Newspaper publishers not happy with British Library’s exploitation plans

?James Murdoch, Rupert's son and chairman of the News Corporation, criticized the British Library at a lecture in honor of the 300th anniversary of the Statute of Anne (British law that created copyright).?

News Corporation, publisher of several newspapers, has a legal obligation to a deliver a copy of her papers to the British Library. The British Library is now planning to digitize all newspapers in her possession. The use and digitization of their newspapers by the British Library is not so much Murdoch’s problem, but rather  the Library’s plans to make the digitized newspapers available online in return for a fee. Murdoch believes that what the British Library is planning to do, is in fact an exploitation the intellectual property of News Corp. This exploitation right belongs exclusively to News Corporation, says Murdoch.

News Corporation is known for opposing initiatives that index, reproduce and exploit their articles for their own benefit. Therefore, starting next month, News Corporation will no longer simply offer their newspaper and articles online, but only make them available after paying a fee. With their new service, the British Library will compete with News Corporation over their own products.

Some time ago, News Corporation also objected to Google indexing her articles and offering them online via the Google News service. Since then, News Corp and Google have started negotiations. Now News Corp might permit Google to reproduce their articles, if News Corp recieves a share in the revenues.

Finally Murdoch remarked that the current copyright laws are not outdated,  nor should they be replaced. They should simply be enforced more properly.

21 May 2010