Syzygy - 11:07 pm on Nov 9, 2009 (gmt 0)

At present search engines index content with impunity. The entire structure of the web counts on this 'free service' provided by 3rd parties. It's something we take for granted.

Murdoch is, I believe, trying to create a future whereby the indexing of 'his' content via the current means will be deemed as unauthorised - illegal. He is seeking to destroy the universally held assumption that being indexed is desirable - that sites freely allow access to search engines and that they may freely reproduce headlines and snippets.

Instead, he would have it that search engines should perhaps pay for a license to index - specifically, news content.

He seeks to turn received wisdom - that search engines spiders may come and go as the please, harvesting information for the purpose of indexing without any legal barriers - on its head.

If he can win a legal battle that determines that indexing methods, and the display of that information, is no longer 'Fair Use' - that it is instead infringement of copyright - then search engines would have to seek permission from the copyright holder in order to be able to index/display that information.

If such a ruling came about, specifically in respect of News, then search engines may be left with no alternative but to negotiate for the rights to get access to this crucial content. When it comes to negotiating with big fish like Murdoch, you know those rights are going to cost a pretty penny.

As a wild thought, if the news sector controlled how its content were indexed then it may prove very profitable, not to mention strategically sound, to invest in their own news-specific search engines and/or delivery platforms.

Why? Because then the news industry could sell you access to it. Like the good old days, they could sell subscriptions - not for a newspaper or magazine that would arrive through your letter box, but for online access to a closed news network on a scale as yet unimagined.

Sure, both public and politicians would cry that access must be available to all, and rightly so, thus deals would be brokered for new online outlets that would serve up limited stories of limited depth.

As I say, just a wild thought. :-)

Regardless, Murdoch is seeking to change the landscape by turning upside down that which everyone - and especially search engines - take for granted: indexing and the unrestricted reproduction of headlines and snippets using the 'Fair Use' principles.

Syzygy