Sam Zell has not made money by giving things away. As the new controlling investor in The Tribune Company (TRB) he sounds like he plans to milk his newspaper content for every dime. And, he wants Google to know that it may mean no posting of TRB content at Google sites. Zell is quoted as saying "If all of the newspapers in America did not allow Google (GOOG) to steal their content, how profitable would Google be?"
Agence France-Presse and Google have just settled the issue of whether the big search engine can post headlines, photos, and news summaries at places like Google News. The legal battle over the matter has gone on for over a year. That settlement may well include some payment to the French news agency. Google has also made a deal with The Associated Press to pay that news firm for us of its content.
Zell understands that the internet has driven much of the profit out of the newspaper industry by offering news online for free. Even newspaper companies with large websites are not getting enough internet ad revenue to replace what they lose in subscription circulation and lineage at their print properties.
Google may be facing a movement by large print organizations to exact some payment for their content. And, that is a fight that may get very nasty.
Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at [email protected]. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.
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