Zell Wants End to Web's Free Ride

Samuel Zell is a real estate magnate that just bought the Tribune Co. (Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Hartford Courant, Baltimore Sun, Long Island’s Newsday, Orlando Sentinel, plus nine other smaller papers). From what the Washington Post said, I think Zell should have stayed in real estate, because he does not understand what he bought. According to WaPo:

In conversations before and after a speech Zell delivered Thursday night at Stanford Law School in Palo Alto, Calif., the billionaire said newspapers could not economically sustain the practice of allowing their articles, photos and other content to be used free by other Internet news aggregators.

Someone needs to tell the Newspaper WebMasters about the noindex and nofollow meta tags.

"If all of the newspapers in America did not allow Google to steal their content, how profitable would Google be?" Zell said during the question period after his speech. "Not very."

Google News does not make money from advertising. And if I learn of an article in WaPo or any other newspaper through Google News, it takes me to that newspaper's website, where I am exposed to the advertisements that newspaper has on their website.

Newspapers have allowed Google to use their articles in exchange for a small cut of advertising revenue,

They get ALL, not just a cut, of the ad revenues on their websites.

but search engines also help to distribute their content to wider online audiences.

Bringing more viewers to the newspaper websites.

Google and Yahoo have financial arrangements with wire services, such as the Associated Press, to provide news stories and photos. Yesterday, Google settled a copyright-infringement lawsuit with Agence France-Presse, which had alleged that Google posted news summaries, headlines and photos without permission.

Jason Calacanis believes

Sam Zell is going to lose billions on newspapers and the Washington Post has no idea what they're talking about.... Witness this quote:

"If all of the newspapers in America did not allow Google to steal their content, how profitable would Google be?" Zell said during the question period after his speech. "Not very."

Ummm.... exactly the same--and Google doesn't steal anyone's content. Zell's statement is so wrong on so many levels that you have to wonder if this guy has any idea what he bought, not to mention if the reporters at the Washington Post have any reporting skills and knowledge of the Internet.

Let me count the ways this statement is wrong:

1. Google doesn't steal anyone's content. Nope, they take a very short amount--around 200 characters including spaces--on Google News.
2. You can opt out of Google News AT ANY TIME.
3. Google News has NO ADVERTISING ON IT!

Additionally, even if Google didn't let you opt out their use of 100-200 characters on Google News:

1. That has no impact on Google's bottom line--they make their money from people running Google Adsense on their websites and Google's own sites.
2. That only sends more traffic to newspapers--making them more money.
3. Google doesn't sell display advertising on their site, so advertisers ARE FORCED to spend their money on the newspaper's site.