Rupert Murdoch Hates Google, Loves the iPad 412
Hugh Pickens writes "The Register reports that News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch, speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, reiterated his disgust at how search engines handle news and called on old media to rethink how their stories are distributed on the web. 'It's produced a river of gold, but those words are being taken mostly from the newspapers,' said Rupert. 'I think they ought to stop it, that the newspapers ought to stand up and let them do their own reporting.' Murdoch added that the iPad was a 'wonderful tool' for listening to music, watching videos and reading newspapers. 'It may well be the saving of the newspaper industry,' by making it cheaper to distribute content to a broader audience, Murdoch said. 'I'm old, I like the tactile experience of the newspaper,' Murdoch said. '(But) if you have less newspapers and more of these, that's OK. It doesn't destroy the traditional newspaper, it just comes in a different form.'"
Re:Yes of course (Score:1, Informative)
man, if there was only some kind of web browser, we could get content that apple hasn't even approved or seen.
What we are moving towards is a situation where you will buy your content from Apple only, you will not be able to copy it without Apple's consent, you will install no apps that Apple does not like. So DRM will really work. Not only that, but all the content will at last be family friendly and politically correct. No need to worry about nasty subversive political sites, or swimsuit pictures showing up unexpectedly.
again, for some of the stuff you said, the browser works perfectly. And hey, you can even buy stuff non apple, like said, kindle books.
This is all of a piece, part of the same thing. This is why your music was DRMd, even when the rights owners did not want it to be.
because really, the music companies always wanted non drm music but apple was forcing them to only offer drm music.
I read that you cannot activate the iPad from Linux. Now, why would that be, exactly....? Its because open source is the enemy for Apple, even more than for MS, because it represents intellectual freedom.
http://www.opensource.apple.com/ Some of the stuff is BSD and they dont need to offer the source, yet they do...
Re:Yes of course (Score:1, Informative)
>Apple is far, far worse than Microsoft. Microsoft is an old fashioned tech company, similar in attitude to IBM or HP etc. Its anti competitive of course, very market share focussed. But it does not have this stifling desire to control what customers do and read, it does not worry much about what content is accessed by the products it sells which give it its market share.
False. Microsoft has the exact same wet dream (case in point: The xbox program used (created?) as loss leader to place DRM media machines in the consumers living room). The 'trusted computing initiative' is a considerably widespread corporate masturbatory fixation.
Re:Endorsement (Score:3, Informative)
He did, it just got drowned out by the sound of breaking chairs.
Murdoch going in opposite direction to Obama? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Logically... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The Sooner the Better (Score:5, Informative)
Don't think we can ignore him. He may be an old bastard but he's an old bastard with teeth dripping venom and many elected representatives owe him something.
Re:Yes of course (Score:3, Informative)
So their whole stated goal of removing DRM from the iTunes Store and never wanting it there in the first place... where does that fit?
Rip, Mix, Burn?
"We encourage you to back up your iTMS purchases [back in the days where they had mandatory RIAA-imposed drm] to Audio CD using iTunes as soon as you download them".
What about Apple's open source commitments? (and yes, they are doing *way* more than they are "legally obliged" to do).
"DRM and lock in" are not "central to the Apple value system" - they happen to run two product lines with a closed App Store model and now suddenly they're "going down the DRM road" for "a long time now" despite opening up OS X far beyond what OS9 was, pushing open standards, championing the removal of DRM from online music sales (it was their idea from the outset, they were just not allowed to by the music industry), contributing to OSS projects far beyond what the licences require, giving away their dev tools for free.
Apple fought the music industry to sell content via the iTMS with no DRM. It was only after compromise (the variable pricing structure) and a considerable "run in" period that they were able to do this. They are still working on the movie industry (iTMS movies and TV shows still have DRM). They are encoded in H.264 though, and the music in AAC format - both open (note, patented, but open standards) rather than some proprietary codec like WMV or WMA.
Their fundamental aim is to make nice products that some people may want to buy. If the iPod/iPhone/iPad doesn't suit your requirements, I suggest you don't buy one. Don't try to force some wilfully ignorant opinion about what Apple are doing on us like it's fact, in the face of considerable evidence to the contrary.
Open source is not the enemy to Apple - you may want to get yourself acquainted with http://opensource.apple.com/ [apple.com] before you start spouting stuff like that. The reason that you can't activate an iPad from Linux is that iTunes doesn't run on Linux (officially). You can't activate it from Win7 64 bit yet either (unless iTunes 9.1 is running on that platform now). It's not some conspiracy because they hate OSS.
And claiming they are foes of "intellectual freedom" is just pure hyperbole. There are enough genuine criticisms of Apple that you don;t need to resort to that sort of nonsense handwaving.
Re:Yes of course (Score:3, Informative)
THe only thing you're missing is the good sense to ignore Internet morons who clearly have no idea wtf they are talking about. HINT: If they did, they would have used the word "sync" instead of "activate".
Re:Go ahead, Rupert, make our day (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Endorsement (Score:4, Informative)
I think you're spot-on. And so is Murdoch, kinda. At least the part about this being just a new medium in which to deliver his product. I think the way he would like to price it isn't viable in the long run but that's just me being cheap. I get free news from reputable newspapers for free in my mobile and on the papers' websites. I even get the actual dead-tree version for free with my groceries purchase so any subscription of more than a couple of dollars for something intangible and pretty much ephimeral by its very nautre won't appeal. I'm guessing a very large and increasing group of people will be on the same boat.
Re:Endorsement (Score:1, Informative)
At least one thing that he said was right.
I'm old
Yes, Rupert, you are old. Very, very old.
Re:Logically... (Score:4, Informative)
I was actually quite shocked when the Economist site went free. Beats me why - those were high-quality articles I was willing to pay for. As in, pay to access the site.
Huh? They still charge for complete access [economist.com] - they've had partial free access since I first got a print subscription however many years ago, similar to Consumer Report's site and the Wall Street Journal.
Re:Endorsement (Score:3, Informative)
Well, my problem is that although I'm "eligible to disable advertisement", I didn't disable it and yet they don't show up. I don't have Adblock installed either. It probably has something to do with NoScript, although I have the whole site allowed. I'll probably just subscribe when I start earning something :|
Re:Yes of course (Score:3, Informative)
do you really think that change makes it more understandable? As far as I can tell the ipad won't work before "X" -- whether X is "activation" or "syncing".
Re:Endorsement (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Yes of course (Score:3, Informative)