It’s not been a good day for free content fans. Earlier today we told you how Google is planning on charging for TV on YouTube and now we bring you the news that the search engine supremo is to offer newspaper publishers an option to limit the number of free clicks to their content.
The First Click Free programme, announced by Google’s senior business product manager Josh Cohen, will restrict Google News users to five free links a day to publishers who charge for content. The sixth clicked link will result in the user being redirected to a subscription page for the provider. Why it didn’t call the programme the First Five Clicks Free programme is anyone’s guess – less snappy, we’ll admit, but more accurate.
The move follows complaints from the likes of not-quite-rich-enough-already Rupert Murdoch, who feels that free content on the web would mean an end to quality journalism.
Media consultant Steve Hewlett said: “Rupert Murdoch is trying to build a consensus that paying for content online is right and that aggregators like Google that use newspaper content but don’t pay for it are doing something wrong.”
Hewlett described the proposal as “a pretty significant move”. Significant indeed, but with the amount of quality, free content available from institutions like the BBC or the Guardian, surely Murdoch’s idea of fee-based news is doomed to fail. What do you reckon? Give us a shout in the comments section below.
