’ –and that is not the same thing at all.

“This is not a zero‐sum game. If you want to offer your product for free, then there is nothing to stop you –and it’s a lot easier these days to do so. The only temptation you need to resist is the idea that what you want to do is what everyone else should be made to do.”

Dislikes British Library’s newspaper scanning

The publicly-funded library this week announced plans to digitise 40 million newspaper pages for vast public archives - perhaps a threat to the commercial online archives publishers already operate themselves and through digitisation vendors.

“This is not simply being done for posterity,” James Murdoch said in his speech, ” nor to make free access for library users easier, but also for commercial gain via a paid‐for website.

“The move is strongly opposed by major publishers. If it goes ahead, free content would not only be justification for more funding, but actually become a source of funds for a public body.”

He told journalists: “We’re very concerned about some of the approaches that are being taken.”